IT chargeback
How to allocate shared IT cost across properties
Shared IT cost is allocated across properties by one of three models: by number of rooms, by asset count, or split evenly. Atlas applies the chosen model automatically to org-wide licences and contracts that no single property is invoiced for, so every property sees its true cost of IT. Atlas is built by Sulayo, a Dubai product studio.
What counts as shared IT cost?
Shared IT cost is everything bought once for the group and used by all of it: the property management system contract, the org-wide productivity and security licences, the group firewall, the wide area network, the head office team's time. None of it arrives with a property name on the invoice, which is exactly why it ends up sitting in a central cost centre that no property feels responsible for. In most groups this is the largest single line in the IT budget and the least examined.
Which allocation model should a group choose?
Allocating by rooms is the usual choice for hotel groups, because rooms are what the whole business already budgets and benchmarks in, and a bigger hotel genuinely consumes more of the shared platform. Allocating by asset count suits estates where the properties differ more in equipment than in size, such as a group mixing hotels with offices and back-of-house sites. Splitting evenly is the simplest to defend politically and the hardest to defend commercially, and it is usually a starting point rather than a settled answer.
What changes once chargeback is running?
The argument changes shape. Before chargeback, a property disputes the central recharge as an arbitrary number from head office. After it, the property can see the model, the inputs and the line items behind its share, which turns a dispute about fairness into a conversation about consumption. It also exposes the cost of decisions nobody was pricing: a licence bought for everyone because two properties asked for it now shows up on twenty-eight bills.
At a glance
- Allocation models
- By number of rooms, by asset count, or split evenly
- Set at
- Group level
- Applies to
- Org-wide licences and contracts with no single property on the invoice
- Visible to
- Each property, for its own share, with the line items behind it
- Currencies
- Group base currency, with a local currency per property
- Where it runs
- Atlas, alongside the contracts and budgets the cost comes from
Questions people ask
Is allocating by room count fair to smaller properties?
It is usually the fairest of the three, because room count is a reasonable proxy for how much of a shared platform a property actually consumes, and it is the unit the rest of the business is already measured in. A small property pays less than a large one under this model, which is not true of an even split. Where it breaks down is an estate whose properties differ more in type than in size.
Can a group change the allocation model later?
Yes, the model is a group-level setting rather than something baked into the data, so it can be changed. In practice most groups start with an even split because it is the easiest to agree to, then move to rooms once the first year of numbers makes the distortion visible.
Does chargeback in Atlas produce an actual invoice?
Atlas produces the allocation and the breakdown behind it, which is what a finance team needs to post the recharge in its own ledger. Atlas is not an accounting system and does not try to be one; the figure and its supporting detail are the deliverable, and they are exportable into the board pack alongside the rest of the estate's numbers.
What data does a group need before chargeback works?
A property list with room counts, the shared contracts and licences with their annual values, and enough of the asset inventory to support the asset-count model if that is the one chosen. Groups usually have the first two in a spreadsheet already; the inventory is the part that gets built during onboarding.
Can a property see how its share was calculated?
Yes, and that is the point of doing it in software rather than a spreadsheet at head office. Each property sees the model in use, its own inputs and the line items that make up its share, which is what turns an argument about a number into a conversation about what the group is buying.