CI relationships

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 1 minute to read

    • To get reports that represent the total costs for a business service, there must be some association between the service and the CIs that make up the service. This is done with CI relationships.

    Before you begin

    Role required: financial_mgmt_admin

    About this task

    Use the demo data of the Cost Management plugin to understand how to check all expense lines related to a business service.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Cost > Config > Business Services.
    2. Select Retail.
    3. View the business service map by selecting the dependency views icon (Dependency views.).

      This view shows that the dbaix901nyc server is a dependency of the Retail Adding Points, Retail POS, and Retail business services. So whenever the dbaix901nyc server incurs a cost, it would be represented at each of the business services.

      The dbaix901nyc server is a member of the Sun E20K Servers NY CI rate card, so the expenses can be verified from this CI rate card.

      To view them:
      1. Navigate to All > Cost > Costs > CI Rate Cards.
      2. Select Sun E20K Servers NY.
      3. Select the Expense Line related list.

        If this related list is not available, configure your form layout to display the Expense Line → Rate Card related list.

      4. Filter the related list for short description contains dbaix901nyc.
      The server's expenses are now visible:
      Figure 1. Example server expenses
      Cost Demo Server Expense

      This example contains one direct expense (inherited = false), and three inherited expenses that have been generated from other direct expenses. These inherited expenses are based on CI relationships, which allow for reporting at any business service level.

      For more information on expense aggregation, see Enable relationship aggregation.