Setting cost prices for imported parts

How a parts importer works out landed cost when freight and duty change per shipment, and how Achekam's single cost price per item affects the books.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Automotive businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A carton of brake discs costs what the overseas supplier charges, and then some. By the time it is on your shelf you have paid for sea or air freight, insurance, customs duty, the clearing agent, port charges and the truck from the port. The next carton of the same discs, on the next ship, will carry a different freight bill and perhaps a different exchange rate.

For a parts importer, the real cost of a part is its landed cost, and it moves. This article explains what goes into landed cost, how Achekam uses the cost price you give each item, and how to keep your margins honest when shipments do not cost the same.

What goes into landed cost

Landed cost is everything you spend to get a part into your store and ready to sell. A typical build-up:

• the supplier's price for the goods;
• freight to your country, and insurance in transit;
• customs duty and other import charges that you cannot recover;
• the clearing and forwarding agent's fees, and port and storage charges;
• transport from the port or airport to your store.

Which of these you carry depends on the trade term in your purchase contract. The International Chamber of Commerce explains the eleven Incoterms rules that set who pays for and carries the risk of the goods at each stage of delivery, and reading the term on your supplier's invoice is the first step in knowing what to add. Ask your accountant which taxes paid at the border belong in cost and which you claim back.

Then spread the shipment's extra costs over the parts in it. Most importers spread by value; some spread heavy items by weight. Pick one method and keep it.

One cost price per item, typed when it is created

Parts are created in the Item Master in the Accounting menu, with a SKU, name, category, selling price, cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. The Item Master needs the Point of Sale, Warehousing or Wholesale add-on.

Here is the limit to plan around: no screen lets you change a product's price, cost or VAT treatment after you create it, or deactivate it. The cost price you type on day one is the cost price the item keeps. So the landed cost you enter deserves care. Work it out from a real shipment, check it against your costing sheet, and only then create the item.

How the cost drives cost of sales at the till

When a part is sold at the till, the sale posts a balanced journal that includes cost of sales against inventory at the product's cost price. Achekam uses that single typed cost: there is no FIFO or weighted-average costing that would blend an older, cheaper shipment with a newer, dearer one.

In practice that means:

• if your typed cost is lower than the real landed cost of the parts now on the shelf, your margin will look better than it is;
• if it is higher, your margin will look worse;
• either way, the inventory account drifts from what the stock is really worth.

When the next shipment costs more

You have two honest options.

Keep one standard cost and correct the difference. Leave the item's cost as it is and track each shipment's real landed cost on a costing sheet. At month end, your accountant works out the difference on the parts actually sold and posts a manual journal to correct cost of sales. Achekam refuses an unbalanced journal or one dated in a closed month, and a posted journal is corrected only by a reversal, so the adjustment leaves a clear trail.

Create a new item for a shipment with a very different cost. This keeps cost of sales right at the till, but you then have two items for one part. Counter staff must pick the right one, and because a barcode scan finds a product only when the scanned code matches its SKU, the new item needs its own SKU. Use this sparingly, for big and lasting price changes, not for every container.

Recording freight and duty bills

The freight forwarder, the clearing agent and the transport company each send a bill. Record each one as a supplier bill, line by line with VAT. A bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and you can pay it in full or in parts from a chosen bank account.

Remember that only till sales and till returns move the inventory account; opening quantities and stock counts do not post to the general ledger. So the value of the parts you import reaches the books through the bills you post. Agree with your accountant which accounts those bills go to, so that inventory and cost of sales are not overstated twice.

A costing sheet to keep beside the item list

Keep one sheet per shipment with these columns:

1. Supplier invoice number and date, and the exchange rate used.
2. Each part's SKU, quantity and supplier price.
3. The freight, insurance, duty, clearing and transport bills, with their supplier bill numbers in Achekam.
4. The method used to spread those costs, and the resulting landed cost per part.
5. The cost price typed in the Item Master, and the difference.

That last column is the one your accountant needs at month end. For how parts are set up and scanned at the counter, see parts stock, SKUs and barcodes; for reading the margin those costs produce, see parts margin versus labour income.

Before the next container lands

Build the costing sheet for the shipment that is on the water now, and decide in advance whether you will correct differences by journal or by new item. A dealer who also holds vehicles faces the same single-cost limit; keeping used vehicles in stock covers that case.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.