Cost Item
·article·2026-06-12
Cost Item
Definition
The atomic record of a single cost: amount, date, category (OPEX/CAPEX/Marketing/Overhead/Depreciation/Amortization), project and service link, payment status, and data source.
Worked Example
A complete cost item:
amount: $4,200
date: 2026-06-01
category: OPEX
project: Streaming Platform
service: Video CDN
payment_status: PAID
source: AWS Cost Explorer API (batch #5520)
Interpretation & Pitfalls
The quality of every downstream metric — COGS, margins, CAC, variance — is bounded by the completeness of cost items. Capture category, linkage, and source at entry time.
In TupicFinance
The cost item is the foundational object: all dashboards, breakdowns, and KPI calculations aggregate from it.