Ownership & Attribution
Ownership attributes cost to owners and cost centres, and is honest about how much of the bill it could not attribute.
The three figures
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Attribution coverage | The share of spend that ownership rules could assign |
| Unattributed | The amount that no rule matched |
| Total | The period's total spend |
Coverage is reported as a number because tag-based allocation is never complete, and a tool that hides the gap produces confident allocations that are quietly wrong. A coverage figure of seventy percent is a measurable problem you can close. An unstated one is a problem you argue about in a meeting.
Ownership rules
Rules map resources to owners and cost centres. Unattributed spend is the working list for improving them — each rule you add moves a slice from unattributed into coverage, and the number tells you immediately whether it worked.
Attribution is not chargeback
Ownership answers who is responsible for spend. It does not move money between ledgers, issue internal invoices, or enforce anything. It is the input a chargeback process needs, not the process itself.