The cost of delivering benefits and services to a client is derived from a sum of the individual costs of the service plan items. The cost of a plan item can be derived in a number of ways. If the plan item cost is not fixed and is dependent on the delivery of that plan item, the user can enter an estimation for this cost once it has been added to a service plan. If the plan item is not associated with another application object, for example, a product delivery, the actual cost of the plan item can be entered upon completion of the plan item.
Alternatively, certain types of plan items result in the creation of a product delivery to manage the provision of the service to the client. The product delivery will use the standard financial processing to issue payments to the client or the service provider. The total amount of the payments made on the case at any point in time is equivalent to the actual cost to the organization at that time.
At any stage of the service plan life cycle, a user can view the overall cost of the service plan. The cost statement provides a view of the service plan costs and is described in more detail later in this guide.