How to maintain historical cost center information for contracts and purchases when cost center path is updated?

[dacruza]

Our cost centers are unique, however, descriptions or assignments (division, department) may change from time to time. Because Flexera creates a path which includes the cost center, when cost center information is imported, we end up with duplicates although the full path is unique. We want to have one cost center path per cost center in which case we could replace (update) the existing path information by performing a lookup for each cost center, however, we want to maintain historical cost center path information for contracts and purchases for historical, referential purposes. The way Flexera One is currently configured, if a cost center is removed, all cost center information associated with contracts and purchases are also removed. If a cost center information is updated, the cost center information for the respective contracts and purchase also changes. I am interested in knowing how other organizations are handling this issue where there is a need to maintain historical information. Your thoughts are appreciated.

[JohnSorensenDK]

@dacruza 

I would suggest that a way of doing this process wise would be to store the information about the cost center path externally (staging database, Excel file, etc.) and then use a business adapter to update contracts and purchase records from this data source. When a cost center path changes you can then delete the existing unique cost center and add it again into its updated path and update the contracts and purchase records using the same business adapter (obviously after having updated the external data source). This will leave a trace in the History tab for both contracts and purchase records like

Thanks,