Cost sources

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

4 minutes to read

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Summary of Cost sources

In ServiceNow Financial Management, expense lines can be generated for various objects through three primary cost sources: Configuration Item (CI) costs, Task costs, and Custom generated costs (via the ExpenseLine API). These cost sources enable accurate tracking, allocation, and reporting of expenses related to IT assets and activities.

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CI Rate Cards

CI Rate Cards define cost templates for specific types of Configuration Items, such as servers. For example, a rate card can specify recurring monthly costs for a group of UNIX servers in a datacenter. Customers can manage which CIs belong to a rate card manually or by updating the CI list based on defined conditions (e.g., CI type or location). The system supports syncing CIs with the rate card using merge or replace actions.

Expense lines generated from CI rate cards reflect recurring costs like server backup services. This method provides a consistent way to assign costs to groups of similar assets and supports detailed cost tracking and reporting.

Distribution Costs

Distribution Costs represent bulk or generic costs that apply to multiple CIs but are not tied to individual rate cards, such as datacenter power expenses. These costs are amortized and then distributed across relevant CIs based on distribution rules. For instance, a monthly power cost can be evenly allocated to all installed servers, enabling granular cost analysis per server and cost center.

Task Costs and Task Rate Cards

Task-related costs are generated when work is performed on tasks such as incidents or change requests. Task Rate Cards define how to calculate these costs, either as flat rates or based on time worked. For example:

An Incident P1 rate card creates a fixed $150 expense line when a priority 1 incident is closed.
An Emergency Change Request rate card calculates costs based on the actual hours worked multiplied by user-specific or default hourly rates, generating expense lines for each time entry.

Task rate cards are triggered automatically upon task closure, ensuring timely and accurate expense tracking for task activities.

Labor Rate Cards

Labor Rate Cards define standard hourly rates for groups of users, such as those in the Development department. These rates simplify cost calculation by applying predefined hourly costs to time worked records, avoiding the need to manage individual user rates. For example, a Development labor rate card may specify an hourly rate of $100 for all applicable users.

Key Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

Enable structured and automated cost allocation for IT assets and tasks.
Support flexible cost models including flat rates, time-based rates, and bulk cost distribution.
Improve cost visibility and reporting accuracy by aligning expenses with CIs and work activities.
Reduce administrative overhead by managing rate cards and distribution rules centrally.

There are a several ways to generate expense lines for objects in the system.

These are generally classified as one of three types:

CI costs
Task costs
Custom generated costs - these are not covered in the demo data, refer to the ExpenseLine API for more information.

CI Rate Cards

A CI rate card is a template that defines costs for a particular type of CI. This example uses only server-related costs. Since there are only a few different server models and the costs are the same for each model, CI rate cards can define a template of costs for each model.

Following is the Sun E20K Servers NY rate card:

It represents the common costs and CIs in the UNIX servers in the NY datacenter, regardless of what the server is used for.

The related lists contain information on how this rate card is used. The Configuration Items related list display the each of the servers that will use this rate card. This list of items can be managed manually with the Edit button or with the Update CI List related link. The rate card condition for this rate card is Table=Unix Server. Clicking the Update CI List related link shows two things:

CIs that are a member of the rate card but do not match the condition.
CIs that match the condition but are not a member of the rate card.

To "true-up" the rate card, use the Replace or Merge button.

In this case, there are two extra UNIX servers that are not in the rate card. Use the Merge button to add them. The rate card now shows nine items.

Note:

Counts may vary if there are additional CIs in the instance.

The Rate Card Costs related list displays the recurring costs that all of the servers will incur, in this case on a monthly basis.

Adding the Expense Line related list to the CI Rate Card form shows the list of expense lines that have been generated from this rate card's costs. Here are the expenses for the Server backup services for two of the servers:

Distribution Costs

For more generic bulk costs that are generated by multiple CIs, distribution costs can represent the broader costs where individual CI rate cards do not apply. Navigate to Financial Management > Distribution Costs to view a few examples.

Select Datacenter Facilities (amort) from the list:

In this example, the datacenter's power costs for a month have been amortized and represented as a monthly recurring distribution cost.

This bulk cost should be distributed to all servers evenly to enable reporting on costs per server and cost center. This is accomplished with the Distribution Rule listed on the cost's form. To view the distribution cost, click the reference icon for the All Installed Servers rule in the Distribution rule field:

This rule takes the $5,500 and distributes it to each of the servers that match the rule condition. The condition here is All servers with install status of installed. The '"View Condition Results related link displays the current records matching the condition.

Task Costs

Task-related activity can also generate expense lines to track the costs associated with processing tasks. The primary method of generating task-related costs is to use Task Rate Cards.

Task Rate Cards

A task rate card is a condition-based record that the system uses to determine how to calculate the costs of a task.

To view an example, navigate to Financial Management > Task Rate Card and select Incident P1:

Rate cards are processed whenever a task is closed. This processing is triggered by a business rule. The rate card contains the following information:

When an incident with priority 1 - Critical is closed, it generates an expense line for $150.
This is a flat rate defined for each P1 incident.

The Expense Line related list displays the list of expenses that have been created by this rate card.

Return to the Task Rate Card list and open the Change Request (emergency) rate card:

This rate card for emergency change requests demonstrates an example of creating a task cost based on the amount of time it took to work the task, instead of the flat rate model in the incident rate card.

The Use time worked flag in the rate card tells the system to use the task time worked records associated with the task when determining the task cost.
Processing this rate will:
- Query the list of task time worked records for the task.
- Attempt to resolve an hourly rate for the user in the task time worked record, or use the default rate of $250/hr defined in the rate card.
- Generate an expense line for each time worked entry.

The Expense Lines related list shows the expenses generated from this rate card.

Labor Rate Cards

Labor rate cards are a way to define common patterns for hourly worker rates so rates need not be managed for each individual in the system.

To view the sample rates, navigate to Financial Management > Labor Rate Cards and select the Development rate card:

The conditions state that for users in the Development department, time worked costs will use $100 as the hourly rate.