The cost of an item is what you paid for it, not including shipping or fees/freight. Since your costs can change over time, Thrive Inventory by Shopventory assigns a cost to every unique batch of inventory that comes in. We refer to these as lot costs.  

Tracking costs by lot keeps your sales and inventory reports accurate over the long haul. Thrive Inventory keeps track of your lots on an industry-standard FIFO (first-in, first-out) basis.

Most POS systems (including all of the systems Thrive Inventory integrates with) do not track costs by lot, so these systems provide inaccurate historical reporting when your costs change.

To manage costs efficiently, you’ll want to pay attention to your products’ default costs as well as their lot costs.

Here’s a look at what differentiates the two types of costs and how they work in Thrive Inventory.

The default cost is your fallback. This is what Thrive Inventory assumes you will pay for your product whenever you receive a new shipment until told otherwise. You’ll see this value in gray on the main inventory page.

Default costs can be managed in several different places:

Receiving inventory at a dollar amount different from your default cost will never automatically change the default itself. Historical default costs are not tracked, since you can see what you actually paid in your lot cost history (more on that below).

A "lot" of inventory is defined as a group of units that arrived in a given shipment. For instance, if I add a quantity of 12 to one of my products, I have added a lot that contains 12 units. The lot cost is the cost-per-unit applied to a given lot. Thrive Inventory assumes you sell inventory on a FIFO (first in, first out) basis, so your oldest available lot is always deducted first.

Lot costs are applied when receiving inventory by any means. The default cost will be used or suggested if one is available. If no default cost has been set and you don’t enter a value, the lot cost will be left blank (that is, "Not set").

A product without a quantity in stock and no quantity history cannot have a lot cost, since by definition there is no lot to which a cost can be applied. These products will say "Not set" even if a default cost is in place. Simply add a quantity and you’ll see the lot cost appear.

To access your lot history, click on the current lot cost in blue on the main inventory page. 

Then, use the Edit button in the top right corner to make changes. Simply type over any cost to change it (no need to backspace or delete).

A blank or empty lot cost (displayed as “Not Set”) is not the same as having a cost of $0. It means Thrive doesn’t know what you paid for that batch of inventory, so we won’t include that lot in your report totals.

For example, suppose I sell a product for $5. The revenue for this sale is always $5, but the calculated profit depends on the lot to which the unit sold belongs.

Bundle costs are derived from the current lot costs of their component products. This cost is only calculated and cannot be edited directly. If your bundle cost is incorrect, double-check the costs of each component, and the number of components used in each bundle (read more on how to manage bundles here).

Bundles do not have lots. When a bundle is sold, Thrive Inventory will calculate the cost in real-time and apply it to the sale. Bundle costs cannot be edited after a sale is made.

If inventory tracking is disabled on a product, it will not have a quantity or lot history. The current default cost will be applied to sales. Click here to read more about the inventory tracking toggle.

Your lot history begins at the moment you sign up with Thrive Inventory and import or create your inventory. To set costs for sales that occurred prior to Thrive Inventory being installed, please read Backfilling Historical Costs.

Thrive Inventory does not average costs by default. Click here to read more about the cost-averaging feature in Thrive Inventory.