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Cost rules

What it is

An order costs you more than the goods in it. Cost rules tell Voorcast the rest: what each shipping method costs, what each payment provider charges, what your boxes cost, and any commissions, handling fees or duties. Voorcast applies them to every order, so each order, and Analytics, shows real net profit rather than a gross margin.

There are four kinds:

  • Shipping Costs: one rule per shipping method. A flat rate, a rate by weight or a rate by quantity, with different rates per group of countries and optional insurance.
  • Payment Fees: one rule per payment method, as a percentage of the order plus a fixed fee.
  • Packaging Costs: a price for each box. The boxes themselves come from Picqer.
  • Cost Schemes: everything else, such as a commission to a sales channel, a handling fee per unit, or excise duty per litre. Schemes can apply to every order, to certain destination countries, or to certain customer groups.

Cost rules affect profit figures only. They don't change your purchase drafts.

When you'd use it

  • You've just connected Picqer and want your margins to be right from the start.
  • A carrier or payment provider changes its prices.
  • You sell through a channel that takes a commission, or you pay duty on what you ship.

How to set it up

Open Rules from the menu. Each kind has a card with a Manage button.

Shipping and payment

  1. Choose Manage on Shipping Costs or Payment Fees, then Add Rule.
  2. Pick the shipping or payment method the rule is for.
  3. Enter the costs. For shipping, choose Flat Rate, Per Weight or Per Quantity, and set a cost for each group of countries. Add a default zone to cover every other country.
  4. Save the rule. Voorcast works it into your existing orders in the background.

When you later change the price on a rule, Voorcast asks whether to Update current pricing, which recalculates all your existing orders, or Schedule new version from a date you choose, which leaves earlier orders at the old price.

Packaging

  1. Choose Manage on Packaging Costs. You'll see the boxes from Picqer.
  2. Click Set price on a box, enter the Cost per box and the date it applies In effect from, and click Save price.

A box without a price adds no packaging cost to its orders, so price every box you use.

Cost schemes

  1. Choose Manage on Cost Schemes, then New Scheme.
  2. Answer three questions: how the cost is charged (a share of the sale, a fixed amount per unit, or a rate per unit of a measurement such as litres), when it applies, and how much.
  3. Click Create scheme. Voorcast applies it to your existing orders in the background.

A rate per litre or per kilo needs the product's volume or weight as a number. If that lives in a custom field in Picqer, set up a field transformation for it first.

Good to know

  • Cost schemes are part of the Professional plan. Shipping, payment and packaging rules are on every plan.
  • When no zone in a shipping rule matches an order's country and there is no default zone, that order gets no shipping cost.
  • Test All Rules on the Rules page shows what your rules would charge on up to 10 of your orders, by order number.
  • Switching a scheme on, or changing when it applies, reworks your existing orders in the background. A copy of a scheme starts switched off, so set when it applies before you switch it on.