User Guide: Purchase Order Financial Features

This guide explains how to manage shipping, taxes, discounts, adjustments, landed cost, and margins on your purchase orders.

1. Overview

Assisty provides comprehensive financial tracking on every purchase order:

• Shipping cost with optional shipping tax
• Discounts (fixed amount or percentage) and adjustments (fees or credits)
• Tax types configurable per supplier and per line item
• Landed cost — the true cost of each product including allocated shipping and adjustments
• Margin analysis — selling price vs. cost and landed cost margin per item
• Column customization — choose which financial columns are visible

All financial fields are calculated automatically and reflected in exports (PDF, Excel, CSV) and email attachments.

2. Shipping Cost

Adding Shipping Cost

1. Open a PO in Draft or Pending Approval status.
2. Click Edit Financials (or the pencil icon in the Order Summary section).
3. The Financial Edit Dialog opens.
4. Enter the Shipping Cost amount.
5. Optionally set a Shipping Tax Rate (percentage) — the shipping tax is calculated automatically.
6. Click Save.

How Shipping Affects Totals

Grand Total = Subtotal + Item Tax + Shipping + Shipping Tax - Discount + Adjustment

Shipping cost is also used in the landed cost calculation (allocated across items).

3. Discounts and Adjustments

Discounts

You can apply a PO-level discount in two ways:

• Fixed amount — e.g., $50 off the subtotal
• Percentage — e.g., 10% off the subtotal

The discount reduces the effective cost of items, which affects the landed cost calculation per IAS 2 / ASC 330 accounting standards.

Adjustments

Adjustments are additional fees or credits applied to the PO:

• Positive amount — an additional fee (e.g., handling charge, inspection fee)
• Negative amount — a credit (e.g., supplier rebate, early payment discount)
• Adjustment note — optional description of what the adjustment is for

How to Add Discounts and Adjustments

1. Open the Financial Edit Dialog (same as shipping).
2. Set the Discount Amount and choose Fixed or Percentage.
3. Set the Adjustment Amount (positive for fees, negative for credits).
4. Optionally add an Adjustment Note.
5. Click Save.

4. Tax Configuration

Setting Up Tax Types

1. Go to Adjust Settings > Purchase Orders.
2. Select the Tax Setup tab.
3. Here you can:

• Create new tax types (e.g., GST 10%, VAT 20%, HST 13%)
• Edit existing tax types (name and rate)
• Set a default tax type for your store
• Deactivate tax types you no longer use

Tax rates are stored as decimals (e.g., 0.10 for 10%) and displayed as percentages in the UI.

Supplier Default Tax Type

Each supplier can have a default tax type that's automatically applied to all PO items:

1. Go to Create Purchase Orders > Supplier Management.
2. Open a supplier's detail page.
3. In the Financial section, select a Default Tax Type.
4. All new POs for this supplier will automatically apply this tax type to every item.

This works across all 5 PO creation methods:

• Creating from the Supplier Detail page
• Creating from the Buying Table
• Creating from the Buying Calendar
• Automated PO generation
• CSV import

Per-Item Tax on PO Detail

On the PO detail page (when the Tax column is enabled):

• Each line item shows its tax type and tax rate
• Click the tax dropdown to change the tax type for a specific item
• Bulk Apply — apply a tax type to all items at once
• Clear All — remove tax from all items

Tax is excluded from landed cost — it does not affect the landed cost calculation.

5. Landed Cost

What Is Landed Cost?

Landed cost is the true cost of each product, factoring in shipping and adjustments allocated across all items. It gives you a more accurate picture of what each product actually costs to acquire.

Calculation Methods

You can choose between two methods in Adjust Settings > Purchase Orders > Landed Cost tab:

Per-Value Allocation (default):

Discounted Subtotal = Subtotal - Discount
Landed Cost Ratio   = (Discounted Subtotal + Shipping + Adjustment) / Discounted Subtotal
Per-Item Landed Cost = Unit Price x Discount Factor x Landed Cost Ratio

This method allocates more shipping/adjustment cost to expensive items proportionally.

Per-Unit Allocation:

Shipping Per Unit    = Shipping / Total Units
Adjustment Per Unit  = Adjustment / Total Units
Per-Item Landed Cost = (Unit Price x Discount Factor) + Shipping Per Unit + Adjustment Per Unit

This method distributes shipping and adjustments equally across all units regardless of price.

When Is Landed Cost Calculated?

Landed cost is automatically calculated when:

• A PO is created (including auto-generated POs)
• Financial data is updated (shipping, discount, adjustment changes)
• Items are added, removed, or quantities change

Viewing Landed Cost

1. Enable the Landed Cost column in Adjust Settings > Purchase Orders > Line Item Columns.
2. On the PO detail page, each item shows its landed cost value.
3. Click on a landed cost value to see the breakdown popover.

Landed Cost Breakdown

Clicking a landed cost value shows how it's composed:

Per-Value method:

Per-Unit method:

Landed Cost in Order Summary

The Order Summary section shows:

• Landed Cost Ratio — the multiplier applied to each item (per-value method)
• Avg Landed Cost / Unit — the average landed cost across all items

Both show formula tooltips on hover.

6. Margin Analysis

Per-Item Margin

When enabled, each line item can show:

• Margin (%) — simple margin based on selling price vs. unit cost

  Margin % = (Selling Price - Unit Cost) / Selling Price x 100

• Landed Margin (%) — margin based on selling price vs. landed cost

  Landed Margin % = (Selling Price - Landed Cost) / Selling Price x 100

Margins are color-coded:

• Green — healthy margin (above threshold)
• Yellow — moderate margin
• Red — low or negative margin

Order Summary Margins

The Order Summary section shows aggregate profitability:

• Total Revenue — sum of selling price x quantity for all items
• Total Margin — total revenue minus total cost
• Average Margin % — across all items
• Landed Margin % — margin accounting for landed cost

Enabling Margin Columns

Margin columns are hidden by default. To enable them:

1. Go to Adjust Settings > Purchase Orders > Line Item Columns.
2. Toggle on Margin and/or Landed Margin.
3. The columns will appear on all PO detail pages.

7. Column Customization

All financial columns (tax, landed cost, margin, shipping/unit, adjustment/unit) are hidden by default and must be enabled in settings before they appear on PO detail pages and exports.

To enable financial columns: go to Adjust Settings > Purchase Orders > Line Item Columns and toggle on the columns you need.

For the complete guide on column customization, including custom columns, metafields, drag-and-drop reordering, and export behavior, see: Customizing Purchase Order Line Item Columns.

8. Order Summary

The Order Summary section on every PO detail page provides a comprehensive financial overview:

The summary section is collapsible and always reflects the current state of the PO.

9. Tips and Best Practices

• Set supplier tax types once: Configure the default tax type on each supplier profile. All future POs automatically apply the correct tax.

• Use per-value allocation for mixed-price POs: When your PO has items at very different price points, per-value allocation distributes costs more fairly (expensive items get more of the shipping cost).

• Use per-unit allocation for uniform items: When all items are similarly priced, per-unit allocation gives a simpler, more intuitive breakdown.

• Enable only the columns you need: Financial columns are hidden by default. Enable landed cost and margin only if you actively use them — this keeps the PO detail page readable.

• Check landed cost before receiving: The landed cost is what gets synced to Shopify's "Cost per item" on receive. Review it to ensure accurate inventory valuation.

• Use adjustments for one-off charges: Inspection fees, customs duties, or supplier credits — use the adjustment field with a note for clear record-keeping.

• Tax is excluded from landed cost: This follows IAS 2 / ASC 330 accounting standards. Tax is tracked separately and does not inflate your product costs.

For general PO management (statuses, receiving, returns, etc.), see: Understanding and Managing Purchase Order Details.

For multi-currency support, see: Multi-Currency Purchase Orders.

Updated on: 26/03/2026