Welcome to your Cost Library! This is the most important setup you’ll perform in SilkFlo. By defining your organization’s common costs here, you create a powerful, pre-populated “price book.”
Why is this important? #
Taking a few minutes to set this up now will make building every future business case incredibly fast, accurate, and consistent.
Your costs are organized into two simple categories that every business understands:
- One-Time Costs: The initial, upfront investment to get an initiative live.
- Recurring Costs: The ongoing, operational expenses to run and maintain it.
Let’s get started. You can find this page under Settings > Platform Setup > Cost Setup.
Software Vendor #
Click New to set up software vendors included in the Inventory. You can:
- Add new vendors
- Edit existing entries (double click)
- Disable vendors, including those in Cost Benefit Analysis.
One-Time Costs (Implementation) #
Calculate one-time investment costs for idea implementation. Collaborator roles from the People setup will populate the User Role drop-down. To add a new role, refer to the “Creating a New Collaborator Role” page. Enter a cost per day/month/year for each role. Click Edit to set up Initial Costs. You can:
- Add a new role and its cost per day/month/year
- Edit existing entries (double click)
- Disable roles no longer involved.
- Pro Tip: The list of User Roles is managed on the “People” setup page. If a role is missing, you can add it there first.
Other One-Time Costs #
Use this section to capture all other single-instance project expenses. This is crucial for calculating a complete and accurate Total Implementation Cost.
To add a one-time cost:
- Navigate to the Initial Costs > Other One-time costs section.
- Click New.
- Add a clear Name for the cost and enter its Amount.
Common Examples:
- External Consultancy (10-day package)
- New Server Hardware
- Team Training Session
Running Costs #
Vendor Software Costs: Estimate running costs by setting up software licenses. Cost Frequency can be set as Monthly or Yearly. Click New to set up Running Costs. You can:
- Add new vendors
- Edit existing entries
- Delete unnecessary vendors.
Other Running Costs #
Click New to add and manage other running costs, including Support Team, Other Software Licenses, Infrastructure, and Other costs.
For Infrastructure costs, it’s best to create multiple cost values for easier allocation.
Cost Frequency can be set as Monthly or Yearly.
How This All Comes Together #
Once your Cost Library is configured, you’ll see the magic happen in the idea > Cost Benefit Analysis.
When you are building a new business case, the cost sections will now have a search box that allows you to select directly from this library. When you choose an item (like a “Developer” role or a “Salesforce License”), SilkFlo will automatically pull in the cost data you just set up, making your financial modeling fast, consistent, and accurate every single time.
