Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is the direct product cost of the units you sell. Setting it in Dashboardly makes Gross Profit, Net Profit, Margin, and ROI meaningful instead of overstated.
Dashboardly keeps two seller-entered costs separate:
Both values can be stored as dated periods. An Effective Date controls when a value starts, and the value remains active until the next dated value begins. Adding a July cost therefore does not rewrite the cost used for March.
Use a product-level value when all variants share the same cost. A SKU can have its own dated periods when that variant costs more or less.
Dashboardly resolves the dated fallback for a sold unit in this order:
A SKU-specific value overrides the product default only for that SKU. It does not change the other variants.
Product and SKU histories remain separate. A SKU period does not create a product period or make the product default appear set. When the product default is empty but one or more child SKUs have costs, the product row shows Mixed and the individual values remain on those SKUs. When a product value exists alongside SKU-specific periods, a flag beside the product value indicates that some SKUs override it. Creating a product period later gives every current and future SKU a fallback without overwriting existing SKU-specific periods.
When the same Unit COG should cover every historical sale, select All history instead of entering an Effective Date.
Dashboardly automatically starts the period on the first qualifying sale date in the shop's timezone: