Trading & margins

Give each deal a clear scope

A deal connects the goods being bought or supplied with the customer requirement they serve. It retains the owning company, counterparties, products and commercial basis. Independent Sales Manager approval binds the current deal and allocation scope; financial, cost and LC exceptions retain independent Finance Manager review.

Purchase and sales orders remain separate agreements. Their quantities, prices, currencies and obligations do not become identical because they belong to one deal. A customer amendment may leave an existing supplier commitment that still needs resolution.

The deal provides coordination and attribution. It cannot approve an order, manufacture a receipt or create a second stock reservation merely by linking existing work.

Match supply without counting it twice

One customer requirement can draw from several approved sources, while an approved supply line may serve more than one eligible requirement. Each allocation identifies the exact source and destination scope rather than relying on a shared deal number.

Active claims and completed allocations reduce what remains available. A revised link may release only eligible unexecuted scope. Received, consumed, shipped or billed quantities retain their actual history and cannot be reassigned as though nothing happened.

• Keep each product’s quantity in its own reviewed base unit.
• Preserve the source revision and current allocation status.
• Prevent parallel links from claiming the same remaining supply.
• Resolve amendments and cancellations before releasing committed scope.

A sourcing plan is useful before goods arrive, but its planned quantity is not current warehouse stock. Actual receipts and production completions establish supply under the operational controls. Receiving a PO or moving its stock cannot make the same supply available for another assignment.

Compare expectations with accepted commitments

An expected margin explains the offer using the selected selling price and reviewed cost basis. Once the customer and supplier commitments are approved, the committed view follows their current eligible scope and disclosed assumptions.

Keep currency conversion, unit basis and quantity population visible. Comparing a case price with a single-unit cost or one currency with another can give a convincing but incorrect result.

Unknown cost remains unavailable. Positive net value with reviewed zero cost has a valid calculation; a missing cost is not the same fact. Zero net value does not produce an invented margin percentage.

Explain the posted result from its sources

Posted trading gross margin uses invoice net revenue and approved credit reductions with the associated title-issue or customer-return cost for the same scope. Unbilled handovers, partial returns and incomplete cost evidence remain visible alongside it.

Current stock standards help value remaining goods. They cannot rewrite the carrying cost of a historical shipment. Supplier bill differences and production variance keep their own financial treatment rather than being silently inserted into every sold unit.

Cash collection is another measure. Applying a receipt or reimbursing a bank does not recognize the sale again, even when it completes the financial work for the deal.

Attribute actual charges with their evidence

Trade expenses can arise on a supplier document, a bank charge or another approved financial source. Attribution retains the original line, amount, currency, period and classification so finance can reconcile the contribution view to the books.

An LC fee assigned to a deal does not create a second expense. Its remaining allocation is bounded by the actual source amount and other active claims. Shared charges need an explicit allocation basis and a final rounding remainder.

Amounts already included in inventory cost cannot also appear as another expense in the same contribution measure. Unallocated or disputed charges remain visible; they do not disappear because the deal is marked complete.

Keep the result reviewable as work changes

Retain original commitments and their amendments, partial fulfillment, returns and corrected costs. Each result uses a stated company, currency and cutoff rather than mixing today’s stock with last period’s revenue.

Commercial close needs the remaining supply, customer and financial obligations to reconcile. A closed deal label cannot remove an unresolved return, bank obligation or supplier amount. Reviewable source detail makes a difference explainable without changing its history.