What does this actually cost?
"What's our cost per unit?" should be a one-second answer. For most growing e-commerce businesses, it's a one-hour reconstruction — invoice in Xero, freight bill in a folder, customs duty in another folder, and someone in the room saying "yeah but we got a discount on that container." By the time you have a number, the question has moved on. Margin decisions are getting made on guesses.
The cost of an item is rarely just the supplier invoice.
Especially if you import. By the time a unit reaches your shelf it has freight, duty, clearing fees, possibly insurance, and sometimes destination handling stacked on top. Spreading those costs across the units in the shipment proportionally — and posting the result into the inventory ledger so your COGS reflects reality — is what ERPNext calls a Landed Cost Voucher. It's mundane bookkeeping in any serious operation, and it's nearly impossible to do correctly in Xero alone.
| Cost | Per unit |
|---|---|
| Supplier invoice (FOB) | R 180.00 |
| Sea freight (allocated by weight) | R 14.50 |
| Customs duty (allocated by value) | R 18.00 |
| Clearing & port handling | R 4.20 |
| Insurance | R 1.10 |
| Local transport to warehouse | R 2.20 |
| True landed cost | R 220.00 |
How ERPNext does it (in three forms you'll actually use).
1. Goods Receipt Note. When the shipment arrives, you receive against the original Purchase Order. Stock-on-hand goes up at supplier price. The accounting entry hits a Stock-In-Transit account, properly.
2. Landed Cost Voucher. When freight, duty, and clearing invoices arrive (often days or weeks later), you raise a Landed Cost Voucher referencing the GRN. ERPNext allocates the additional charges across the received items by amount, weight, or quantity — your choice. Stock valuation and COGS update; Bin valuation reflects the true cost.
3. Stock-level cost rolls up. Per-item moving-average or FIFO valuation is automatic. "What does this actually cost?" is now a query, not a reconstruction. The accounting trail is intact — a Landed Cost Voucher posts journal entries that align with how SARS / HMRC / IRS want you to keep stock valuation.
Your CFO shouldn't need an hour and three browser tabs to know what a unit cost you. The system that holds your stock should hold your cost basis too — and they should never disagree.
Other ways your tooling is showing the strain
More on the ScanMan stack.
Cost-per-unit truth is one piece of what a real WMS buys you. Read on at scanman.co — the WMS, the open-source robotics positioning, and where it's all going.