Create and edit cost or benefit items
Cost and benefit items are the core building blocks of financial tracking in Focus. Each item represents a specific cost you need to track, such as labor, software licenses, or consulting, or a benefit you expect to gain, such as revenue increase or cost reduction.
You can create items manually from within a focus area, or import them in bulk using CSV. This article covers the manual workflow for creating, editing, categorizing, and deleting individual items.
Before you begin
Before you can create cost or benefit items, make sure the following prerequisites are met:
Your administrator has configured the categorization options you'll need in Focus admin settings: cost sub-types, benefit types, and investment categories. Items must be categorized using these predefined values, and creation will fail if none have been defined.
Your user group has the Manage cost/benefit items permission enabled. If you don't see the option to create items, contact your administrator to check your group permissions.
To link a cost or benefit item to a Jira or Jira Align work item, the work item must already be connected to the focus area from the Work tab.
Create a cost item
Create a cost item to track a specific expense for a focus area, such as employee costs, contractor fees, or software licenses.
Navigate to the focus area where you want to track costs.
Select the Funds tab.
In the upper-left corner, select Costs from the view toggle.
Scroll down to the Cost items table.
Select the row that contains + Create.
Enter a name for the cost item (for example, "Employee costs" or "Cloud infrastructure").
Press Enter or select the submit button to add the item.
The new item appears in the table. From here, use the inline fields to categorize the item:
Type: select Labor or Non-labor.
Sub-type: select a more specific sub-type from the options your administrator has defined (for example, "Contractor" or "Software licenses").
Expenditure class: select CapEx or OpEx.
Investment category: select a category your administrator has defined (for example, "Change the Business" or "Run the Business").
All changes save automatically.
Create a benefit item
Create a benefit item to track the monetary value your organization expects to gain from delivering a focus area, such as revenue increase, cost avoidance, or productivity gain.
Navigate to the focus area where you want to track benefits.
Select the Funds tab.
In the upper-left corner, select Benefits from the view toggle.
Scroll down to the Benefit items table.
Select the row that contains + Create.
Enter a name for the benefit item.
Press Enter or select the submit button to add the item.
The new item appears in the table. Select a Benefit type from the inline dropdown (for example, "Revenue increase" or "Cost reduction"). All changes save automatically.
Edit a cost or benefit item
You can update the name, categorization, or tags on an existing item at any time.
In the cost item list or benefit item list, find the item you want to edit.
To change the item's name, select the name and type a new value.
To change the categorization (type, sub-type, expenditure class, investment category, or benefit type), select the relevant field and choose a new option from the dropdown.
To add or remove tags, select the Tags field for that item and enter one or more freeform labels. Tags can be used to filter the cost or benefit item list for cross-cutting reporting.
Changes save automatically.
To add a comment about your financial data, select the comment icon in the upper-right corner of the focus area while on the Funds tab. Comments apply to the Funds tab as a whole, not to individual cost or benefit items.
To update monthly forecast or actual values, see Enter forecast and actual values for cost or benefit items.
Link a cost or benefit item to a work item
You can link a cost or benefit item to a Jira or Jira Align work item to connect financial data to delivery progress.
In the cost or benefit items table, find the item you want to link.
In the Work column, select the Edit work icon.
Search for and select the work item you want to connect.
Only work items that are already connected to the focus area appear in the search results. To connect a work item to a focus area, add it from the focus area's Work tab first.
Delete a cost or benefit item
Deleting a cost or benefit item permanently removes it and all associated forecast, actual, and baseline data.
In the cost item list or benefit item list, find the item you want to delete.
In the Actions column, select more actions (•••), then select Delete.
Confirm the deletion.
Deleting an item can't be undone and requires the Manage cost/benefit items permission. If you need to remove large amounts of data, consider using CSV export to save a backup before deleting.
View activity history for a cost or benefit item
Use activity history to review changes to a cost or benefit item's monthly forecast and actual values.
In the Cost items or Benefit items table, right-select the item's name.
Select Show history.
The activity panel opens on the right, filtered to that item. You'll see a chronological list of changes to monthly values, with the previous and new amounts.
To see activity for the whole focus area, select the Activity icon at the top of the Funds tab.
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