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Cost per batch, and the real margin it leaves on orders you already sold

The price is agreed before the run; the cost turns up after it. A production run hands you one invoice and a pile of finished pieces, and Ordamo splits that invoice across the pieces it made, writes the result onto the products and onto the orders still open against them, and shows what each order actually earned — not what it was quoted at.

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What does a production run actually cost?

Everything the run cost, counted once: what the workshop was paid, plus the freight and hardware tagged to it. Below is a real shape of that — one table and six chairs, paid for in two instalments — and every figure in it is produced by the code that runs when you press the button in the app, not written here as copy. It is the same run and the same order the home page shows.

Ordamo · Batch B-07
Batch B-07Received 22 Aug7 pieces · 2 products
What the run cost
$1,600Paid to the workshop, in two instalments
$280freight from the workshop, hardware and fixings — tagged to the run, counted once
$1,880What 7 pieces cost to make
Written onto the products
Larch Dining Table ×1$700$822.50
Spindle Dining Chair ×6$150$176.25

Split by what each piece was already estimated to cost, so a table is worth the same number of chairs after the correction as it was before it. An even split across 7 pieces would have put $268.57 on the table and on every chair alike.

Written onto order #1042, still open
$1,600$1,880Cost carried on the order, Isabella Rossi
51.8%43.4%$1,440Real margin, on revenue excluding tax

Where does that cost go once the run lands?

Onto the products it made

Each product and variant the run produced takes its own share as its new cost, so the next quote starts from what the workshop charged this time rather than from what you guessed last time.

Onto the orders still open

Every line on an order still in production that is still carrying the old estimate takes the new figure, and the margin on that order moves with it — the same day the batch arrives, not at the month's close.

Onto nothing that was already decided

A cost someone typed by hand on an order is a decision and is left alone. Delivered orders keep the margin they booked: history does not get rewritten because a later run cost more.

Why doesn't an invoicing or inventory tool do this?

An invoicing tool knows the price and has never been told the cost, so the margin it can show you is the whole price. An inventory or manufacturing tool does know costs, but it holds one cost per item and averages every purchase into it — which is the right answer for a shelf of identical units and the wrong one for a run quoted separately each time, because it means March's run quietly rewrites what June's order earned. A spreadsheet can do any of this once, by hand, for one batch; what it cannot do is find the four orders that were still open when the invoice came in and correct them too.

The gap is not costing. It is that a made-to-order price is set before anyone knows what the piece will cost, so the cost has to travel backwards to the order that was already sold — and almost nothing is built to let it.

What Ordamo doesn't do

Named plainly, the way every feature page on this site names its own limits. And one that is not a limit so much as a shortcut: if you make everything in-house there is no invoice to split, so skip batches, put the cost straight on the product, and the real margin per order still comes out.

No bill of materials

Costs enter at batch level, not at material level. Ordamo does not track metres of fabric or kilos of oak, and it cannot tell you that the oak went up 9% — only that this run cost more than the last one did.

A batch has to have arrived

Until a run is marked received and has a cost recorded against it, there is nothing to write back and Ordamo says so instead of estimating. An open run has no real cost yet, by definition.

Nothing re-costs itself

The write-back is a button, and it lists every product and every order it would change before it changes them. Your product costs do not move while you are looking the other way.

Questions people ask about batch costs

What does cost per batch actually mean?+

It is what one production run cost in total: the money paid to the workshop, plus the freight, hardware, customs and anything else tagged to that run. It is counted once — the workshop payments are mirrored into your expenses automatically, and Ordamo excludes those mirrored rows so the same money is not added twice.

How is a batch cost split across the pieces it made?+

By what each piece was already estimated to cost, not evenly. A run of one table and six chairs did not cost the same per chair as per table, so every estimate is scaled by one common factor and the relative cost of a table against a chair survives untouched. Only where the lines carry no estimate at all does the split fall back to an even one per piece.

What is real margin per order?+

Revenue on the order excluding tax, minus the cost carried on that order's own lines. It is real rather than forecast because the cost on those lines is what the run actually cost, not the estimate the quote was written from.

Does the real cost update orders I have already sold?+

Yes, as long as they are still open. Every line on an order still in production that is still carrying the old estimate takes the new figure, and the order's margin moves with it. A cost someone typed in by hand is left alone, and delivered orders keep the margin they booked.

What if I make everything in-house instead of paying a workshop?+

Then there is no invoice to split, so skip batches: put the cost straight on the product and the real margin per order still comes out. Batches exist for the runs you pay someone else for — one invoice covering twelve pieces, divided across them.

Does Ordamo track raw materials?+

No. Costs enter at batch level, not at material level: no metres of fabric, no kilos of oak, no lot numbers. Ordamo can tell you this run cost more than the last one, not which material moved.

Read more on what a run costs and where the margin goes

What belongs in a batch's cost, the line that gets counted twice, and why an even split is the wrong answerRead the guide →
Measuring the gap between the price you quoted and the cost that landed, order by orderRead the guide →

Ordamo. One order, from deposit to delivery

Built for orders that take weeks to deliver, start in a message and get paid in parts.

01

Add a customer and their order

Deposit taken, balance still owed, and the date you promised.

02

Send your customer their order page

One link that updates itself, instead of twenty messages.

03

Record what the batch cost

What a run really cost, over the pieces it produced. One button puts that on the products it made.

04

See what you actually made

Revenue, cost and margin per order. Money in, money out, cash on hand.

Try it now →One plan, $29 a month. $0 today, first charge after 14 days, cancel in one click.
Ordamo · Order #1042
Isabella RossiIn productionSent to the client · 3 views
Deposit in · 1 AugBatch B-07 cost · 22 AugBalance in · due 26 Sep+$1,660−$1,880+$1,925.60half of $3,320this order's sharepending
Real margin$1,44043.4%forecast until the balance is in
7 items · Larch Dining Table ×1 · Spindle Dining Chair ×6Subtotal$3,320Tax 8%$265.60Order total$3,585.60
Ordamo · Order #1042
Isabella RossiIn production
Deposit · 1 Aughalf of $3,320+$1,660
Batch B-07 · 22 Augthis order's share−$1,880
Balance · due 26 Seppending+$1,925.60
Real marginforecast until the balance is in$1,44043.4%
7 items · Larch Dining Table ×1 · Spindle Dining Chair ×6Sent to the client · 3 viewsSubtotal$3,320Tax 8%$265.60Order total$3,585.60

See what the run cost, on every order it touched.

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