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Overview

The Costing application centralises product cost management so teams can calculate costs, compare supplier quotes, and set accurate pricing from one record. Use it to model retail, import, or component-led cost structures with the templates, currencies, freight, duties, and approval rules configured for your business.

Costings bring style or component details, customer settings, freight, duties, exchange rates, documents, comments, status, and supplier quotes together. The costing type chosen at creation drives which fields, calculations, and supplier workflows are available.

What You Can Do

  • Create a costing from a style or component.
  • Choose a Retail, Import, or Component costing type.
  • Compare supplier quotes and approve the quote or colourway that should drive final pricing.
  • Track component costs, cost of sales, freight, duties, port charges, royalties, overheads, and margins.
  • Review exchange rates, supporting files, generated documents, comments, members, dates, status, and order usage from the side widgets.
  • Duplicate an existing costing when a new customer, department, season, or pricing scenario should reuse the same structure.

Key Features Explained

Feature What It Means For You
Costing Templates Templates define the costing type, base currency, price type, freight defaults, overheads, direct selling costs, port and disbursement values, and component behaviour.
Supplier Quoting Supplier sections support quote comparison, final buy price entry, approvals, and private supplier communication. Retail and import costings support up to 10 suppliers by default.
Price by Colour Retail templates can split finance costs, production overhead, final buy price, quantity, and approval by colourway when the template uses Price Type = Price by Colour.
Market Pricing Layout Retail and import costings can copy retail or sell prices from the style when market pricing layout is enabled and the style uses Style Price Type = One Price.
Import Duty per Market Import costings can apply different duty rates by market, including country or region and tariff context.
Exchange Rates Exchange rates convert supplier, purchase, base, and display currencies so landed costs and margins stay consistent.
Collaboration and Audit Tools Comments, files, documents, members, dates, status, history, and order history support approvals and traceability.
Admin Setup Required

Before users create costings, an administrator should configure General Settings, Freight, Import Duty, and Template under Site Settings > Costing. Template choices such as costing type, base currency, purchase currency, terms, and price type are important because several fields cannot be changed after creation.

Site Settings > Costing

Configure these settings to customise your costing workflow:

Getting Started

Start with Create a New Costing to understand the create pop-up, required fields, and locked selections. Then choose the costing type guide that matches the template used on the record.

Core Costing Sections

Details

The Details section establishes the costing number, description, costing type, template, account manager, base currency, terms, and purchase currency. See Retail Details, Import Details, or Component Details.

Customer

The Customer section captures customer, arrival zone, and tax context where available. Customer settings can also supply trading terms, cost of sales defaults, and predefined components depending on the costing type. See Retail Customer, Import Customer, or Component Customer.

Style

The Style section links retail and import costings to product information such as style number, season, department, licence, target buy price, estimated quantities, RRP, sell price, components, cost of sales, and licence royalties. See Retail Style or Import Style.

Components and Component Totals

Retail and import costings use Total Component Cost to show component totals and breakdowns. Component costings use a dedicated Components section and allow only one primary component. See Retail Total Component Cost, Import Total Component Cost, or Component Components.

Duty and Freight

The Duty and Freight section captures logistics costs such as freight in, port and disbursement charges, and duty-related landed cost inputs. See Retail Duty and Freight, Import Duty and Freight, or Component Duty and Freight.

Supplier

The Supplier section manages supplier selection, quotes, final buy price, final quantity, approval status, freight, landed cost, margins, and related calculations. Import costings add market-specific import duty handling, while component costings focus on supplier quotes for the single component. See Retail Supplier, Import Supplier, or Component Supplier.

Internal

The Internal section only exists when the costing uses a Component template. It displays template-driven financial parameters such as finance costs and production overhead. Extended financial inputs are also available in Advanced Costing Details.

Costing Types

Retail Costing Type

The Retail Costing Type models costs and margins for finished goods sold direct to consumers. It focuses on RRP and retail price calculations, supports supplier comparison, and can split finance costs, production overhead, approvals, and final buy prices by colourway when configured for Price by Colour.

Import Costing Type

The Import Costing Type models international sourcing and wholesale pricing. It tracks materials, freight, import duties, port charges, currencies, sell prices, overheads, direct selling costs, royalties, and landed cost calculations.

Component Costing Type

The Component Costing Type suits products where one primary component drives the cost. It keeps the component structure focused, supports supplier comparison, and applies component-specific freight behaviour.

  • Use this when one component is the primary cost driver.
  • Only one component can be added to a component costing.
  • Review Component Costing Site Settings to understand settings such as component behaviour and percentage freight based on Local Buy Price.

The Costing sidebar provides quick access to supporting actions and record context:

Sidebar page Use it for
Status Move the costing through Draft, Active, Completed, or Expired.
Advanced Costing Details Manage extended financial inputs such as margin, rebate, CODB, overheads, commission, status, and manual exchange rates.
Comments Keep costing decisions, supplier pricing feedback, and internal notes on the record.
Documents View and download generated or attached documents such as costing summaries and style specifications.
Files Upload, organise, lock, preview, download, or delete costing files and folders.
Members Assign internal users or suggested groups to the costing.
Exchange Rates Review exchange rates used by multi-currency cost calculations.
Dates Review created, updated, and completed timestamps.
History Audit file and folder actions on the costing record.
Preview Image View the read-only image pulled from the related style.
Order History Open orders that reference the costing.
Duplicate Clone a costing for another customer, department, season, or pricing scenario.
Delete Permanently remove a costing when your role allows it and the record is safe to delete.

Essential Actions

Costing Management

Collaboration & Documents

Best Practices

Tips

  • Choose the right costing type before you start: Costing type, template, terms, purchase currency, and base currency drive the calculation structure and may be locked after creation.
  • Review template settings regularly: Keep Template, Freight, Import Duty, and General Settings current so new costings inherit accurate defaults.
  • Use supplier comparison deliberately: Compare supplier quotes, final buy prices, quantities, freight, landed cost, and approval status before completing a costing.
  • Check exchange rates before approval: Multi-currency costings depend on current exchange rates for reliable landed cost and margin calculations.
  • Keep evidence on the record: Use Comments, Files, Documents, History, and Members so approvals, quote evidence, and decisions stay traceable.

Avoid Spaces in Costing Numbers

Costing numbers should not contain spaces. Spaces in identifier fields can cause inconsistent search results and make filtering less reliable. Use a hyphen (-) or underscore (_) as a separator instead (e.g., CST-001 rather than CST 001).