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Track Cost of Goods Sold with Square for Retail

Who is this article for?
Sellers and team members with inventory permissions. Square for Retail Plus subscribers. Learn more about Square Staff and custom permissions.

About cost of goods sold report

The Cost of goods sold report helps you keep an eye on your profit margin by keeping your topline metrics—cost of goods sold (COGS), total revenue, profit and profit margin. Get a better understanding of your numbers by setting your desired filters and clicking Export to download a CSV.

Before you begin

Your staff needs to be assigned the necessary permissions to view and filter cost of goods sold reports. Learn how to View, receive and adjust inventory.

Cost of goods sold (COGS) report

The COGS column will account for additional costs (such as tax and shipping) associated with the order. For example, when you receive a purchase order, you can choose to include shipping and handling by selecting Add Optional Fee once the order is received. Including additional costs when receiving an order will increase visibility into your profit margin.

To track the Cost of Goods Sold:

  1. Log in to your Square Dashboard and go to Reports.

  2. Select Inventory Reports > Cost of goods sold.

Here are some examples of how adjustments affect your COGS and inventory value:

Stock Adjustment Impact on Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Impact on Inventory Value
Re-count to adjust up
(re-count is considered a physical inventory count)
Credit Debit
Re-count to adjust down
(re-count is considered a physical inventory count)
Debit Credit
Receive No impact Debit
Return No impact No impact
Restock Credit Debit
Damage/Loss/Theft Debit Credit
Transfer No impact Credit to origin location, debit from receiving location
Sale Debit Credit
Inventory is considered an asset. When it comes to stock adjustments, a credit decreases COGS or inventory value and a debit increases COGS or inventory value.

Filter your COGS report

The COGS report includes sales, restocks, recounts, losses, damages and theft. You can filter your COGS report to see just the information you are interested in. For example, you can filter to see just the cost of your sales, without the impact of losses.

The following are the filters and data you’ll see:

  • All Stock Actions: You can view your costs and margins based on all adjustments (a true Cost of Goods Sold), including recounts, restocked returns and losses.

  • Sales: You can view your costs and margins based on just sales and returns (this does not include recounts and losses).

  • Sales and Inventory Recounts: You can view your costs and margins based on sales, returns and recounts. Please note that a recount that adjusts up will credit (decrease) your Cost of Goods Sold, while recounts that adjust down will debit (increase) your Cost of Goods Sold.

  • Sales and Losses: You can view your costs and margins based on sales, returns and losses (including theft, damage, loss and a recount adjustment down).

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