PO Cost Types

When you enter freight, tagging fees, or other extra charges on a purchase order, each amount is labeled with a cost type. The PO Cost Types page is the registry of those types: it controls which types appear in the Type dropdown of the PO's Other Costs window, what each type is called, and how each one behaves — whether it becomes part of product cost (spread into your inventory/item cost, like freight) or is a separate expense (its own line on the vendor bill).

Find it at Admin → Tool Box → PO Cost Types, under the Inventory & Pricing section of the Tool Box. The page requires admin configuration permission — if you don't have it, the PO Cost Types card won't appear in your Tool Box.

Every company starts with five standard cost types: Freight, Outside Freight, Tagging Fee, Misc Fee, and Discount. You can rename them, add your own (duties, brokerage, pallet fees, fuel surcharges, and so on), reorder the dropdown, and retire types you no longer use.

Part of product cost vs. Separate expense (the Handling choice)

Every cost type on the PO Cost Types page has one Handling choice, and it drives how amounts of that type are treated everywhere downstream:

Part of product cost — the amount is landed cost. If your company uses freight roll-in, it is spread into the received items' costs along with freight, so it ends up inside each item's average cost and flows into cost of goods sold as the items sell.
Separate expense — the amount is not part of item cost. When the PO is closed to accounting, it gets its own line on the vendor bill, coded to an account that VMX assigns for you.

Two kinds of cost types are locked and don't show the Handling dropdown:

Outside Freight — freight paid to a third-party carrier rather than the vendor. It is deducted from the vendor bill and tracked as a separate carrier payable; see Outside Freight for the full workflow.
Types tagged Special handling (VMX-managed) — cost types with custom accounting treatment set up by VMX for your company. Contact help@vmxllc.com if one of these needs to change.

Entering cost types on a purchase order (the Other Costs window)

Cost types are used on the order page, in the Other Costs window:

Open the purchase order and click the Other Costs: amount in the totals area at the top of the order page.
The Other Costs window opens with three columns: Amount, Type, and Note.
On a blank line, enter the Amount, pick the cost type from the Type dropdown (the first blank line is pre-set to Freight when the PO doesn't already have a Freight line; other lines start on Choose...), and optionally add a Note — for example the carrier name or the invoice number the charge came from.
Click Save.

The Other Costs window is editable while the purchase order is still Pending. Once the order has been received, the window opens read-only.

A PO can carry several cost lines, and the same type can appear on more than one line — for example two Outside Freight lines when two carriers were involved. The types offered in the Type dropdown, their names, and their order all come from the PO Cost Types registry at Admin → Tool Box → PO Cost Types.

When you pick Outside Freight, the window shows a reminder: use it when freight is paid to a third-party carrier, not the vendor — the amount will be deducted from the vendor bill when closing to accounting and tracked as a separate payable to the carrier. Use regular Freight when the freight is on the vendor's own invoice.

Editing a cost type (table columns explained)

Each row on the PO Cost Types page is one cost type. Change any of the editable fields and click that row's Save button:

Code — the permanent internal identifier (for example FREIGHT). It cannot be changed after the type is created, and it's the name you'll see as a column header on the COGS Components report.
Label — the name shown in the Type dropdown of the PO's Other Costs window. Rename freely; history is keyed by the code, so renaming is safe.
Sort — the position in the Type dropdown; lower numbers list first.
Pickable — whether the type is offered in the Type dropdown. Uncheck it to stop the type being used on new POs while keeping its behavior for POs that already use it.
Active — whether the type exists at all as far as processing is concerned. Uncheck it only to fully retire a type: an inactive type is no longer offered and its special handling is no longer applied. If any open POs still carry the type, prefer unchecking Pickable instead.
Handling — Part of product cost or Separate expense (see the section above). Locked types show a fixed tag here instead of the dropdown.
Account and Class — the accounting mapping for Separate expense types. These are managed by VMX (the Account column is marked (VMX)) and shown read-only; contact help@vmxllc.com to change where a cost type posts.

If you save a row with an empty name you'll see the error "Label is required (max 64 chars)."

Adding a cost type

To add a new cost type for your purchase orders:

Go to Admin → Tool Box → PO Cost Types.
In the Add a cost type form under the table, enter a CODE — 2 to 32 characters, using only letters, numbers, spaces, and dashes. Choose it carefully: as the form notes, "The code is permanent once added (it becomes the stored identifier)."
Enter a Label — the name buyers will see in the Type dropdown on POs.
Choose the handling: Part of product cost or Separate expense.
Click Add.

The new type appears at the end of the Type dropdown (adjust its Sort value to move it) and is immediately available on purchase orders.

If you chose Separate expense, the new type shows a needs VMX accounting setup badge until VMX assigns the account it should post to — email help@vmxllc.com with the account you'd like it coded to. See the next section for what the badge means.

Messages you may see when adding:

"Code must be 2-32 chars: A-Z, 0-9, space, dash." — the code contains other characters or is too short/long.
"Code … already exists." (shown with the code you entered) — codes must be unique, including retired types.
"Label is required (max 64 chars)."
"Choose how this cost is handled." — the handling dropdown wasn't set.

"needs VMX accounting setup" badge

On the PO Cost Types page, a Separate expense cost type shows the warning badge needs VMX accounting setup when no accounting account has been assigned to it yet: "This type will not appear on bills until VMX assigns its account."

You can use the type on purchase orders right away — the amounts are recorded and reported normally. But until VMX assigns the account, the type cannot get its own line on the vendor bill, so its amounts stay grouped with freight on the bill instead. To complete the setup, contact help@vmxllc.com and tell us which account (and class, if you use them) the cost type should post to.

How cost types affect item cost (freight roll-in)

For companies with freight roll-in enabled, receiving a purchase order spreads the PO's cost lines whose type is marked Part of product cost into the received items' unit costs, weighted by cost — so freight, duties, and similar charges become part of each item's landed average cost. Cost lines whose type is a Separate expense are excluded from the roll-in.

After roll-in, the order page shows a checkmark next to the Other Costs: amount with the note "Other costs has been rolled into the items' costs.", and each item's pre-roll-in cost is preserved.

Freight roll-in is enabled per-client by VMX — contact help@vmxllc.com if you'd like to discuss it. The COGS Components report decomposes your cost of goods sold by these rolled-in cost types, one column per cost type code.

How cost types land in your accounting platform

When a purchase order is closed to accounting (see Payable), the cost lines on the PO are treated according to their cost type's handling:

Part of product cost types are billed the same way freight is: with freight roll-in enabled, their amounts are already inside the bill's inventory value; without roll-in, they're included in the bill's freight amount.
Separate expense types each get their own line on the vendor bill, coded to the account VMX assigned for that type. A separate-expense type with no account assigned yet (the needs VMX accounting setup badge) stays grouped with freight on the bill until the account is set.
Outside Freight is deducted from the vendor bill and tracked as a payable to the carrier — see Outside Freight for the full accounting pattern.

The exact accounts involved depend on your company's accounting integration setup, which VMX manages — contact help@vmxllc.com to review or change how a cost type posts.

"Cost-type registry is not migrated on this system yet"

If the PO Cost Types page shows the notice "Cost-type registry is not migrated on this system yet — the legacy built-in list is in effect.", your system is still on the built-in cost type list and the editable registry hasn't been activated. Your POs keep working with the standard types; contact help@vmxllc.com to get the editable registry enabled.

Order Page — the purchase order page, where the Other Costs: field lives
Outside Freight — the third-party-carrier cost type and its accounting flow
Payable — closing a PO to your accounting platform
COGS Components — reporting on rolled-in landed cost by cost type