Know your true margin, by SKU, batch or project.
Accurate inventory valuation and per-project cost tracking — so you know exactly what's profitable and what's quietly losing money, instead of guessing from a blended average.
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Blended margins hide the products that are losing money
A single, blended gross margin number feels reassuring, but it hides everything you actually need to know — the SKU that's secretly unprofitable once you allocate the right cost of goods, or the client project quietly running over budget while another subsidises it. Without proper costing, you're managing the business by averages.
We set up inventory valuation (FIFO, weighted average, or whatever method suits your business) and per-project or per-SKU cost tracking, so your reports show true, granular margin — not a blended number that masks winners and losers alike.
Inventory costing applies where you hold physical stock — D2C, manufacturing, retail. Project costing applies where value is delivered through discrete engagements — agencies, consultancies, service businesses. Many businesses need a hybrid of both.
What's included
Depending on your business model, this engagement covers:
Inventory valuation setup
FIFO, weighted average or standard costing implemented to match how your inventory actually moves.
SKU-level margin tracking
Cost of goods sold tracked per product, revealing true margin by SKU.
Project costing
Direct and allocated costs tracked per client project or engagement.
Stock reconciliation
Physical stock counts reconciled against book inventory to catch shrinkage or errors.
Cost allocation rules
Overhead and shared costs allocated to products or projects on a defensible basis.
Margin reporting
Regular reports showing true margin by product, batch or project — not a blended average.
Not sure which products or projects are actually profitable?
Tell us how your business is structured — we'll design the right costing approach.
How we set up your costing
1. Business model review
We understand how inventory moves or how projects are delivered before choosing a costing method.
2. Costing method setup
Valuation method and cost allocation rules are implemented in your accounting or inventory system.
3. Reporting & reconciliation
Ongoing margin reports are generated, with periodic physical stock reconciliation where applicable.
Initial setup typically takes 2–3 weeks depending on inventory complexity; ongoing reporting then runs monthly alongside your regular close.
Get a clear, itemised quote.
Tell us about your business and we'll size up exactly what this service costs for you — no obligation.
Why guessed costs quietly bleed margin
For any business that holds stock or delivers projects, the single most important number — the true cost of what you sell — is also the one most often estimated rather than measured. And when cost is a guess, price is a guess, margin is a guess, and the losses hide in plain sight.
In a product business, weak inventory costing distorts everything. If the landed cost of goods — purchase price plus freight, duties and handling — isn't captured properly, your gross margin is wrong, and you may be pricing below true cost on your best-selling lines without knowing it. Inventory valuation also feeds straight into your financial statements and your tax: over- or under-valued closing stock shifts reported profit and the tax you pay on it. And stock that quietly ages, gets damaged, or goes obsolete becomes a write-off that ambushes a P&L nobody was watching.
In a services or projects business, the same problem wears different clothes. Without project-level costing, you know whether the company made money overall but not which jobs made money — so you keep taking on the kind of work that looks busy and loses money, and you under-quote the next one because you never learned what the last one truly cost. Labour, subcontracting and overhead all have to be allocated to jobs for the picture to be real.
A healthy blended margin routinely hides a mix of very profitable and loss-making products or projects. Only cost visibility at the unit or project level reveals which is which — and that's exactly where the decisions worth making live.
From costs to pricing you can trust
Inventory and project costing is where accounting stops being a record of the past and starts driving forward decisions. Built on clean books and a well-designed chart of accounts, proper costing produces the true margin per SKU or per project — which is the raw material for real pricing strategy and honest unit economics.
We set up the costing method that fits your business — landed-cost tracking and a sensible valuation basis for inventory, or job/project costing with proper allocation of labour and overhead for services — and surface it in your monthly reporting. The result is that pricing, purchasing and bidding decisions rest on measured cost, not on a hopeful markup over an estimate.
"I mark everything up by the same percentage, so my margins are fine."
A uniform markup on an unknown cost base guarantees you're underpricing some lines and overpricing others — you just can't see which.
"The project made money — I saw the payment come in."
Revenue isn't margin. Until labour, subcontracting and overhead are costed to the job, a paid project can still have lost money.
Pricing
Pricing depends on SKU count, project volume, and whether ongoing physical stock reconciliation is included. See our pricing page for indicative ranges, or get an exact, itemised quote in one call.
Frequently asked questions
What costing method is right for my business?+
Do you handle physical stock counts?+
Can you set this up alongside existing bookkeeping?+
Is project costing relevant if I don't hold inventory?+
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See true profitability by SKU, batch or project — not a blended average.