Benchtop
Understanding your Benchtop reports
The Reports page answers two questions that every maker has to face sooner or later:
- What is my stock worth right now?
- What did the products I sold this year cost me to make?
The first is useful all year round. The second is the number your tax return asks for. Benchtop works both out from the materials, recipes, and batches you have already entered, so there is very little new for you to do.
Reports are part of Benchtop Pro. If you are on the free plan you will see what the reports do and a link to upgrade. Your numbers are always yours; upgrading simply unlocks the page.
Part 1: What your stock is worth
At the top of the page is a single figure: the total value of everything you have in stock today. It is split into two parts underneath.
- Materials in stock
- Every material you have on the shelf, valued at what it cost you. If you have 4,000 grams of wax that cost you a cent a gram, that is $40 of wax. Add up all your materials and that is your materials total.
- Finished products in stock
- Everything you have made but not yet sold. Each finished product is valued at the cost of the materials that went into it, using its recipe. Ten candles that cost you $3 each in materials are $30 of finished stock.
Everything is valued at what it cost you, never the price you sell it for. That is deliberate. Accountants call this your inventory value, and it is what you want when a lender, an insurer, or a tax form asks how much stock you are holding.
Keep it honest by keeping unit costs current. The whole report leans on the unit cost you set for each material. When a supplier changes their price, update that material so your stock value and your cost of goods stay true. Recording what you pay on a delivery (below) does this for you automatically.
Part 2: Recording what you pay for supplies
This is the one small habit that makes the tax report work. Whenever a delivery of supplies arrives, tell Benchtop what you paid.
Go to Materials, click Adjust stock on the material that arrived, enter how much came in as a positive number, and fill in Total paid. Benchtop does two things with that:
- It adds the amount to your purchases for the year, which is one of the three numbers your cost of goods needs.
- It updates that material's unit cost to what you just paid, so your stock value stays accurate.
Total paid is optional. If you are just correcting a count or logging some waste, leave it blank. Only fill it in when money actually changed hands for supplies. Do that every time supplies arrive and, by the end of the year, Benchtop has a complete record of what you spent, with no shoebox of receipts to add up.
Part 3: Cost of goods sold, in plain English
Cost of goods sold, sometimes shortened to COGS, sounds like accountant talk, and it is. But the idea is simple.
It is what the products you sold during the year cost you to make. Your tax is worked out on your profit, and your profit is your sales minus your costs. Cost of goods sold is the biggest of those costs for most makers, so the tax form asks for it directly.
The formula has three parts:
What you started the year with
plus
what you bought during the year
minus
what you had left at the end
equals
your cost of goods sold.
It works because anything you started with or bought, but did not still have at the end, must have gone out the door as a sold product. You do not have to track every single sale. You only need three numbers.
The three numbers
- Value of stock at the start of the year
- What all your stock was worth on the first day of the year. Accountants call this beginning inventory. If you used Benchtop last year, it is simply last year's ending value. Your first year, use your best estimate of what you were holding.
- What you bought during the year
- Benchtop fills this in for you from the deliveries you recorded a Total paid for. This is why Part 2 matters.
- Value of stock at the end of the year
- What all your stock was worth on the last day of the year. Accountants call this ending inventory. For the current year, Benchtop prefills this with today's stock value. For a year that has already finished, you enter what you were holding on its last day.
A worked example
Say you make candles, and for the year just gone:
- You started January with $800 of stock.
- You bought $3,200 of wax, jars, wicks, and oils during the year.
- You ended December with $1,100 of stock still on the shelf.
Your cost of goods sold is:
$800 at the start, plus $3,200 bought, minus $1,100 left over
= $2,900 cost of goods sold.
That $2,900 is what the candles you actually sold cost you to make. If you took in $9,000 of sales, your gross profit is $6,100, before your other expenses like fees and shipping. That is the shape of the number your accountant is after.
On the Reports page you pick the year, check the purchases total, type in your start and end stock values, and click Calculate. Benchtop shows the result and the sum behind it, ready to hand over.
What to do at tax time
- Open Reports and choose the tax year.
- Check the purchases table looks right. If you missed logging a delivery, add it now on the Materials page.
- Enter your start of year stock value (last year's end value, if you have it).
- Confirm or enter your end of year stock value.
- Click Calculate, and give the result to your accountant along with your stock value figures.
This is not tax advice. Benchtop does the arithmetic from your own numbers. Your accountant confirms how your inventory should be valued for your situation and combines these figures with the rest of your records. When in doubt, hand them the numbers and let them place them on the return.
Common questions
How is this different from the cost guide?
The cost guide is about the cost of one product, so you can price it and see your margin. The reports are about your whole business over a whole year, for your accounts and your tax return. Different jobs, both built from the same materials and recipes.
Do I really have to record every purchase?
For the tax report to be complete, yes, record what you pay each time supplies arrive. It takes a few seconds on the Adjust stock screen and saves you totalling receipts later. If you forget one, you can add it any time before you file.
I did not track my purchases all year. Can I still use this?
You can. Add your deliveries now from your receipts or bank statement, or ask your accountant how they would like the purchases total worked out. From next year on, log deliveries as they arrive and it takes care of itself.
Which cost does it use if a material's price changed?
Stock is valued at the current unit cost you have set for each material. Recording Total paid on a delivery updates that cost to your latest price. If you want a stricter method, such as an average across the year, your accountant can adjust the figures; the report gives them a clear, consistent starting point.
Where do I find the reports?
Open Benchtop in your Shopify admin and click Reports in the top menu. It sits alongside Overview, Materials, Recipes, and Production.
Something else is unclear
Email [email protected] and tell us what tripped you up. A real person reads it, and it helps us make this clearer.