Your COGs Dashboard is a comprehensive overview of your cost of goods reporting that allows you to track and analyse your financial performance.
Why Track Your COGS?
Simply put, your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is how much you spend on ingredients and products to make what you sell.
Think of it this way: if you sell a coffee for £3 but the milk, beans, and cup cost £1.50, then your COGS is £1.50. The lower your COGS, the more profit you keep.
Tracking your COGS weekly helps you:
Spot waste before it kills your profits
Price items correctly so you're not losing money on every sale
Order smarter to avoid over-buying or running out
Catch problems early like portion sizes creeping up or ingredients going missing
This dashboard shows you exactly where your money is going, so you can fix problems fast and keep more profit in your pocket
Reports Overview
You can find your reports by going to Reports > COGs Dashboard on the lefthand menu.
Your COGS Dashboard contains several reports, each designed for different analysis needs:
Daily Flash Report - Daily performance snapshot
Consolidated COGS - Multi-site comparison
Single Site COGS - Deep dive into one location
COGS Variance - Product-level analysis
Line Level COGS - Individual product performance
Universal Controls:
Date Selector: Choose your review period
Site Selector: View specific sites or all sites (where available)
Download: Export most reports to CSV (Flash Report excluded)
COGs Reports Explained
Daily Flash Report
Get an at-a-glance view of your daily business performance.
Metrics
Total Sales: Total revenue for the time range selected. You’ll see it broken down underneath between "Store" sales and "Subscriptions" if you have them (please note, this is exclusive of discounts)
Total Wages: Labour costs split between hourly and salary staff
Gross Margin: Profit after subtracting cost of sales
Operational Profit: Bottom line after wages and expenses
Cost of Sale: Theoretical cost of goods sold (number and %)
ATV: Average transaction value
Discounts: Totals any promotions or markdowns applied
Waste: Total losses from wasted stock logged in Edify
Additional Features
Loyalty Metrics: Daily users, subscribers, and utilisation rates
Labour Reporting: Sales vs labour cost visualisation (requires rota integration)
Controls: Date range, site selection, net/gross toggle, scheduled/timesheet labour view
Consolidated COGs
Perfect for multi-site operators to compare performance across locations and identify variance outliers.
Metrics
Field Name | Explainer |
Net Sales | The Net Sales per site |
Actual Cost | Actual cost of goods per site |
Actual % | Actual costs as % of sales |
Theoretical Cost | Expected cost based on recipes |
Theoretical % | Theoretical costs as % of sales |
Var Cost | Cost difference (Actual - Theoretical) |
Var % | Percentage variance |
Opening ST | The opening stocktake within the date range selected |
Closing ST | The closing stocktake within the date range selected |
Single Site COGs
Deep dive into individual location performance with category-level P&L breakdown.
Warning Alerts ⚠️ -Red flags indicate data issues (like large differences in stocktakes) that may be affecting your calculations
Metrics
Total Net Sales: Your revenue for the period
Theoretical: What you should have spent based on sales and recipes
Actual COGS: What you actually spent, calculated as:
✏️ (Opening Stock + Purchases + Transfers In - Transfers Out - Waste) - Closing Stock = Actual Usage
Important - A large gap between Theoretical and Actual COGS often indicates waste issues, incorrect recipes, or POS Matching problems.
If you're unable to identify the issue yourself, please get in touch with our support team via LiveChat who will be able to assist you.
COGS Breakdown (Class level)
View performance by Class including opening/closing stock, purchases, transfers, COGS percentage, gross margins, and sales.
Note: COGS only calculates for classes with recorded sales. Items like cleaning products may show as 0.
Sales recorded for 'unassigned' Class are either sales for POS Items which have not yet been matched to a Product/Recipe and so a Class cannot be determined. Or, the related products do not have a Class set.
Changing a Product or Recipes Class
If you change the Class assigned to a product or recipe (e.g., from "Food" to "Beverage"), it affects how costs appear in your COGS Breakdown.
What happens:
Submitted stocktakes: Don't update—they keep the original Class
Purchases and transfers: Update immediately to the new Class
Closing stocktake: Uses the new Class
Result: Costs are temporarily split between two Classes in your breakdown:
Opening stocktake shows costs under the original Class
Purchases, transfers, and closing stocktake show costs under the new Class
When it resolves: After two complete stocktakes with the new Class, all costs will appear under the new Class only.
Metrics
Field Name | Explainer |
Opening Stocktake | Total starting stock value for the category. |
Purchases & Transfers | Total new stock value added/transferred during the week. |
Closing Stocktake | Total remaining stock value at the end of the time period |
COGS (£) | Total calculated cost of goods sold for the class |
COGS (%) | Total cost of goods sold as a percentage of net sales for the category |
Gross Margin (%) | The profitability of the category |
Sales | The total revenue generated by the category |
💡 Why is my Actual Cost different in my Consolidated COGs report to my Single Site COGs report?
The Consolidated COGs report does not include Waste in its actual cost calculation.
In the Single Site COGs report we include Waste by default.
This means the Actual Cost may be slightly different between the two reports.
You can use the include waste toggle to exclude Waste from the Single Site COGs if required.
COGs Variance
Using this report you can identify which specific products are over or under-performing:
Understanding Variances:
Negative variance (-): Using less than expected (check stocktakes)
Positive variance : Using more than expected (check for waste, spillage, over-portioning)
Note: "All Sites" view not available for variance reports.
Metrics
Field Name | Explainer |
Product Name | The Line Level Item, such as "2L Whole Milk" or "Roasted Coffee Beans." |
Product Class | Categories - ie. Beverage, Food, Retail, and Other. |
Pack Type | The type of packaging the product is ordered by (ie. bottle, carton, case) |
Theoretical Usage | The amount of the product that should have been used based on your sales (dictated by the linked recipe/product created in Edify). |
Theoretical Cost | The expected cost of the theoretical usage |
Waste | The amount of the product that was discarded or spoiled during the period. |
Transfers | Tracks any stock that was moved to another site. Find out more here about how transfers are reported in COGs based on sent date. |
Purchases | The amount of the product ordered and received during the reporting period. |
Inventory Start | The quantity of the product in stock at the beginning of the period. |
Inventory End | The quantity of the product remaining in stock at the end of the period. |
Inventory Change (%): | The difference between your last two stocktakes. |
Actual Usage | The amount of the product that was actually used during the period, based on what you purchased, counted in your stocktakes and wasted. |
Actual Cost | The real cost incurred based on the actual usage. |
Variance: | The difference between theoretical and actual usage. A positive variance (+%) indicates overuse (possibly due to unlogged waste, spillages, or over-portioning). A negative variance (-%) suggests underuse (potentia |
Variance Cost (£) | This outlines the financial impact of the variance, showing how much extra the overuse or underuse has cost you. |
Sub-Recipe Theoreticals
Sub-Recipes counted as part of stocktakes do not have a theoretical cost within the COGs variance, this is because the cost will have been accounted for by the usage of the component ingredients.
For example, you might make a sub-recipe 'Mayonnaise Sauce' that uses Eggs.
The Mayonnaise Sauce is used in a Club Sandwich.
When the Club Sandwich is sold, we recognise the Mayonnaise Sauce sub-recipe used within it and calculate the exact quantity of Eggs required and this reflects in the theoretical cost of Eggs.
Troubleshooting Variances
When you spot unusual variances, check these in order:
Recipe Accuracy: Click "Theoretical Usage" to verify correct quantities and units
Stocktake Accuracy: Were opening/closing counts correct?
Purchase Records: Are all deliveries recorded with correct dates?
Waste & Transfers: Are all movements properly logged?
Line Level COGs
This table provides a detailed breakdown of your costs and sales at the individual product/recipe level. You’re able to see what specific products are being sold, the total net sales within a timeframe, and the profit margin.
Important: When viewing 'All Sites' on Line Level COGs we do not differentiate the data in the table by site - all data is grouped together.
Controls
Date Selector: Choose the date range you'd like to review
Site Selector: View data for a specific site, or look at all your sites together
Metrics
Field Name | Explainer |
POS Name | The name of the product as it appears in your Point of Sale (POS) system. |
Modifier | Variations or customisations added to a product that's sold (i.e different milk types for coffee drinks) |
Edify Name | Name for the product/recipe set in Edify |
Product Class | The category of the product/recipe (i.e "Beverage" or "Food") |
QTY Sold | The total number of units sold during the selected period |
Cost per Unit | How much it costs to produce one unit of the product |
Total Cost | The total cost for all units sold |
Sale price per unit | The price at which one unit is sold to customers. |
Net Sales total | The total revenue earned from selling this product |
Gross Margin | The percentage of revenue remaining after product costs are subtracted (an indicator of profitability) |
Troubleshooting Costs
The Line Level Data reports are generated using information from your Recipes/Products and Sales Data. If you notice something doesn't look quite right with your report, make sure to check the following things first:
Is the product/recipe in Edify matched up to the item on your POS correctly?
Check your POS Dashboard and ensure the correct item and unit of measure have been linked - You'll see a "Missing❗️" error appear in the Edify Name column if you haven't yet matched anything to the item in Edify.
Are your Recipes set correctly in Edify?
Check the recipe ingredients and costs - has there been a mistake made? You can view this by clicking in the Edify Name Column.
If you've checked these and still can't identify the reason for the discrepancy, please reach out to our support team via LiveChat who will be able to assist.
Excluding Items from COGs Calculations
Clean up your COGs reports by excluding items that don't have theoretical usage (like cleaning products):
For Products:
Go to Supplier & Products > Suppliers > Products
Click Edit on the product
Tick Exclude from COGS calculations
For Recipes:
Go to Recipes > Edit
Tick Exclude from COGS calculations
These items will no longer be used within calculations throughout the COGs Dashboard.
Daily Flash Report
Your 'Cost of Sale' figure will not include any Products or Recipes that are excluded.
Consolidated COGs
Any Products or Recipes that are excluded will not be included in the 'Actual Cost' or 'Theoretical Cost' and so will not be calculated as part of the %s.
Single Site COGs
The total 'Theoretical' and 'Actual' figures shown exclude all Products and Recipes which have been excluded.
COGs Breakdown
The COGs breakdown table works slightly differently.
Even if a Product or Recipe has been excluded we will show the recorded costs for this in the following columns:
Opening Stocktake
Purchases
Transfers In
Transfers Out
Closing Stock
However, the cost of the excluded Product or Recipe will not be included in the 'Actual COGs' column; and so will not contribute to the 'Actual %'.
You can see what the Actual COGs would be if these products were included by hovering over the figure in the table. If a Class has no Products or Recipes excluded within it no figure will appear when you hover over Actual COGs.
💡 Note: if a Sub-recipe which is excluded from COGs is used within a Recipe which is not excluded from COGs the cost of the sub-recipe within the Recipe will be included in Theoretical and Actual costs, as well as the Actual COGs in the breakdown table.
COGs Variance
Any Products or Recipes that are excluded are not shown within this report.
Troubleshooting Exclusion Issues
If you are still seeing an Actual COGs value in the COGs Breakdown for a Class you believe you have fully excluded:
Check that all products and recipes within this Class do have 'Exclude from COGs' ticked
Check if any products or recipes which are not excluded from COGs have recently had their Class changed. See the above guidance for why this would impact the costs shown in the Breakdown Table.
Important Notes
Important Notes
All Sites View: Only available for Line Level COGS and Flash Reports (not Weekly COGS)
Price Changes: Historical stocktakes won't change, but theoretical costs will update retroactively
Data Issues: If numbers don't look right after checking the above, contact support via LiveChat
Downloads: It's possible to download all reports except the Flash Report into a CSV format, just click the orange download button
Default site: If you have a Home Site set on your Edify User profile you'll be shown this site by default on COGs