Tracking Raw Material Costs

Overview

Accurate cost tracking is essential for pricing your products profitably. Formuley automatically calculates and maintains raw material costs based on your purchase history and usage data. This feature is available on the Pro plan and above.

How Cost Tracking Works

Stock levels and cost per unit are automatically calculated from two data sources:

• Purchases increase your stock and update your average cost.
• Batch production decreases your stock as raw materials are consumed.

The cost unit always matches the stock unit for a given raw material. If you track a raw material in grams, your cost is stored as cost per gram. This consistency ensures accurate cost roll-ups in your formulas.

Recording a Purchase

1. Navigate to the raw material detail page by clicking on any raw material in your library.
2. Click Record Purchase.
3. In the modal, enter the following:
   • Purchase Amount -- quantity purchased, in the raw material's stock unit.
   • Price -- total price paid for this purchase.
   • Supplier -- select from your linked suppliers or leave blank.
4. Click Save. Formuley updates the raw material's stock level and recalculates the cost per unit.

Each purchase is recorded in the raw material's Purchase History, creating a complete audit trail of what you paid, when, and from which supplier.

Cost History

Formuley tracks cost per unit over time, so you can see how prices have changed. The cost history is visible on the raw material detail page and is useful for:

• Identifying price trends from suppliers.
• Spotting seasonal fluctuations in raw material costs.
• Making informed decisions about when to buy in bulk.

Profit Guardian Alerts

When a raw material's cost changes significantly, the Profit Guardian system sends you an alert. This helps you catch unexpected price increases before they erode your margins. Profit Guardian monitors cost changes across all your raw materials and notifies you when:

• A new purchase price deviates from the recent baseline by your configurable threshold.
• A cost increase pushes a linked-sale formula toward a margin drop alert.

For a full overview of Profit Guardian, see Profit Guardian Overview.

Costs in Formulas

Raw material costs flow directly into your formula cost calculations. When you open a formula, Formuley multiplies each row's cost per unit by the amount used to show you the total material cost.

Formula costs now refresh automatically after ingredient cost changes. The Recalculate Cost button is still available on the formula detail page as a manual repair tool if you need to force a fresh snapshot.

Tips

• Record every purchase to keep your cost data accurate. Even small purchases affect your average cost per unit.
• Check Profit Guardian alerts promptly. A cost increase on a key raw material can ripple through multiple formulas.
• Use Recalculate Cost only when you want to force a manual refresh. Most formula cost updates happen automatically.
• For details on managing your raw material library, see Raw Material Library Overview.