👩🏫Setting Up Costs and Expenses
Bloom empowers you to track and analyze your Shopify store's expenses, providing crucial insights for profit-oriented decision-making.
Last updated
Bloom empowers you to track and analyze your Shopify store's expenses, providing crucial insights for profit-oriented decision-making.
Last updated
Here's how to set up various cost categories:
To access this section, simply click on the “Expenses” option in the Bloom app left navigation panel.
Bloom tracks these five costs associated with Shopify operations:
Product Cost
Gateway Cost
Order Handling Costs
Shipping Cost
Other Costs
Here’s a detailed breakdown of these costs:
Knowing the true cost of each product is the foundation of profit analysis. Without it, you cannot determine your profit margin per item or identify your most profitable products. Bloom lets you understand the interplay between Shopify costs, manually added costs, and the import/export process for accurate product cost calculation.
-> In the Expenses page, find the Product Cost section.
-> Hover over a variant's existing "Bloom cost" in the table.
-> Click the Edit (pencil) icon.
-> A modal window will open with a form: Enter the new Amount. Specify the Start Date and End Date for this specific cost. Click Save.
-> You can also add multiple costs across different date-ranges for the same variant by clicking on the “Add Cost” button in the same form.
For bulk updates, follow these steps:
Exporting the Product Cost CSV
-> In the Expenses page, locate the Product Cost section.
-> Click the Export CSV button.
-> This downloads a CSV file with columns:
Product_title
Variant_title
SKU
Product_id
Variant_id
Shopify_cost
Bloom_cost
Editing the CSV
Open the CSV in a spreadsheet program (e.g., Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets).
Focus on the bloom_cost column.
Enter the desired cost values for each product variant. Leave the bloom_cost blank if you want to use the shopify_cost.
Importing the CSV
After editing, save your changes to the CSV file.
On the Expenses page (Product Cost section), click Import CSV.
Select the updated CSV file and upload it.
Bloom will overwrite existing 'Bloom cost' values with the new data from your CSV.
Multiple Costs per Variant: You can add multiple cost values for a single variant, each with its own date range. This helps track its cost variations over time (Ex: Price change due to input price changes).
Prioritization: Bloom's profit calculations smartly prioritize costs based on the order date:
For an order within a specific date range, the corresponding cost value is used.
Bloom uses the most recently added cost if no matching cost entry is found.
Data Integrity: Ensure you only modify the bloom_cost column in the CSV. Changes to other columns might lead to unexpected results.
Regular Review: Periodically review your product costs, especially if your supplier costs or pricing strategies change.
Review Shopify Costs: Start by verifying the "cost per item" values set up within your Shopify store.
Filter Products: Apply a range of filters to identify products without a "cost per item" value in Shopify for quick updates.
Add/Override Costs in Bloom: Add product costs directly within Bloom if you want. These take priority over Shopify costs during profit calculations.
By adding the right mix of automation and manual, custom product cost value to your profit analysis, Bloom ensures there’s no room for error in arriving at your profit figures.
Payment gateway costs are a crucial influence on your profitability. Bloom profit analysis includes this cost, right from the moment payout data is collected. Get to know your gateway costs for every transaction, and how it’s affecting your revenue.
The costs included here are:
If you use Shopify’s default payment gateway, all applicable fees for transactions through it are imported automatically.
For fees applied by third-party payment gateways, like PayPal, you can choose to let Bloom update them automatically.
If you wish to add values manually, then follow these steps:
-> Click on the Add Gateways Cost button.
-> Select your gateway from the list of options in the dropdown menu. If it’s unavailable, contact customer support.
-> Add the Percentage Fee.
-> Add the Fixed Fee.
-> Click Save.
Fulfilment activities like order packaging and handling can incur expenses that can cut away at your profits. Bloom accounts for these costs during profit analysis to give you accurate profit values, along with insights into how you can reduce them, like updating product prices and improving operational efficiency.
Cost Basis: Choose between Cost per Order or Cost per Item.
Global Setting: You can apply this cost structure across your Shopify store.
Shipping products with charges like shipping label fees included can affect profit margins. Bloom considers all costs that fall under shipping to perform accurate profit analysis. Insights from this can be used to set competitive shipping charges, including free shipping, an important factor customers consider during purchase.
Shopify Shipping
Merchants using Shopify for their shipping needs can simply enable the “Use Shopify shipping for shipping costs” option. Bloom will automatically sync with Shopify and retrieve this data.
Shipping Charges
Enable the “Use Shipping charged for shipping costs” option if your shipping costs equal what you’ve charged customers for shipping.
Bloom adds the miscellaneous expenses a Shopify merchant incurs as part of routine store operations, like rent, salaries, utilities, etc. This ensures that your profit analysis doesn’t miss these costs. Insights from their analyses gives the full picture of your overheads, helping spot opportunities to save costs.
Custom Expenses
Add costs that are unique to your store.
Adding Other Costs
Click on Add Other Costs
Choose the cost type
Fixed Cost: Add expense name, amount, frequency (one time, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly), category (marketing, salaries, rent, etc.), start date, and end date (optional).
Based on Percentage: Add expense name, percentage of total sales, frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.), category (marketing, salaries, rent, etc.), start date and end date (optional)
Click on Save
Accurate cost setup in Bloom is essential for:
Real Profit Margins: Accurately accounting for every expense is the only way to measure your true profit margins and prevent decisions based on incorrect profit figures.
Informed Pricing Strategies: Knowing the cost per product is key to setting prices that achieve your target profit margins.
Cost Management: By tracking expenses in detail, you can identify and address areas where costs exceed expectations, boosting your bottom line.