Shopify keeps one cost. Your books need the history.
A weighted average cost per variant, backed by a receipt ledger, so inventory valuation reflects the quantities and costs you actually received.
One field cannot calculate your average
Shopify stores a single static cost per variant. Receiving a purchase order or transfer does not automatically update it or calculate a weighted average. Stockie records receipt costs and quantities to calculate that average for you.
- A static cost can miss what you paid. Six hundred units bought across three price points cannot be valued accurately from one manually maintained purchase price. A weighted average accounts for the quantities received at each cost.
- Cost of goods sold follows it. If the recorded cost of stock on hand is wrong, so is the margin on every sale of it, and so is the profit and loss your bookkeeper produces.
- Exchange rates make it worse. Importers can pay a different amount for every shipment. A static cost does not capture those exchange-rate differences or the mix of stock already held.
Every receipt recorded, permanently
Stockie writes an entry for every cost event and never edits one in place. The average cost can always be reconstructed by replaying it.
- Weighted average across what you hold. Each delivery contributes its own quantity and unit cost, and the reported average reflects the units still on the shelf.
- Landed cost included, if you want it. Freight and duty allocated at receiving can be folded into the cost that feeds the average, and the ledger stores the breakdown either way so it can be re-derived.
- Corrections append, never overwrite. A mistake is fixed by voiding the old entry and adding a new one, so the history of what you believed and when survives.
- Captured from day one. Ledger entries are written whether or not average costing is switched on, so enabling it later replays your real history instead of starting from today.
What it cost, and what it will cost
These answer different questions for different people, and collapsing them into one field is exactly the problem being solved.
- Average cost looks backwards. What the stock on your shelf actually cost you. This is the number for valuation, margin and cost of goods sold.
- Default cost looks forwards. What you expect to pay next time, used to pre-fill purchase orders. A one-off promotional price should not become the new default, so updating it is a deliberate tick, not automatic.
- Sync to Shopify on your terms. Push cost back to Shopify's own field for downstream apps that read it, choosing which of the two numbers goes there.
Common questions
Is this FIFO or weighted average?
Weighted average. The ledger records every receipt with its quantity and unit cost, and the reported cost is the weighted average across the units you still hold.
I have been running Stockie for a year without this. Is that history lost?
No. Ledger entries are written on every receive regardless of whether average costing is switched on. Completing the setup replays the entries from your seed point forward, so you get a real average rather than one that starts today.
Will this change the cost field in Shopify?
Only if you ask it to. Cost sync is a setting, and you choose whether the default cost or the average cost is what gets pushed. Apps like Shopify Bundles read that field, so which number belongs there depends on your setup.
Can I get inventory value as at a past date?
The inventory value report covers what you hold and what it is worth at average cost, per location, exportable as CSV or XLSX. If you need a specific reporting shape for your accountant, tell us what it looks like.
Related features
Receiving
Receive in full or part, scan barcodes as stock comes off the pallet, and push the quantities straight into Shopify.
Reports
Stockout, stockout risk, overstocked, dead stock, sales performance, ABC analysis, inventory value and more, all exportable.
Stocktakes
Full and cycle counts with barcode scanning, multiple staff counting together, variance review and cost impact before you apply.
See it on your catalogue.
Install Stockie, let it read your sales history, and judge the suggestions against stock you actually know.
14 days free · no credit card at install