When creating an account for costs of printing marketing materials, you should choose the primary cost account type. A primary cost account is an account that records the costs that are directly incurred by a business process or activity, such as materials, labor, or services. A primary cost account is usually assigned to a cost element category that defines how the costs are posted and analyzed in Controlling (CO). For example, cost element category 1 is used for primary costs or revenues that are posted from Financial Accounting (FI).

You maintain the activity price for the cost center to perform activity allocation. Activity allocation is a process of assigning costs from a sender cost center to a receiver cost object based on the quantity and price of the activities performed. The activity price is the rate at which the activity is charged to the receiver. You can use different methods to calculate the activity price, such as plan/actual price, target price, or market price.