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Know what AI costs. See what you get back.

Understand spending, share budgets and connect AI use to the work it supports.

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Set up capitalization

These settings decide which cost is capitalized, what each justification covers, and who approves it. Set them up before you close your first period.

You need access to financial settings — ask your Flowstate admin.

1. Choose your CapEx framework

  1. Go to Settings → Finance → Frameworks & Fiscal Year.
  2. Under CapEx Framework, choose the Default framework:
    • IAS 38 / FRS 102 (United Kingdom)
    • ASC 350-40 (United States)
    • AASB 138 (Australia)
    • NZ IAS 38 (New Zealand)
    • IAS 38 / ASPE 3064 (Canada)
    • IAS 38 / SNC NCRF 6 (Portugal)
  3. Save.

Flowstate doesn’t start any justifications until you’ve chosen one. The sections each framework uses are on How capitalization works.

2. Give each cost center a category

  1. Go to Settings → Finance → Cost Centers.
  2. Set each cost center’s Category: CapEx, OpEx, R&D, or Untracked for cost you don’t classify.
  3. Set the Default Cost Center for time that isn’t on any project, such as leave.
  4. Under After a project ends, choose the cost center for time logged after a project’s end date — usually your OpEx cost center. A project with its own Post-completion CC uses that instead. Leave it blank and a finished project keeps its running cost center, so time logged after it ended stays CapEx.

Changing a category changes how every project on that cost center is reported, so agree changes before you close a period. See Organization basics.

3. Set each project’s cost centers

On Finance → Capitalization → Projects, set each project’s:

  • Cost center — where its cost goes while the project runs.
  • Post-completion CC — where its cost goes after its end date.

You can also set them on the project itself.

4. Choose who approves and completes justifications

  1. Go to Settings → Finance → Cost Capitalization Review.
  2. Under Approval Stage, select Add Member and add the people who review justifications.
  3. Under Completion Stage, add the people who record the capitalized amount and amortisation.
  4. Select Save Workflow.

If you leave a stage empty, people who can change your financial settings do that step instead.

5. Catch wrong cost centers (optional)

The project analysis scan can suggest, or set, missing and wrong cost centers for you. See Review cost-center recommendations.

6. Send justification tasks to Slack (optional)

Go to Settings → Integrations → Slack and turn on Cost capitalization flows. Project owners then get their justification tasks and weekly reminder in Slack as well as the Inbox and email. See Slack.