> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aimventory.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Correct the cost on a sale > Fix the cost recorded on one sale so its profit and margin are right, without touching inventory, the purchase order, or what a consignor is owed. Use this when a sale's cost was never entered, was entered wrong, or you've since learned what the pair actually cost you. Correcting it here fixes that one sale's own profit and margin numbers. **Where:** Analytics → Sales → Itemized Sales, on the sale's row. **Who does this:** whoever holds cost or financial-reports permission in your business — that permission is required to save a correction, even if more people than that can open the report itself. ## What this does not do This fixes the financial cost recorded on **one sale**, and nothing else. It does not touch the inventory unit that was sold, the purchase order it was received on, or the cost your remaining stock is carried at — if the shoe was received at the wrong cost, that's a separate fix on the purchase order or the inventory unit. It also does not change what you owe a consignor: a consignor's payout is worked out from the sale price and their commission rate, with no cost figure anywhere in that calculation. The reverse is not true — adjusting a payout later *does* rewrite this sale's cost (see the warning below). ## Correct the cost | Step | Where in AIM | What you do | What you should see | | ---- | ---------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1 | Analytics → Sales → Itemized Sales | Open the report | It opens on the current month to date, with **Cost basis** in the left filter panel set to **Trusted**. | | 2 | **Cost basis**, left filter panel | Switch to **Needs cost** (or **All**, if the sale already has a cost you think is wrong), and set the date range to cover the sale | The sale appears. A missing cost shows as **Unknown**, and its profit shows as **Excluded**. The fourth tab, \*\*$0 COGS**, is a what-if view — it displays unknown costs as $0 without changing anything. | | 3 | The sale's row | Click **Review cost** (no cost known yet) or **Edit cost** (a cost is already recorded) | The **Review sale cost** dialog opens, naming the product. | | 4 | Review sale cost dialog | Note the cost currently recorded, before you change anything | Nothing to see yet — the dialog opens empty. The current cost is in the report row's **Cost** column, and the preview at step 7 also shows it. There's no undo for this correction, so note it now. | | 5 | Cost per unit field | Enter the cost of **one** unit — not the sale's total cost | | | 6 | Reason field | Enter a short reason, at least 3 characters | | | 7 | Preview impact | Click **Preview impact** | AIM shows the before-and-after COGS and gross profit for this sale. Nothing is saved yet. Check that the new COGS equals your per-unit figure times the number of units on the sale. | | 8 | Save correction | Click **Save correction** | A confirmation appears, and the row's cost, gross profit, net profit, and margin update immediately. | **Sale not in the list?** Cancelled, returned, failed, and Depop-refunded sales never appear in this report, and neither does a sale outside your chosen date range — none of those are something this screen can fix. Wholesale line items *do* appear, under the **Wholesale** marketplace, but their cost comes from the wholesale order rather than the sale, so **Review cost** will not save on one; fix those on the wholesale order itself. **Multi-unit sales:** the cost field is always a per-unit figure. On a sale of 3 pairs, typing in what you think the *whole sale* cost — instead of the cost of one pair — triples the recorded cost. The preview total is the one number that catches this before you save. Four things happen automatically, with no notice that your correction was touched: * If a **consignor payout on this sale is later adjusted**, AIM shifts the sale's cost by the same amount as the payout change. On a consigned sale, correct the cost only after the payout is settled. * If the item from this sale is later **returned to Shopify and restocked**, and stock actually came back, AIM resets that sale's cost back to \$0 on its own — your correction is gone. * If the sale's **fulfillment location changes**, or the sale gets **re-scanned onto a different physical unit**, AIM recalculates the cost from inventory and replaces whatever you entered. * Entering **\$0** does not clear the cost or flag the sale for review. It records a cost of exactly zero, which AIM then treats as a known, trusted figure — the sale won't come back under "Needs cost." A correction you save today is not guaranteed to be the number that's still there next month. Correct a sale's cost once it's fully settled — after any return or relocation is done — not while it's still moving. ## If something changes after you've saved | What happened | Effect on your correction | What to do | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | The sale's item is returned to Shopify and restocked | AIM resets the sale's cost to \$0 on its own. | If the stock genuinely came back, leave it — the sale really has no cost now. On a **full** return the sale also drops out of this report, so there is no row left to correct; raise it with support if the reset was wrong. On a **partial** return the sale stays visible and you can re-enter the correction. | | A consignor payout on this sale is adjusted | AIM shifts the sale's cost by the same amount as the payout change. | Settle the payout first, then correct the cost. If the payout moved after you corrected, re-check the cost. | | The sale is fulfilled from a location, moved to a different location, or re-scanned onto a different unit | AIM recalculates the cost from inventory and replaces your correction. | Re-apply the correction once the sale has fully settled, not while it's still moving. | | You saved the wrong number | There's no undo button. | Open **Review cost** again and save the correct value — this is exactly why step 4 asks you to note the old value first. | | You need to know who corrected a sale, and when | AIM records every correction. | Open **Analytics → Team → Activity Log** and look for the sale cost correction entries; each shows who, when, and the reason you typed. The old and new cost figures are in that log's CSV export rather than on screen. Needs the Users permission. | ## What changes, and what doesn't **Changes on this sale, immediately:** its cost, gross profit, gross margin, net profit, and net margin all update. This also moves the sale out of "needs cost review" and into your trusted profit figures — including when you entered \$0. For a marketplace sale (StockX, GOAT), profit is calculated from what you actually got paid, which is already net of that marketplace's fees; for a retail or Shopify sale, it's calculated from the sale price. The same cost correction can move profit by a different amount depending on which kind of sale it is. **This restates history — it doesn't create a separate adjusting entry.** If the sale happened last month, or three months ago, that month's reported profit changes too, because every report reads the sale's stored cost live rather than a locked-in snapshot. AIM has nothing that locks a prior month against this. **Reports catch up fast, but not instantly.** The Itemized Sales report reflects your change as soon as you save. The Profit & Loss report can take up to about five minutes. A CSV you already exported, or a report email that already went out, is a snapshot from that moment — export or resend it again to see the corrected number. **What stays exactly as it was:** * Inventory quantities, the purchase order, and the cost your remaining stock is carried at — none of it is touched. * What a consignor is owed on this sale. * No journal entry or other bookkeeping document is created; this only changes the sale's own recorded figures. ## Related * [How the inventory numbers fit together](/concepts/inventory-numbers) — for what Available and Ready to list mean, since correcting a sale's cost never changes either one.