Project Registers: Administration - Cost Control

What it is for:
In Cora PPM, a Cost Control register acts as a formal log of financial movements against a project: change requests, budget transfers, trend items, or PCN (Purchase Change Notices). Each register entry can have associated monetary cost lines — amounts moving from a "source" account code to a "target" account code in the project's cost plan. The Cost Control tab lets administrators define precisely how those transactions behave: what users are required to fill in, whether to restrict which cost book lines appear, whether an "Ordered" status column is shown, and whether approved records automatically close when an Estimate is approved.

Four Main Settings

1. Cost Control Type — Classifies the register as one of the defined financial movement types: Change Request, Budget Transfer, Trends (or PCN for specific licensed customers). This is a one-time, permanent selection that cannot be changed after the first save. Only one register of each type is permitted across the whole system (up to three in total, or four for licensed customers).

2. Enforce Source/Target — Controls what a user must populate in the "Add/Edit Cost" transactions modal when recording a financial movement against a register entry. Options are: None (no enforcement), Target (target account code is required), or Source & Target (both source and target account codes are required). Once set to "Source & Target" and saved, this setting becomes locked and can never be reverted.

3. Display Ordered checkbox in the Transactions modal — When enabled, adds an "Ordered" column to the cost transactions grid within the Add/Edit Cost modal. This lets users flag individual cost line transactions as having been formally ordered.

4. Restrict cost book lines to only those in the Cost Book in the Edit Cost modal — When enabled, limits the account (cost book) lines a user can book cost entries against, to only those account codes that are already present and in use in that project's Cost Book. This prevents booking against codes that haven't been set up for that project.

5. Set Approved Cost Control Records to Closed upon approval of Estimate — When enabled, the system automatically updates the status of any register records that are currently in the system "Approved" status to system "Closed" status, at the moment an Estimate is submitted and then approved through the associated workflow. This automates a common lifecycle step, removing the need for manual status updates.

6. Work Package Register (Alternative Hierarchy type only) — Designates this specific Hierarchy register as the source for Work Package links in the Cost Book. Only one register can hold this designation. Once another register already holds it, this checkbox becomes disabled on all other registers.

⚠️ The Cost Control tab is only enabled once the register has been saved at least once. When adding a brand-new register, all tabs except Settings are disabled until after the initial save

⚠️ The Cost Control tab is not visible at all for registers of type Standard, Hierarchy (without CostBook), or Baseline Change Control — it only appears for Cost Control type registers (and Alternative Hierarchy with CostBook).