---
title: Configuring financial settings
slug: configuring-financial-settings
docTags:
createdAt: 2022-04-22T16:07:38.000Z
---
In the **General** tab, you can configure information about financial preferences including fiscal year, currencies, cost multipliers, and stock valuations.
To configure your organization's general settings:
1. From the left sidebar, select **Admin**.
2. From the sub-menu, select **Financial**.
3. Enter your company financial preferences in the following sections:
- In the **General** section:
- **Fiscal year starts** - The month on which your organization's fiscal year begins.
- In the **Currencies** section:
- **Add additional currency** - Select additional currencies as your organization needs them
- **Default currency** - The default currency when currency is not specified in imported data
- **Built-in Base and Variable field currency overrides** - Options to override the currency default for specific conditions when importing data
- **Cost multiplier** - Custom multiplier for approximating true headcount costs across the organization
- In the **Stock valuations** section:
- **Equity grant types** - The types of grants your organization supports and options to rename them
- **Valuation History** - Manage and configure your stock options for your organization's employees, determine the strike price for option grants, and establish amounts to be allocated for fundraising events.
4. Select **Save Settings** to save your changes.
## Default cost basis
Admins can set an organization-wide **Default cost basis** under **Settings > Financial**. It is the cost measurement used by any budget that has not chosen its own basis.
- **System default (Total cost over period).** Budgets are measured over their date range. ChartHop prorates each person's run-rate across the budget's start and end dates, month by month, and counts open roles only from their planned start date.
- **Annualized.** Budgets show the ongoing yearly run-rate, regardless of how long the budget runs.
Individual budgets can override this setting from the budget's **Cost basis** field. Scenarios always stay annualized and are not affected by this setting.
For a full explanation of how cost basis works and how to configure it per budget, see [Cost basis](https://docs.charthop.com/budgets#cost-basis) on the Budgets page.
:::hint{type="info"}
[Modules:](https://www.charthop.com/pricing/) **HRIS |** **Engagement | Goals | Performance |** **Compensation Reviews |** **Headcount Planning**
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## Cost Calculations
Under **Admin > Financial**, the **Cost Calculations** section controls how ChartHop calculates cost within scenarios.
By default, ChartHop calculates a change's cost as base salary multiplied by your cost multiplier (**Apply cost multiplier to base salary**). If you need a different calculation — for example, to factor in benefits burden or bonus targets — you can define a **Custom formula** that ChartHop applies to every change in a scenario.
### Custom cost formula
To set up a custom cost formula:
1. Go to **Admin > Financial**.
2. Under **Cost Calculations**, select **Custom formula**.
3. In **Formula**, enter a Carrot expression, for example `baseComp.annualized * 1.3`. ChartHop applies the delta of this value to each change you make in a scenario.
4. In **Cost label**, enter a short label to display in scenarios (defaults to "Annual Cost"). Update this if your formula does not represent an annual figure.
5. Optionally, add a **Cost description** to explain the calculation. It appears in the tooltip when users hover the cost in the scenario header.
6. Select **Save**. ChartHop recalculates cost for all scenarios, which may take a few minutes.
:::hint{type="warning"}
**Your formula should return an annual figure.**
Scenario headers let users view cost by **Fiscal year** or **Quarter** (see [Viewing scenario cost by fiscal year or quarter](https://docs.charthop.com/scenarios#viewing-scenario-cost-by-fiscal-year-or-quarter)). Those views assume your formula is an annual run-rate and prorate it across the selected fiscal period. If your formula already returns a period-bounded amount, the Fiscal year and Quarter figures will be wrong: the value gets scoped twice. The **Annualized** view always shows your formula's value unchanged.
- **Annual figures work correctly**, for example `baseComp.annualized * 1.3`. It expresses a full-year amount, so proration produces accurate fiscal-period figures.
- **Already period-bounded amounts do not.** A formula that sums or prorates over a specific date range already returns a scoped total, so proration re-scopes it and produces misleading results.
If your formula is not an annual figure, set the **Cost label** to something other than "Annual Cost" and direct users to rely on the **Annualized** view rather than Fiscal year or Quarter.
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