Cost Centers - A Quick Setup Guide

Created by Kylah Brown, Modified on Fri, 29 May at 1:27 PM by Kylah Brown

Onboarding Helper · Quick Guide

Cost Centers

A Quick Setup Guide for Finance & Accounting Leads

Cost centers are how Hashio connects your labor and overhead to real production activity. Each one is a fully-loaded hourly rate — assigned to the steps of your workflows, multiplied by the time your team spends working them, and rolled into the cost of every batch you produce. For finance and accounting leads, this is the engine that turns time on the floor into absorbed cost on the books.

The Math Behind a Cost Center

Step 01

Labor Rate

The department's average hourly wage — what it costs to staff that area.

Step 02

Overhead Rate

A percentage of labor or a flat dollar amount per hour.

Step 03

Calculated Hourly Rate

The fully-loaded rate Hashio applies to every workflow step.

The Math in Practice

Required Inputs

Labor Rate (hourly), Overhead Rate, and the Overhead Calculation Type — Percentage or Dollar.

Worked Example — Percentage

$17 labor + 50% overhead applied on labor.

$17.00 + ($17.00 × 0.50) = $25.50/hr

Worked Example — Dollar

$18 labor + $15 flat overhead per hour.

$18.00 + $15.00 = $33.00/hr

When to Use Which

% for broader, scaling overhead. $ for fixed costs (utilities, licensing, lease) you want absorbed at a known per-hour amount.

Common Setup Patterns

By Department (Most Common)

Cultivation, Kitchen, Packaging Room, Pre-Roll Dept, Vape Room, Extraction / Distillate Production.

By Operational Area

Drying Room, Trim Room, Distillation Lab, Fulfillment, QA / Lab Hold.

By Role / Position

Packaging Assistant, Trimmer, Lab Tech, Cultivator I / II — useful when wage tiers vary inside a department.

Mix & Match

Many ops use both — broad departments for general work, role-based centers for specialized or premium labor.

How They Plug Into Workflows

Step-Level Assignment

Every workflow step gets a cost center assigned. A single workflow often touches several — e.g., Kitchen → Packaging → QC.

Time Capture

Hours logged on a step × the cost center's calculated rate = absorbed labor + overhead for that step.

Cost Center Usage View

Every cost center shows the workflows and steps using it — useful for audits, allocations, and rate reviews.

Roll-Up to COGS

Step-level absorbed cost flows into batch cost, then into the finished SKU — no manual journal entries needed.

Setup Fields & Tips

Required Fields

Cost Center Name · Labor Rate (Hourly) · Overhead Rate · Overhead Calculation Type (Percentage or Dollar).

Optional Field

Description — short note on what the center covers. Helpful for handoffs and audits.

Formatting Rules

Numbers only — no $ or % symbols. One cost center per row. Leave unused fields blank, not "N/A."

Naming Convention

Use clear, operational names — Kitchen, Packaging, Trim Room, Extraction. Names appear everywhere downstream, so consistency matters.

Pair Cost Centers With the Coming Expense Model Coming Soon

Cost centers handle labor + applied overhead at the production level — they're what ride along with workflow time. An upcoming expense model will give you a second lever to capture broader costs (utilities, rent, insurance, G&A) outside of hourly absorption. The two are designed to work in tandem: cost centers for what flows through workflows, the expense model for what doesn't. You'll have access to both.

Build Yours With an Accounting Lens

Reach out to your Hashio Customer Success contact — we'll bring an accounting lens to your operational structure and recommend a cost-center setup that fits how your finance team thinks about cost.

Questions? Your Hashio Customer Success team is here to help. · gohashio.com

Related guides:

Categories & Subcategories - A Quick Guide
Non-Cannabis Inventory - A Quick Guide
Recipes 101 (Coming Soon)
Creating Workflows (Coming Soon)

Attachments (1)

pdf

Cost Centers · Hashio Quick Guide.pdf
240 KB