The costing guide
One line of the statement at a time: what the cost is, where it stops, how it is charged, and the check that tells you whether you got it right.
- How to calculate COGSWhat a unit really cost you, landed
- How to calculate shipping costZones, weights, surcharges, and who pays the duty
- How to calculate payment costsThe percentage, the fixed fee, and the ones nobody quotes
The statement, line by line
Every guide is one line of this. A line with no guide yet is still a line: the statement is the point.
Three things the whole guide depends on, so they are settled here and not re-argued on every page.
- Ex VAT everywhere. For a registered seller the VAT collected was never income and the import VAT was never a cost. Duty is a cost, because it is not reclaimable.
- The cut between product cost and fulfilment is physical. Everything you spend to get a unit into the warehouse sellable is product cost; everything after a customer orders it is fulfilment.
- CM1, CM2 and CM3 are named once, above, because contribution margin on its own means three different things to three different readers.
And every cost has one of six shapes: per unit, per order, a share of the order, per refund, every month, or read from a connector. Half of costing errors are a cost applied on the wrong shape, which is why each guide lets you change the shape and watch the arithmetic change with it.
3 of 12 lines have a guide so far. Vecks works all of this out on your own orders and shows you where each figure came from. Ask for a seat.