📌 Stage 3 · Production and Stock · Inventory & COGS · Production batches · 30-40 min

Each completed pour is a costed layer of sellable stock

Learning goals

  • Record a batch with its date, SKU, quantity, and planned unit cost
  • Explain why the planned cost is typed as a snapshot, not looked up live
  • Distinguish Completed batches (stock) from Planned batches (intention)

Concepts

A batch is the unit of making

Maya pours in batches of 25 to 80 units. Each row on Production records the batch number, date, SKU, quantity, and a planned unit cost. The product name fills itself from the SKU master with VLOOKUP, exactly like the BOM sheet did for materials.

=VLOOKUP($D5,SKUs!$B$5:$C$104,2,FALSE)

Product name for the batch: look the SKU code in D5 up in the SKUs master and return column 2, the product name.

=$F5*$G5

Batch cost: 60 jars at a planned $3.53 is $211.80 of materials committed to BATCH-501.

Why the planned cost is typed

The planned unit cost is a snapshot of the BOM roll-up on the day the batch was planned. BATCH-501 (Sep 3) carries $3.53 because wax still cost $2.40 and jars $1.10; BATCH-504 (Sep 10) carries $3.69 at the newer prices. If the cell looked up today's roll-up instead, every historical batch would silently reprice whenever a material price changed.

A typed snapshot keeps each batch a frozen cost layer, which is exactly what FIFO needs later: sales draw down the cheap September 3 layer before the September 10 one.

💡 Tips:

  • Type the roll-up value the SKUs sheet shows on the day you plan the batch, and put a note in column J when a price moved. BATCH-503's note does exactly that.

Completed versus Planned

Only Completed batches are stock. BATCH-508 (70 jars, Sep 28) is Planned: curing over the weekend. Its batch cost is meaningful as a commitment, but stock counts and BOM consumption filter on the word Completed, so Planned rows feed nothing until you flip the status.

Column K shows layer units left after sales have drawn from the batch; Lesson 11 fills that story in. For now, BATCH-502 has 14 left of 40 and BATCH-507 all 50.

Practice

Fixed case (Sep 2026). The exercise opens on Production. Pale-green cells are formulas; the type-in columns are batch number, date, SKU, qty, planned unit cost, status, and note.

  1. Read the batch log — Eight batches, BATCH-501 through BATCH-508, from Sep 3 to Sep 28. Note the planned unit costs stepping from $3.53 to $3.69 for JG-01 as material prices rose.
  2. Type the batch cost — Cell H5 is blank. Type =$F5*$G5 and press Enter. BATCH-501 totals $211.80. Fill down through H12.
  3. Check the status split — Filter column I to Completed: seven batches. BATCH-508 is Planned and shows an empty Layer Units Left, because nothing Planned is stock.
  4. Sanity-check the pour — With status Completed, BATCH-502 shows 14 of its 40 Vanilla Cedar jars left and BATCH-506 shows 13 of 25 trio sets left.

Online exercise

The spreadsheet below is editable — follow the practice steps right on this page. Steps that need ribbon menus should be done in your own Excel with the downloadable practice file.

表格加载中…

Checklist

Work through each item; when every box passes, this lesson is done:

  • ☐ Typed =$F5*$G5 into Production!H5 and got $211.80
  • ☐ Confirmed BATCH-508 is Planned and excluded from layer leftovers
  • ☐ Can explain why planned unit cost is typed per batch instead of looked up live
  • ☐ Verified the baseline: 7 completed batches costing $1,518.75 of materials, BATCH-508 planned at $258.30