Field Notes
COGS sheets that lag festival pricing
Supplier price changes during sale periods are a common reason bank deposits refuse to match the margin meeting.
Festival calendars in Malaysia compress purchasing decisions. A supplier raises carton costs in late October; your SKU sheet still shows September prices when 11.11 orders peak.
Freeze a cost version for the audit window
We ask clients to export the cost sheet as it stood at the start of the review month and again at the end. The delta often explains more “lost margin” than any marketplace fee.
Separate landed cost from packing add-ons
Bubble mailers, inserts, and gift wrapping during campaigns rarely sit in the same column as product COGS. If packing is funded only for certain bundles, allocate it there instead of smearing it across every SKU.
Tie purchase orders to the same SKUs you sell
When purchasing uses internal codes and the marketplace uses different SKUs, reconciliation stalls. A simple mapping table is unglamorous and faster than debating percentages in a meeting.
Bring the sheet to the readout
On Margin Reconciliation Audit closings we put the cost version date next to the margin total so leadership knows which reality the numbers describe.