Non-Inventory Sale Costs are costs you incur to make a sale that aren't a stocked product — outbound freight you paid the carrier, packaging, insurance, a marketplace fee. Recording them on the invoice lets VentryHub spread the cost across the stock lines on that invoice, so the margin you see on each product and in reporting reflects the true cost of getting it to the customer.

These costs are not charged to the customer and do not change the invoice total. To bill the customer for freight or a surcharge, add it as a normal invoice line using a service or non-inventory product instead — see Issuing an invoice from a sale order.

Before you start

• The invoice must be Authorized or Paid. The Non-Inventory Sale Costs tab is hidden on a Draft invoice because costs are allocated across lines that must already be fixed.
• The invoice must contain at least one stock product line. An invoice made only of service or non-inventory products has nothing to distribute over, and the tab doesn't appear.
• Sale — Billing full access (SaleBillingFA) to add or edit costs; read-only users can view them.

Add a cost

1. Open the invoice

Open the sale, click Invoices, then click the invoice number to open it. Confirm the status tag reads Authorized or Paid.

2. Open the Non-Inventory Sale Costs tab

Click the Non-Inventory Sale Costs tab beside Lines and Payments. The tab header shows Total Costs in your base currency.

3. Add the cost row

Click Add cost and fill in:

• Distribution Type — how the amount is spread across the invoice's stock lines:
  • Value-Based Distribution — in proportion to each line's value (default).
  • Weight-Based Distribution — in proportion to product weight.
  • Volume-Based Distribution — in proportion to product volume.
  • Quantity-Based Distribution — in proportion to quantity.
• Amount — the cost, in your base currency. Required and non-zero (Amount is required and cannot be zero.).
  ⚠ Backend-unverified: whether a negative amount is accepted as a cost reversal
• Reference — the carrier invoice number, consignment note or other reference (optional).

Add one row per cost. Several costs with different distribution types can sit on the same invoice.

4. Save

Click Save in the page header. Total Costs updates and the costs are distributed across the stock lines. They're used only for margin reporting and don't create accounting entries. With weight- or volume-based distribution, a product with no weight or volume on file gets no share. If none of the invoice's stock lines have one, the save fails — There is no weight defined for any stock items in the invoice that would allow to correctly allocate the non-inventory sales cost by weight. (and similarly for volume and value).

A row you added but left blank (zero amount, no reference) is ignored on save rather than flagged.

Edit or remove a cost

Costs stay editable for as long as the invoice is Authorized or Paid. Change the cells and save, or use the row action to delete and save. Search the grid with Search costs... when there are many rows.

If the invoice is later undone back to Draft, its costs stay on it but can't be edited until the invoice is authorised again.

What happens next

• The distributed cost is reflected in the margin figures on the invoice lines (visible to users with the view-margin permission) and in gross margin reporting.
• The costs are internal: they do not appear on the printed or emailed invoice, do not change Total or Amount Due, and have no effect on payments.
• The costs don't create accounting entries, so nothing for them appears on the invoice's Financials tab.
  ✏ Updated after Confluence cross-check (15 Oct 2026): Resolved the open question. Costs post nothing.

See also

• Issuing an invoice from a sale order
• Recording a payment
• Managing products — product types and weight/volume (link pending: product module article)