Cost of goods sold, broken out by product, for whatever lookback window you pick — this article covers where the report actually lives, what each number is measuring, and two things about the math that can make it look wrong if you don't know they're there.
Where to find it
The COGS report isn't on the main Reports page — it lives under Inventory. Click Inventory in the sidebar (it's in the "Run the shop" section, not under "Insights & setup" where Reports sits), and you'll land on the Inventory page (its subnav's "Overview" tab is the one highlighted there, though the page's own heading just reads "Inventory"). Every inventory page shares a sticky pill-style subnav across the top — Overview, Rolls, Items, Alerts, Reorder points, Deduct, Purchase orders, COGS, Suppliers — click COGS to get to this report.
Two things gate who sees it. First, your shop's plan needs the Inventory feature — below the Growth plan you'll get an upgrade prompt in place of the whole Inventory section, COGS included. Second, even on a qualifying plan, this specific page also requires the "View financial reports" permission. A technician or front-desk role that can otherwise use Inventory fine can still be blocked from this one page, because it's exposing unit costs, not just stock levels.
One more navigation note: this isn't the only thing in SalesThumb called COGS. The Alerts tab in the same Inventory subnav (page title "Alerts & COGS") has its own COGS card computed against revenue for a date range you set, and the main Reports catalog has its own "Material COGS per Job" and "COGS Waste Diagnostics" cards under an Inventory category. All three use different inputs and answer different questions — if a number here doesn't match a number you saw somewhere else with "COGS" in the name, that's expected, not a bug.
What's on the page
Pick a lookback window at the top — 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or 12 months. 30 days is the default, and everything below recalculates for whatever you select.
Three KPI cards summarize the window: Total COGS, Waste (a dollar figure plus what percent of total cost that waste represents), and Products tracked (how many distinct products had any usage logged in the window). If waste hits 8% or more of total cost, the Waste card turns amber and a banner appears above the table. Worth knowing: the banner's own text says "industry healthy is < 5%," but the banner itself doesn't actually appear until waste crosses 8% — so a shop sitting at 6-7% waste is already outside what the app calls healthy without any visual warning telling you so.
Reading the table
The "By product" table lists every product with usage in the window, highest-cost first: inches used, cost per inch, waste inches (with an amber badge once that product's own waste hits 8%), the dollar cost of that waste, and total COGS. If nothing was logged in the window at all, the table shows "No usage logged in this window" instead of a list of products with zeros — products with no usage in the window just don't appear as rows.
Two things that can make the numbers look wrong
- Cost per inch is a lifetime average, not windowed — and it doesn't care whether the PO was ever received. Inches used and waste inches come from roll usage recorded inside the window you picked. Cost per inch does not — it's calculated across every purchase order line ever entered for that product, all-time, regardless of what status that PO is in. A line on a PO that's still sitting in DRAFT, or one that was later canceled, counts toward the average exactly the same as a fully received one — only whether a PO line was ever created for that product matters, not whether it was submitted to the supplier or received. Switching the lookback from 30 days to 12 months changes how much usage gets counted, but it won't move the per-inch cost those totals are multiplied against.
- No PO history means $0 COGS, not "no data." If a product has usage logged but no purchase order line has ever been entered for it in the system — in any status, not just received — its cost-per-inch is $0, so its COGS shows as $0 too, even though real film was consumed. If a high-volume product's COGS looks suspiciously low, check that its purchase orders are actually entered in SalesThumb.
Using it
Sort by the Waste column and the per-row badges to find your worst offenders first — that's where over-cuts and re-do's are burning purchased material, and it's a faster fix than trying to negotiate better film pricing.