Cost of Goods Sold report

The Cost of Goods Sold report shows what stock you took out of inventory cost over a period you choose. It costs each sale using your organisation's costing method (FIFO, LIFO or Average Cost), the same way your inventory valuation does. The figure reflects what you actually paid rather than the current price and ties to how your stock value moved over the period.

Access and permissions

The report is included in the Pro plan and above. On another plan, the page shows what the report does and an invitation to upgrade.

Reading the report and the Management tab requires the reports permission. Creating, renaming or deleting COGS groups, or assigning or removing products, also requires permission to manage products or inventory values. Without it, the change is refused.

If your account is restricted to certain departments, the report includes only products in those departments. Your totals will differ from those of a colleague with wider access.

The reports permission opens the report but not the money in it. Without the View Inventory Value permission, every amount shows as a dash; quantities and dates still show. An owner always has this permission.

Create COGS groups

The page has two tabs: Report shows the figures, and Management is where you create COGS groups and decide which products belong to them. A product in no group never appears in the report, so set up groups first.

1. Open Reports in the top navigation bar.
2. Choose Cost of Goods Sold.
3. Select the Management tab.
4. Click Manage Groups.
5. Type a name in the New group name box.
6. Click Create Group. Repeat for each group you need.
7. Click Close.

Assign products to groups

In the Management tab, find products using Search, or narrow the list with the COGS Group, Category and Supplier filters.

To assign one product, choose a group in the selector in its COGS Group cell. Once the product is in at least one group, the selector appears as a small plus button next to the group names.

To assign several products:

1. Tick the products. A row of bulk actions appears with the count of selected products.
2. Choose a group in the bulk actions.
3. Click Assign.

Deleting a group removes all its product assignments, and you are asked to confirm. Movements and costs are untouched, but the group's figures disappear from past periods too because the report is rebuilt each time you open it.

Run the report

1. Open Reports.
2. Choose Cost of Goods Sold.
3. Stay on the Report tab.
4. Choose a period in Quick Dates, or set Start Date and End Date yourself. The page opens on This Year.
5. Choose a group in COGS Group to narrow the report, or leave it on All to see every group.
6. Click a group row to expand it and see the products behind the figure.

When some products are in no group, an amber notice above the table gives their number and links to the Management tab so you can assign them. If the report is empty, the table message says whether there are no groups, no product is in a group, or nothing was sold in the period.

Understand the figures

Above the table, Total COGS Value, COGS Groups, Products and Top Group summarise the period. Groups are listed by value, highest first, as are the products within each group.

How the stock value moved walks from the opening value of the products in the report to their closing value. It includes what was received, value adjustments, cost of goods sold, corrections from found inventory, other outflows by reason, and restatement. Value adjustments, corrections, restatement and each kind of other outflow appear only when they are not zero.

Beside it are the costing method used for the figures and the date it last changed. If the method changed during the period, every figure, including those before the change, is computed under the current method.

Only products assigned to a COGS group are counted, whatever their status. A product that is inactive, hidden from inventory or deleted still counts while it sits in a group; a product in no group is not in the report.

How costs are calculated

Only movements recorded as a stock-out count as cost of goods sold. Each is costed at what your method takes out of stock at that moment: FIFO uses the earliest received units still in stock, LIFO uses the newest units in stock, and Average Cost uses the average cost of the stock you held.

A received unit's cost is its purchase price converted into your organisation's currency plus its share of landed costs on that purchase order. Opening stock and assembled products come in at their own cost. If you sold more than you held, the units short are costed when stock next arrives, at what it cost, and show as restatement in the period it arrives.

Every way stock comes in has a cost: a delivered purchase line; opening stock at the cost you entered; an assembly at the cost of its components; and a positive adjustment at what your costing method gives it on its date. Opening stock recorded without a cost counts at zero, as does a delivery whose purchase line has no price. Stock found during a count brings back the cost of the stock-outs it reverses.

Other outflows appear separately from cost of goods sold, each at the cost your method gives it. They include stock used in assemblies, defective units removed when you open a supplier claim, and negative stock adjustments. The defective units' value sits against the claim; the write-off on a rejected claim is reported on the claims side.

A transfer between warehouses moves stock inside your organisation and carries no cost, so it is not shown. Found inventory reverses the most recent stock-outs and appears as a negative line, Corrections (found inventory), in the period of the find. An earlier period is never restated.

Supplier claim replacements

Free replacement units from a supplier claim arrive on a zero-value purchase order. If the replacement order is linked to the claim before receipt, the units inherit the cost of the defective units they replace, fixed when the claim was created. Consuming a replacement unit therefore does not show up as zero-cost stock.

Without that link before receipt, the units are valued at what the replacement order says: nothing. When the claim is still holding the defective units, replacements that stand in for them enter at no cost instead. They are not sold before you record what happened to the held units; meanwhile, your sales are costed from the stock you paid for.

Export and changes to past figures

Click Export for a CSV file with one row per product and a total row per group. It covers every group in the report, whether or not you expanded it on screen, and follows the dates currently set in the filters. Each row also carries the walk from opening to closing value, the costing method and the date it last changed.

The report recalculates from current purchase data every time you run it. If you later correct a purchase price or landed cost, previously reported COGS figures change to match. Costs inherited through a supplier claim are the exception: they are fixed when the claim is created.

Changing the costing method also recalculates past periods under the new method. For that reason, it cannot be changed while a year is locked.