Home office costs

1. Home offices of chain organizations vary greatly in size, number of locations, staff, mode of operations, and services furnished to their member facilities. Although the home office of a chain is normally not a facility in itself, it may furnish to the individual facility central administration or other services such as centralized accounting, purchasing, personnel, or management services. Only the home office's actual costs of providing services is includable in the facility's allowable costs under the program. 2. Costs not allowed in the facility are not allowed as home office costs allocated to the facility. 3. Any service provided by the home office included in costs as payments by the facility to an outside vendor or which duplicates costs for services provided by the facility is a duplication of costs and is not allowed. 4. Where the home office makes a loan to or borrows money from one of the components of a chain organization, the interest paid is not an allowable cost and interest income is not used to offset interest expense.