This page teaches you how to build the yarn-cost and residual lines of a hosiery costing sheet by live formula, for anyone who builds or checks a sock order's cost: a merchandiser, a factory owner, a buyer, or a student. This lesson mainly teaches the money flow of a hosiery order: how a price is built up from what is actually known, then checked. Track 6's denim course already fixed the formula-first costing method on Order B, the jeans, using Order B's own real, fixed fabric consumption, fabric price and target FOB price. This lesson applies the same method to Order C, Suez Hosiery's own fixed sock order: its real yarn consumption, real yarn price and real buyer target price.
Without this method, a person costing a sock order might type a residual figure by hand instead of calculating it, or lose track of which figures on the sheet are calculated and which are the residual. Either mistake breaks the same rule this lesson teaches: calculate by formula from what is known, never a typed total.
You need: lesson 3.1 and a costing sheet's cost-component structure from Track 1. You do not need Order B's denim figures memorised; this lesson reuses its method, not its numbers.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: what makes hosiery different from cut-and-sew garments (lesson 3.1); sock anatomy and finishing (lesson 3.2); hosiery quality faults (lesson 3.3); assembling a complete order file (lesson 3.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Costing sheet | The document that lists a garment's cost components and adds them up to its total price. |
| Cost component | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Formula | An instruction in a spreadsheet cell that calculates a value from other cells, instead of a value typed in by hand. |
| Typed number | A value entered directly into a cell as a fixed figure, with no formula behind it. |
| Yarn | Fibre twisted into a continuous thread. Fabric is made from yarn. |
| Circular knitting machine | A knitting machine that knits a seamless tube of fabric, or a complete sock, on a rotating cylinder of needles, rather than knitting or weaving flat fabric that is later cut and sewn. |
| Boarding | A finishing step where a knitted sock is heat-set on a leg-shaped form to fix its final shape and size before packing. |
| Sock blank | A sock straight off the circular knitting machine, before boarding, finishing or packing. |
Costing a hosiery order follows the same formula-first method already fixed for Order B's denim: start from the inputs that are actually known, calculate the yarn line cost by formula, then calculate the residual needed to reach the target price by formula, never a typed total. Order C, Suez Hosiery's own fixed sock order, gives this lesson real, known inputs to start from: a yarn consumption of 0.04 kg per pair, a yarn price of USD 4.50 per kg, and a buyer target FOB price of USD 1.20 per pair.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| What the known inputs are | Order B's denim costing (T06-C01-L04): fabric consumption, price and target FOB are fixed for Order B. Order C's sock costing: yarn consumption, yarn price and buyer target price are fixed for Order C instead, a different product with a different cost driver. | A learner must know which inputs a costing sheet actually starts from for that product, since a garment starts from fabric and a sock starts from yarn. |
| How the residual is documented | A real hosiery mill's actual costing (industry-standard): costs a pair from yarn weight per pair, yarn price per kilogram, knitting-machine time, linking and boarding labour, and packing, each usually its own line once a mill's own detailed figures exist. Order C's own sheet: knitting, linking, boarding, packing, overhead and profit are combined into one honest residual line, since Order C fixes only the yarn line and the target price, not a further breakdown. | Combining unbroken-out costs into one honest residual, rather than inventing a split with no supporting figures, keeps a costing sheet from overstating what is actually known. |
| Export or domestic pricing | An export sock order such as Order C frames its total as an FOB price, the way Order A's T-shirt and Order B's denim do. A domestic sock order would frame it as an ex-factory price plus local delivery, the way Cedar & Co.'s domestic costing works. | The formula-first method stays the same either way; only the price framing changes, exactly as it does for a garment order. |
| The product being costed | The same yarn-cost-plus-residual structure applies to Order A's T-shirt fabric cost, Order B's denim cost, and Order C's sock yarn cost. | Learning the method on any one product lets you cost any other; the structure does not change, only the cost component that starts the calculation. |
Order C is this academy's real, fixed sock order, the same way Order A's T-shirt and Order B's jeans are real, fixed orders. This lesson applies the Costing sheet's yarn-cost and residual formulas to Order C's own real figures: 0.04 kg of yarn per pair at USD 4.50 per kg, against a buyer target FOB price of USD 1.20 per pair.
Order C's yarn line cost comes from multiplying its yarn consumption per pair by its yarn price per kilogram.
Order C's residual is its buyer target price minus its yarn line cost, covering everything else, knitting, linking, boarding, packing, overhead and profit, as one combined line.
Totalling the two lines by formula confirms the sheet reconstructs Order C's target price exactly.
| Cost line | Value (USD per pair) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer target price | 1.20 | Order C's own fixed figure, docs/02 v3 section 27 |
| Yarn (0.04 kg/pair x USD 4.50/kg) | 0.18 | Order C's own consumption and price, calculated by formula |
| Everything else (knitting, linking, boarding, packing, overhead, profit) | 1.02 | Residual by formula; kept as one line, since Order C fixes no further breakdown |
| Total | 1.20 | Formula-summed; matches the target price, the sanity check |
A common mistake is typing USD 1.02 directly into the residual cell instead of entering the formula that calculates it as target price minus yarn line cost. A typed number looks identical to a calculated one on the page, but it silently breaks the moment the target price or the yarn line cost changes: the residual no longer updates, and the sheet's total quietly stops matching Order C's real USD 1.20 target price. Treating a residual as a fact to type, rather than a value to calculate, misrepresents how the Costing sheet is meant to work and can leave a stale figure unnoticed for an entire order.
This lesson shows how to cost a pair of socks using Order C's own real numbers. First, a target price is set as a reference figure: what the buyer has agreed to pay. Then, a yarn cost is worked out by formula: how much yarn one pair uses, times what that yarn costs. Whatever is left after subtracting the yarn cost from the target price is called the residual, and it covers everything else: knitting, closing the toe, shaping the sock, packing, running costs and profit, all combined into one line since Order C fixes no further split. Adding the yarn cost and the residual back together should exactly equal the target price; that is the check that the formulas are correct. Every number here is a real, fixed fact about Order C, not a stand-in figure, and that difference matters.
A merchandiser is building Order C's Costing sheet under deadline pressure. Rather than entering the formula that calculates the residual as target price minus yarn line cost, the merchandiser calculates 1.02 on a separate calculator and types that number straight into the residual cell.
The facts in front of the merchandiser:
The document the merchandiser edits, the Costing sheet's residual cell as entered:
Does it matter that the residual cell holds a typed 1.02 instead of a formula, since the number is currently correct? Decide before you open the answer.
Yes, it matters. A typed number looks identical to a calculated one today, but it stops updating the moment either feeding figure changes.
Two facts, together, decide this. First, this lesson's own rule: the residual must always be calculated as target price minus yarn line cost, by formula, never typed. Second, this lesson's own trap: if Order C's yarn price or target price is later revised, a typed residual cell stays frozen at USD 1.02 while the rest of the sheet moves on, so the total silently stops reconstructing the real target price.
The merchandiser should replace the typed 1.02 with the formula immediately, even though today's displayed number is correct, so the sheet keeps recalculating correctly the next time any input changes.
Framed qualitatively on Order C's own 24,000-pair order, a typed residual that later goes stale, because the target price or yarn price changed and the cell was never updated, risks the whole sheet quoting a wrong total to a buyer or a factory owner, not only the one cell that was typed instead of calculated. Since Order C's own USD 1.20 target price and USD 0.18 yarn line cost sum exactly to USD 1.02 today, the mistake is invisible until an input changes and the total no longer matches. This is the risk this lesson's method, formula throughout, never a typed total, is designed to prevent.
The Costing sheet has five columns: cost line, quantity, unit cost, target price, and a calculated line value, plus a notes column. Order C's target price row, yarn row and residual row are filled in already, and the total row sums them by formula, never a typed number: yarn's line value is quantity times unit cost, the residual's line value is the target price minus the yarn line value, and the total sums both. For any other sock order, replace Order C's own figures with that order's real numbers, leaving every formula untouched.
[Download the Sock order file](../../templates/T06-C03-sock-order-file.xlsx)
1. Why must Order C's Costing sheet always calculate the residual by formula rather than type it in?
2. What is Order C's yarn line cost per pair, and how is it calculated?
3. A different sock order uses 0.05 kg/pair of yarn at USD 4.00/kg, with a target price of USD 1.50 per pair. What is its residual, by formula?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costing sheet | كشف التكلفة | Fiche de coûts | Maliyet tablosu | The document that lists a garment's cost components and adds them to the price the factory quotes. |
| Cost component | عنصر التكلفة | Élément de coût | Maliyet bileşeni | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Formula | صيغة حسابية | Formule | Formül | An instruction in a spreadsheet cell that calculates a value from other cells, instead of a value typed in by hand. |
| Typed number | رقم مكتوب يدويًا | Nombre saisi manuellement | Elle girilen sayı | A value entered directly into a cell as a fixed figure, with no formula behind it. |
| Yarn | خيط (غزل) | Fil | İplik | Fibre twisted into a continuous thread. Fabric is made from yarn. |
| Circular knitting machine | ماكينة تريكو دائرية | Machine à tricoter circulaire | Yuvarlak örme makinesi | A knitting machine that knits a seamless tube of fabric (or a complete sock) on a rotating cylinder of needles, rather than knitting or weaving flat fabric that is later cut and sewn. |
| Boarding | البوردنغ (تشكيل الجورب على القالب) | Formage (boarding) | Kalıplama (boarding) | A finishing step where a knitted sock is heat-set on a leg-shaped metal or plastic form to fix its final shape and size before packing. |
| Sock blank | الجورب الخام | Chaussette brute | Ham çorap | A sock straight off the circular knitting machine, before boarding, finishing or packing. |
You can now calculate Order C's yarn line cost and its residual to its buyer target price, both by formula. The next lesson brings this Costing sheet together with the Sock Order Shape and Quality Fault Log sheets into one complete hosiery order file. Back to the course map