About
Applies to: Margins.
Using Finaloop Core? See How sales-based COGS records product costs when you sell.
The banner at the top of the Products page in Margins, Finaloop's performance analytics product, reads "[n] products are missing cost per unit for COGS calculation". It means Margins has no cost for those products, so it counts $0 of cost of goods sold (COGS) every time one of them sells.
Margins gets your sales, units, and product catalog from your channels automatically, and the cost per unit is the one thing only you have. Here's what the banner tells you about your numbers and the usual reasons the count is higher than you'd expect.
Symptoms
I see a banner saying products are missing cost per unit
A product's margin shows as 100%, or close to it
Average cost shows $0.00 or is blank on the product list
My COGS looks too low and my profit looks too good
1. My margins look impossibly good
You see high or 100% margins on products that you know cost you money.
With no cost per unit, COGS for that product is zero, so Margins counts the full sale price as profit. That flows straight into your product margins, your channel comparisons, and your peer benchmarks, which is how a product that loses money on every order ends up looking like your best performer.
To fix it:
Go to Products.
Turn on the toggle next to the missing-cost banner. The list now shows only the products without a cost, and every one of them reads $0.00 under Average cost.
Click Actions → Export file to get the list as a file you can work from.
Work out a landed cost for each one. See Calculating your average cost per unit in Margins.
Enter the costs. See Adding your cost per unit in Margins.
The banner count drops as you go, and margins on those products correct themselves from each cost's start date forward.
① The missing-cost toggle, ② the Average cost column.
2. The number is much higher than my actual product count
You see a count in the hundreds when you sell a few dozen products. It's usually one of two things:
Duplicates across channels. The same product from Shopify, Amazon, and TikTok Shop counts as three products until you merge them. Merging collapses them into one, and the count drops accordingly. See Merging multiple products.
Inactive and historical products. Products you no longer sell still sit in the catalog and still count. Use Filters → Attributes → Active to see only what you're currently selling, and Actions → Hide from product list to put the rest out of the way.
Tip: Clear your merge recommendations before you start entering costs. Every cost you enter after merging is a cost you only have to enter once.
3. I entered a cost but the product doesn't show the updated number
You see a cost on the Cost per unit tab, but the product still shows an older cost. There are two likely causes:
The new cost starts later than the period you're viewing. A cost dated June 1 doesn't apply to units that sold in March. Check the From date on the cost entry against the Period filter on the list.
You entered the cost on a non-primary product before a merge. After a merge, only the primary product's cost is used. Open the product, expand Product details, and check which product is primary.
To fix it, add a cost with an earlier start date, or enter the cost on the primary product.
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Need help?
If the count doesn't move after you've merged your duplicates and entered costs, email us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help.