Cost of goods sold


Cost of goods sold is the carrying value of goods sold during a particular period.
Costs are associated with particular goods using one of the several formulas, including specific identification, first-in first-out, or average cost. Costs include all costs of purchase, costs of conversion and other costs that are incurred in bringing the inventories to their present location and condition. Costs of goods made by the businesses include material, labor, and allocated overhead. The costs of those goods which are not yet sold are deferred as costs of inventory until the inventory is sold or written down in value.

Overview

Many businesses sell goods that they have bought or produced. When the goods are bought or produced, the costs associated with such goods are capitalized as part of inventory of goods. These costs are treated as an expense in the period the business recognizes income from sale of the goods.
Determining costs requires keeping records of goods or materials purchased and any discounts on such purchase. In addition, if the goods are modified, the business must determine the costs incurred in modifying the goods. Such modification costs include labor, supplies or additional material, supervision, quality control, and use of equipment. Principles for determining costs may be easily stated, but application in practice is often difficult due to a variety of considerations in the allocation of costs.
Cost of goods sold may also reflect adjustments. Among the potential adjustments are decline in value of the goods, obsolescence, damage, etc.
When multiple goods are bought or made, it may be necessary to identify which costs relate to which particular goods sold. This may be done using an identification convention, such as specific identification of the goods, first-in-first-out, or average cost. Alternative systems may be used in some countries, such as last-in-first-out, gross profit method, retail method, or a combinations of these.
Cost of goods sold may be the same or different for accounting and tax purposes, depending on the rules of the particular jurisdiction. Certain expenses are included in COGS. Expenses that are included in COGS cannot be deducted again as a business expense. COGS expenses include:
  • The cost of products or raw materials, including freight or shipping charges;
  • The direct labor costs of workers who produce the products;
  • The cost of storing products the business sells;
  • Factory overhead expenses.

    Importance of inventories

Inventories have a significant effect on profits. A business that produces or buys goods to sell must keep track of inventories of goods under all accounting and income tax rules. An example illustrates why. Fred buys auto parts and resells them. In 2008, Fred buys $100 worth of parts. He sells parts for $80 that he bought for $30, and has $70 worth of parts left. In 2009, he sells the remainder of the parts for $180. If he keeps track of inventory, his profit in 2008 is $50, and his profit in 2009 is $110, or $160 in total. If he deducted all the costs in 2008, he would have a loss of $20 in 2008 and a profit of $180 in 2009. The total is the same, but the timing is much different. Most countries' accounting and income tax rules require the use of inventories for all businesses that regularly sell goods they have made or bought.

Cost of goods for resale

Cost of goods purchased for resale includes purchase price as well as all other costs of acquisitions, excluding any discounts.
Additional costs may include freight paid to acquire the goods, customs duties, sales or use taxes not recoverable paid on materials used, and fees paid for acquisition. For financial reporting purposes such period costs as purchasing department, warehouse, and other operating expenses are usually not treated as part of inventory or cost of goods sold. For U.S. income tax purposes, some of these period costs must be capitalized as part of inventory. Costs of selling, packing, and shipping goods to customers are treated as operating expenses related to the sale. Both International and U.S. accounting standards require that certain abnormal costs, such as those associated with idle capacity, must be treated as expenses rather than part of inventory.
Discounts that must be deducted from the costs of purchased inventory are the following:
  • Trade discounts – includes a discount that is always allowed, regardless of the time of payment.
  • Manufacturer's rebates – based on the dealer's purchases during the year.
  • Cash discounts – may reduce COGS, or may be treated separately as gross income.
Value added tax is generally not treated as part of cost of goods sold if it may be used as an input credit or is otherwise recoverable from the taxing authority.

Cost of goods made by the business

The cost of goods produced in the business should include all costs of production. The key components of cost generally include:
  • Parts, raw materials and supplies used,
  • Labor, including associated costs such as payroll taxes and benefits, and
  • Overhead of the business allocated to production.
Most businesses make more than one of a particular item. Thus, costs are incurred for multiple items rather than a particular item sold. Determining how much of each of these components to allocate to particular goods requires either tracking the particular costs or making some allocations of costs. Parts and raw materials are often tracked to particular sets of goods, then allocated to each item.
Labor costs include direct labor and indirect labor. Direct labor costs are the wages paid to those employees who spend all their time working directly on the product being manufactured. Indirect labor costs are the wages paid to other factory employees involved in production. Costs of payroll taxes and fringe benefits are generally included in labor costs, but may be treated as overhead costs. Labor costs may be allocated to an item or set of items based on timekeeping records.
Costs of materials include direct raw materials, as well as supplies and indirect materials. Where non-incidental amounts of supplies are maintained, the taxpayer must keep inventories of the supplies for income tax purposes, charging them to expense or cost of goods sold as used rather than as purchased.
Materials and labor may be allocated based on past experience, or standard costs. Where materials or labor costs for a period fall short of or exceed the expected amount of standard costs, a variance is recorded. Such variances are then allocated among cost of goods sold and remaining inventory at the end of the period.
Determining overhead costs often involves making assumptions about what costs should be associated with production activities and what costs should be associated with other activities. Traditional cost accounting methods attempt to make these assumptions based on past experience and management judgment as to factual relationships. Activity based costing attempts to allocate costs based on those factors that drive the business to incur the costs.
Overhead costs are often allocated to sets of produced goods based on the ratio of labor hours or costs or the ratio of materials used for producing the set of goods. Overhead costs may be referred to as factory overhead or factory burden for those costs incurred at the plant level or overall burden for those costs incurred at the organization level. Where labor hours are used, a burden rate or overhead cost per hour of labor may be added along with labor costs. Other methods may be used to associate overhead costs with particular goods produced. Overhead rates may be standard rates, in which case there may be variances, or may be adjusted for each set of goods produced.

Identification conventions

In some cases, the cost of goods sold may be identified with the item sold. Ordinarily, however, the identity of goods is lost between the time of purchase or manufacture and the time of sale. Determining which goods have been sold, and the cost of those goods, requires either identifying the goods or using a convention to assume which goods were sold. This may be referred to as a cost flow assumption or inventory identification assumption or convention. The following methods are available in many jurisdictions for associating costs with goods sold and goods still on hand:
  • Specific identification. Under this method, particular items are identified, and costs are tracked with respect to each item. This may require considerable recordkeeping. This method cannot be used where the goods or items are indistinguishable or fungible.
  • Average cost. The average cost method relies on average unit cost to calculate cost of units sold and ending inventory. Several variations on the calculation may be used, including weighted average and moving average.
  • First-In First-Out assumes that the items purchased or produced first are sold first. Costs of inventory per unit or item are determined at the time produces or purchased. The oldest cost is then matched against revenue and assigned to cost of goods sold.
  • Last-In First-Out is the reverse of FIFO. Some systems permit determining the costs of goods at the time acquired or made, but assigning costs to goods sold under the assumption that the goods made or acquired last are sold first. Costs of specific goods acquired or made are added to a pool of costs for the type of goods. Under this system, the business may maintain costs under FIFO but track an offset in the form of a LIFO reserve. Such reserve represents the difference in cost of inventory under the FIFO and LIFO assumptions. Such amount may be different for financial reporting and tax purposes in the United States.
  • Dollar Value LIFO. Under this variation of LIFO, increases or decreases in the LIFO reserve are determined based on dollar values rather than quantities.
  • Retail inventory method. Resellers of goods may use this method to simplify record keeping. The calculated cost of goods on hand at the end of a period is the ratio of cost of goods acquired to the retail value of the goods times the retail value of goods on hand. Cost of goods acquired includes beginning inventory as previously valued plus purchases. Cost of goods sold is then beginning inventory plus purchases less the calculated cost of goods on hand at the end of the period.