Cost Rollup

The Cost section on a Production Batch is the bottom line for everything that happened on that batch. It pulls together material cost, labor cost, service cost, and overhead — and divides by the quantity produced to give you cost per garment.

Get this right and you have honest cost data for pricing, brand reporting, and cost-margin analysis. Get it wrong (usually by misclassifying steps or skipping reconciliation) and your margins are decorative.

Where each number comes from

Material cost sums the actual issuances against the Batch from the Raw Material warehouse. Source: Stock Entries posted with the Batch as reference. If a Stock Entry is missing or mis-referenced, the material cost will understate or overstate accordingly.

Internal labor cost sums the Internal Batch Operation Steps, valuing them at the Cost per Minute set in Garment Manufacturing Settings multiplied by the actual minutes recorded against each step (from Operation Ledger Start/End deltas, or from Batch Card entries).

External service cost sums the External Steps, valued against their Cost Source:

• Steps with cost source = Blanket Order pull rates from the linked Blanket Order.
• Steps with cost source = Purchase Order pull from the matching PO.
• Steps with cost source = Purchase Invoice lock the cost when the PI is posted against the Subcontracting Receipt referencing this Batch.

Until the corresponding PO or PI is posted, External steps carry their Estimated Cost as a placeholder. Once the procurement document lands, Actual Cost populates.

Overhead (if you've configured allocation in Settings) gets added on top.

The sum is the Batch's total cost. Divided by the produced quantity (from the reconciled Size Plan), you get cost per garment.

Why a Batch's cost is more honest than the Tech Pack's

The Tech Pack Costs tab is a plan. The Production Batch Cost tab is reality. They're related — the Batch's BOM came from the Tech Pack — but they're not the same number.

A Tech Pack might cost a garment at $24.60. The Batch that actually produced 400 of those garments might cost them at $25.40 because the fabric came in 4% over the plan, or at $23.90 because subcontracted washing came in under the Blanket Order rate. The Batch number is the one that goes into your real margin reports.

Reconciliation moments

A few moments to know about:

• At Batch completion. When the Batch moves to Completed, the cost figures are sealed. Quantities reconcile against the Size Plan; variances flow into the cost-per-garment.
• When a late PI lands. A Purchase Invoice posted after Batch completion still updates the External Step's Actual Cost. The Batch's total cost can move slightly after the fact. This is intentional — you want the truth, not just the close-of-month snapshot.
• When Stock Entries are reposted. If a Stock Entry is amended (a quantity correction, for example), the Batch cost recalculates.

Image: The Cost section of a completed Production Batch, with Material, Internal Labor, External Service, Overhead, and Total broken out alongside cost-per-garment.

What to do next

That closes the Production Batch section. Head back to the Batch hub, or step over to Cutting and marker to see where the cut bundles come from in the first place.