Overview

Unit Cost on a purchase order (PO) line item is the price per unit you pay your supplier for that SKU. You can enter or change it in two places: while creating or editing a PO (on the PO form), and directly on a saved PO's line-items table (inline editing). Visibility and editing rights are controlled by your account permissions.

Note: Whether you can see or edit Unit Cost depends on two role permissions, both under Settings → Roles → Permissions → SKU Unit Cost:

  • "Show / hide SKU unit costs" controls whether the column appears at all.
  • "Update SKU Unit Cost" controls whether you can edit it once it's visible.

Ask an admin to grant these if you don't see the column.

1. Entering unit cost while creating or editing a PO

  1. Go to Inventory → Purchase Orders and click Create Purchase Order, or open an existing PO and click Edit.
  2. On the Add Purchase Order Items step, add a line item by searching for and selecting a SKU.
  • When you select a SKU, Luminous automatically fills in the Unit Cost field. It uses the supplier-specific unit cost for that SKU if one is saved; otherwise it falls back to the product's base price.
  1. The Unit Cost column appears in the line items table. Click directly into the field and type the correct cost to override the auto-filled value.
  2. The Line Total column updates automatically as you change Qty or Unit Cost.
  3. To remove a cost you entered, simply type a new value. Clearing the field back to 0 is also valid.
  4. Continue through the form and save the PO as usual.

Multi-currency POs

When multi-currency is enabled for your account and the PO's supplier currency differs from your base currency, you'll see two Unit Cost columns labeled with the actual currency codes — for example "Unit Cost (EUR)" and "Unit Cost (USD)" — rather than generic labels. Editing the foreign-currency column recalculates the base-currency column automatically using the PO's exchange rate:

  • Unit Cost (foreign currency) – editable; enter the cost in the PO's currency.
  • Unit Cost (base currency) – read-only; calculated automatically from the exchange rate.

Edit only the foreign-currency column; the base-currency value updates automatically.

Bulk CSV upload

When uploading line items from a CSV file, include a Unit Cost column in your upload template. Values in that column are applied to each matched line item during import.

2. Editing unit cost on a saved PO (inline grid editing)

After a PO has been saved, you can update unit cost directly from the PO detail page without going back into the full edit form.

  1. Purchase Orders → Line Items (list view)
  2. Double-click a Unit Cost cell to enter edit mode then type the new value. Click elsewhere or press Tab to save. A single click only selects the cell.
  3. Individual PO detail page: Unit Cost is currently view-only here and can't be edited inline, regardless of your permissions.
  4. To change a line's cost, use the Line Items list view instead.

Tips

  • Unit Cost on a new line defaults to 0 if you add a blank row without selecting a SKU first. Select the SKU first so the auto-fill can run.
  • Re-selecting the same SKU on a saved PO preserves the unit cost already recorded on that line, so switching back to the same product does not accidentally overwrite a cost you previously entered.
  • Line Total is always calculated as Unit Cost × Quantity (minus any down-payment amount on that line). Changing either value recalculates the total live.
  • UOM conversion: if the line's ordered unit of measure differs from the SKU's base unit, Luminous converts the displayed unit cost to match the ordered UOM. The conversion is shown live in the form.