> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://soran.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Cost of goods

> Set what your products cost so profit is accurate.

There are two ways to tell Soran what your goods cost, and they are not
equivalent.

## Unit costs, per product

The product cost list is the accurate route: what each product cost you to buy.
This is the biggest of the expense lists and the one that decides whether gross
profit can be stated at all.

Every entry ever recorded stays visible, superseded ones included. That is
deliberate — the question an operator brings here is as often "what were we
paying in March" as "what are we paying now", and a list that only showed current
prices could not answer the first.

## A declared rate, as an escape hatch

For orders nothing can itemise, you can declare a flat COGS rate instead.

Nothing on that screen is ever prefilled, on purpose. A rate you state is data
you own; a rate Soran guessed for you would be a guess wearing a decimal point.

> [!WARNING]
>
> A store that sets a declared rate and never enters unit costs gets a
> complete-looking margin resting on one typed number. The rate is a fallback
> for the orders you cannot itemise, not a substitute for the list.

## Related

> **[Product catalog](/docs/data/product-catalog)**
>
> The products costs attach to.

> **[Expenses and profit](/docs/data/expenses-and-profit)**
>
> The other three kinds of cost.


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