Why is a unit cost unusually high?

May 12, 2021 17:13

Question

The unit cost of one of my products is unusually high. Is there anything that might be causing this?

Answer

Higher than average unit costs are a common symptom of units per case errors in product data, unit cost equals the case cost divided by the units per case.

If you notice an unusually high unit cost on one of your products, it's likely this product was received on a supplier invoice with the units per case set to 1, and as a result, it's assumed the entire case cost as the unit cost.

To remedy this, see the article How to fix a product that has case price instead of unit price.

Why these errors occur

There's multiple ways the default units per case value can be incorrectly calculating unit cost:

Global Till requires the default units per case value to be set when a product is created, if this wasn't filled in correctly it needs to be updated.
When a supplier invoice is posted, the default units per case for the product will be updated and saved. Managers should be careful to double check that supplier invoices have the correct units per case before posting them, especially if products have the units per case is set to 1.
When products are added to Global Till automatically from an integrated supplier like Connect Logistics or BDL, GlobalTill will attempt to set the units per case for you automatically. This works with some products but not all. (For example, this does not happen with allocated products or many BDL products, that do not have the information publicly available). In this situation, GlobalTill will assume the unit per case is 1.

To help you flag potential problems GlobalTill has a couple of quality of life features. On the cost changes page when performing post & receive invoicing new products are tagged with New, and existing products with large changes in cost are highlighted in red.

If you post a supplier invoice with the incorrect unit per case, cost errors on products will occur such as the example below.

More Information

For more information, see the articles: