Overview
Luminous lets you attach estimated extra costs — such as freight, import duties, handling fees, or tariffs — to a Purchase Order. These costs are tracked as estimates until goods are received; they flow automatically to any shipments and receiving reports tied to that PO, where they become part of your finalized landed cost.
Note: The Extra Costs section on a PO is part of the Cost Rules feature. If you do not see it on your PO form, contact Luminous support to confirm the feature is enabled for your account.
Viewing Extra Costs on a Purchase Order
- Go to Inventory → Purchase Orders and open any existing PO.
- Select the Extra Costs tab on the PO detail page.
- The table shows each extra cost row with its Reference #, Item name, Cost Allocation method, Qty, Unit Price, Line Total, and whether it is flagged as an Additional Fee (counted in the PO total) or an estimate (not counted).
- Two subtotals appear at the bottom:
- Estimates (not in PO total) — costs that inform your landed-cost calculation but are not billed.
- Additional fees (in PO total) — costs included in the PO's payable total.
Adding Extra Costs Manually
- Open a PO and click Edit (or create a new PO), go to the Add Purchase Order Items step, and scroll to the Extra Costs section below the line items.
- Click Add Item(s) and choose Add 1 Item or Add 5 Items.
- Fill in each row:
- Reference # — optional internal reference (e.g., an invoice or quote number).
- Item — a descriptive name such as "Ocean Freight" or "Import Duty."
- Cost Allocation — how the cost will be spread across products (e.g., by unit, value, weight, or volume).
- Filters — click the filter icon to scope this cost to specific product Categories, Tags, Internal SKUs, or Supplier SKUs. Only products matching at least one selected filter will have the cost allocated to them.
- Qty and Unit Price — together these determine the Line Total.
- Add as fee checkbox — check this to include the line in the PO's billable total. Leave it unchecked to keep it as a cost estimate only.
- Click Save Extra Costs (or the main PO Save button) to persist your changes.
Applying Extra Costs Automatically via Cost Rules
If your team has configured Cost Rules (under Inventory → Inventory Admin → Cost Rules), Luminous can suggest or automatically apply extra costs whenever a PO meets a rule's conditions.
- Click Preview cost-rule extra costs in the Extra Costs section header to load any applicable rule-generated charges. The button shows a count of available suggestions.
- Rows generated by a rule are tagged From rule so you can distinguish them from manually-entered costs.
- If a rule has Auto-apply on save turned on, matching charges are added automatically each time the PO is saved — no preview step needed.
See Using Cost Rules in Luminous and Automatically add freight, duty, and handling charges to purchase orders for full setup instructions.
How Extra Costs Flow to Shipments and Receiving
Once saved on a PO, extra costs cascade automatically:
- PO → Shipment: When a shipment is created from the PO, the PO's extra costs carry over to that shipment.
- Shipment → Receiving Report: When goods are received, extra costs are allocated proportionally across the items on the receiving report using the allocation method you chose (unit, value, weight, or volume).
- Landed Cost: The final per-unit landed cost includes the purchase price plus each item's allocated share of extra costs. This is the value recorded in your inventory.
For details on how costs are split across partial receipts, see How Extra Costs are Distributed to Partial Receipts.
Filtering PO Line Items by Shipment Extra Costs
In the cross-PO Purchase Orders → Line Items grid, you can filter lines by their associated shipment extra costs total using the Shipment Extra Costs Total filter. This filter is not shown as a visible column by default — open the column/filter panel to access it.
Bulk Importing Purchase Orders: Extra Costs Are Not Supported in the Import File
The standard PO bulk import (CSV/spreadsheet) supports the following fields:
| Column | Required? |
|---|---|
| Alternate PO ID | Yes |
| Supplier Name | Yes |
| Order Date | Yes |
| Master SKU | Yes |
| Quantity | Yes |
| Unit Cost | Yes |
| Request Ship Date, Ship Date, Arrival Date, Warehouse, Status, Finance Status, Payment Terms, Logistic Code/Label, Tracking Info, Order Type, Public/Private Notes, Custom fields | Optional |
Extra costs (freight, duties, fees) cannot be included in the bulk import file. There is no import column for them. After your POs are imported, open each PO individually and add extra costs manually in the Extra Costs section, or configure Cost Rules to apply them automatically on save.
Tips
- Estimates vs. fees: Use the Add as fee checkbox only for costs your supplier will invoice you for. Leave it unchecked for internal cost-tracking estimates (e.g., a projected duty you haven't been billed yet).
- Clearing fees: If you need to remove all additional-fee flags at once, click Clear additional fees in the Extra Costs section header.
- Cost rules save time: If the same freight or duty charge applies to many POs from the same supplier, set up a Cost Rule once instead of typing it on every PO.