Why do I have units with missing costs?

If you have units with missing costs in InventoryIQ, check out this article to quickly identify and fix the cause.

Written by Emily Burrows
May 24, 2026

About

If you see a mission or a banner about units with missing costs while reviewing your InventoryIQ, it means Finaloop is missing key cost details. This happens when items are sold, used in an assembly, or transferred to another warehouse—but Finaloop doesn’t have records showing where these units originally came from.

This is usually due to:

• Missing or inaccurate purchase orders (POs)
• Missing assemblies
• Missing warehouse transfers
• Incorrect opening balance errors.

Don’t worry! We’ll walk you through exactly how to identify and fix these issues.

Why do I have units with missing costs?

Finaloop calculates your cost of goods sold (COGS) using a first-in, first-out (FIFO) method. If cost data is missing for a product you sold, Finaloop assumes a cost of $0, which leads to inaccurate COGS.

Units with missing costs can occur when:

• Products are sold before their costs are recorded
• Warehouse transfers are missing
• Opening balances weren’t entered correctly
• Assemblies weren’t recorded for bundled or manufactured items

To fix this, we need to check for missing data in these key areas:

1. Incorrect opening balances
2. Missing POs
3. Unrecorded warehouse transfers
4. Missing or misdated assemblies

Reviewing your units with missing costs

1. Go to the Products page.
2. Toggle on “Products with missing cost units”
3. Review the expanded columns, which show:
   • On-hand units
   • Units with missing costs
   • Average cost per unit
   • On-hand cost

You can also view this by warehouse by clicking on the > sign next to each SKU number or click the Expand warehouses option at the top of the Product list.

Once you’ve identified the affected products, use the steps below to resolve the issue.

How to fix units with missing costs

The Quick Fix Option

Sometimes, you may have units with missing costs that have an immaterial impact on your COGS – for example, if you have a product with just a few units with missing costs. In this case, you may want to consider a "quick fix" to get your numbers in order without doing the deep dive to identify the root cause of the issue.

We created our Quick Fix feature to adjust your inventory balance by adding the missing units with a cost. Think of it as a "theoretical purchase" happening just before the product is depleted (fulfilled, transferred to another warehouse, used in an assembly, etc.). In your P&L report, this adjustment will appear under Other Cost of Sales as part of your COGS.

Remember: The Quick Fix is meant to fix one-off immaterial units with missing costs. It acts as a bandaid but if this happens often or the adjustment is more than 10 units, we recommend checking your inventory records to identify the root cause and keep your inventory and COGS numbers completely accurate.

Let’s dive in to some of the most common use cases that can cause units with missing costs:

1. Duplicate SKUs for the Same Product

If the same product is purchased and sold under different SKUs, Finaloop may track purchases under one SKU while tracking sales under another. This leads to missing costs because the system doesn’t recognize them as the same item.

How to fix it:

• Check if the SKU showing missing costs has a duplicate SKU (for example, are you selling any of these Shopify products on Amazon as well? Maybe you have 2 different Shopify or Amazon accounts?).
• If they are the same product, merge them:
  1. Untoggle " Products with missing cost units" to view the full product list.
  2. Select both SKUs, click Actions > Merge products.
  3. After merging, check if warehouse transfers need to be recorded.
  4. For more details, check out the merge instructions here.

Pro tip: If you have the same products but the specifications are somewhat different, for example the same sweater but one is a size small and one is a large, these are NOT considered identical products and should not be merged.

If merging doesn’t apply or you still see units with missing costs, let’s move on to the next case.

2. Incorrect warehouse settings

If sales are being deducted from the wrong warehouse, it could cause units with missing costs.

InventoryIQ automatically syncs your order details from Shopify, Amazon (FBA and FBM), and any wholesale invoices created through Finaloop. We then reduce the quantity sold from the relevant warehouse based on the warehouse settings you set for each sales channel on your Warehouse page.

If it looks like the unit count in multiple warehouses is incorrect, your warehouse settings could be the issue.

How to fix it:

Shopify

1. Go to Inventory > Settings> Warehouses. Sometimes, when we sync warehouse data from Shopify, you may have the same warehouse under multiple names. If you see multiple instances of the same warehouse, just let us know and we can merge these warehouses for you.
2. Go to Customers>Orders>Settings tab. Check your revenue recognition status. If it says:
   • Order date – We reduce your on-hand units at the time of the order from the warehouse that is set as your default Shopify warehouse in Finaloop. To set up your default warehouses, check out this article.
   • Fulfillment date – Sales are recorded when fulfilled, based on the warehouses synced directly from Shopify. If something looks wrong, check your Shopify settings to ensure all fulfillment data is accurate. If there are one-off errors, fix it manually by clicking into the product on your Products page, clicking on the small COGS tab, and selecting the edit icon to adjust units fulfilled by the incorrect warehouse, reallocating them to the correct warehouse.

Amazon

• FBA - The default will always be a virtual warehouse we call Amazon FBA. This is set up automatically by our team.
• FBM - As part of your initial InventoryIQ setup, you should have set the default warehouse in Finaloop that we use for all fulfillment data from Amazon FBM. If you haven’t done this yet, check out this article on how to set up your warehouses.

3. Incorrect or missing opening balances

Missing or incorrect opening balances can cause units to appear with missing costs. Opening balances should reflect the correct starting inventory and cost per unit when you first set up InventoryIQ.

How to fix it:

1. On the Products page, toggle on More details(it’s located right next to the Actions button).
2. In the Opening balance column, check the opening balance for each of the products that have units with missing costs.
3. You can also view the opening balance by warehouse by clicking on the > sign next to each SKU number or click the Expand warehouses option at the top of the Product list.
4. If you spot an opening balance that’s off, click the product name to open its details.
5. From the individual product page, go to the small Purchases tab.
6. Scroll to the warehouse with the missing opening balance (if there is no opening balance, you’ll see an alert saying Missing opening balance.
7. Click the edit icon next to Missing opening balance or next to the actual opening balance and enter the correct opening balance and average cost per unit on your InventoryIQ start date. If your opening balances need updating for many products, you can also upload the opening balances in bulk by following the instructions here.
8. Save your changes.

4. Incorrect shipping status on POs

If a PO was received but not marked as "received" in Finaloop, units from that PO may not be counted properly, leading to missing costs. This may also happen if you marked the PO as received at a later date than it was actually received in your warehouse.

How to fix it:

1. Go to your Products page, toggle on More details(you can find it right under the Actions button).
2. Check the In-transit column. Do you see any items that have already arrived but still show as “in-transit”?
3. If yes, let’s update their status. Click into the product and click on the Purchases tab. Then, scroll down to the relevant warehouse and click on the > to expand the details.
4. Find the PO with an “in-transit” status next to the received date.
5. Click on the PO name and scroll down to the shipment. Click Mark as Received.
6. Enter the actual receipt date and click Save.

5. Missing POs or warehouse transfers

If a PO or warehouse transfer was never recorded, Finaloop won’t have cost data for those units.

How to fix it:

1. Go to your Products page.
2. Toggle the More details toggle to on.
3. Now, take a look at the Purchased column which shows all units received in a warehouse from POs, transfers from other warehouses, or assemblies. Are any POs or transfers missing here? Are the quantities of the relevant POs accurate?
4. Were there any POs or transfers from before your InventoryIQ start date that weren’t yet received by your InventoryIQ start date? We call these “historical POs” or “historical transfers” and you’ll need to add these manually since they aren’t part of your opening balance.

5. Have you added all transfers of stock between warehouses (including all transfers to Amazon FBA)? If one warehouse has a lot of on-hand units while another shows units with missing costs, you may be missing a transfer between warehouses.

6. Missing or incorrect assemblies

For assembled products (bundles or manufactured items), missing assembly records can create missing costs. If components are used in an assembly but the assembly of the product isn’t recorded, InventoryIQ won’t be able to recognize the finished product, causing your COGS to be incomplete.

How to fix it:

1. Check if any of the products that have units with missing costs are assembled items.
2. If you forgot to record a manual assembly, add it and ensure the date matches when the product was sold. Check out this article to learn more about how to manage your recipes and assemblies.

Important note: When adding an assembly, add the components or recipe that is needed to create 1 finished product. This will result in a super accurate calculation of the costs for each unit of the product created.

7. Missing manual inputs

For certain sales channels, we need some manual updates from you which could also impact your inventory count. Here’s a quick checklist:

1. Sales and restocks from non-automated channels
2. Restocks for Shopify
3. Restocks for Amazon FBM
4. Other Adjustments

Final steps

Still have units with missing costs?

1. Go to Products, click into the product with the units with missing costs.
2. Click on the small Purchases tab.
3. Toggle on Show breakdowns on the right-hand side.
4. You’ll be able to see if the units with missing costs relate to fulfillment, stock transfers (out), dead inventory, or physical count adjustment.

Now that you can pinpoint the exact cause and the relative timing, it’ll be easier to identify the missing piece and correct it!

Looking for a quick fix and you only have a minor amount of units with missing costs? You can always manually adjust your opening balance to cover this additional unit.

If you’ve checked all these details and still see a problem, don’t hesitate to reach out to support—we’re here to help!