Cumulative versus Current Period Costs

You can enter actual costs either for the current period or as a cumulative-to-date figure. In either case, the system stores the current period value; if you enter cumulative values, Cobra subtracts the previous cumulative value to arrive at the correct current period value.

Cumulative-to-date values are preferred because they are by their very nature self-correcting. For example, assume that an accounting error was made in the previous period. If a correct cumulative-to-date value were entered in the current period, the error would be corrected by an adjusting entry in the current period.

To define if the records in the import file represent costs for a given period or if they are cumulative-to-date costs, use the options in the Included Costs Page of the Integration Wizard.