Every costing sheet this course has read, from Order A's own fixed figures onward, already existed by the time it was studied. A brand-new style starts differently: no fabric price is confirmed yet, no SMV is measured yet, no overhead rate has been applied to it, and no profit has been decided. This lesson builds the skeleton, the structure a costing sheet needs, before any of those numbers are known, so that real figures can be dropped in later without rebuilding anything. This lesson mainly teaches the money flow: how a price gets built up from nothing, in the right order, before it is a real number at all.
You need: the three cost families (lesson 1.1), the reading method (lesson 1.2), the idea that drivers differ between orders (lesson 1.3), and the four mistakes to check for (lesson 1.4).
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: this is the final lesson of Course 1. Course 2 goes deeper into calculating fabric consumption itself.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cost component | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Fabric cost | The cost of the fabric used in one garment, driven by fabric price per kilogram and consumption per piece. |
| Making charge | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment. |
| Overhead | A factory's running costs that are not fabric, trims or direct labour: rent, electricity, management salaries and similar costs, shared across all the pieces it makes. |
| Profit | The money left over after all costs are paid, out of a selling price. |
| Share of price | One cost component's dollar value divided by the total price, usually shown as a percentage. |
Every costing sheet this course has studied is built from the same skeleton: five component rows, a total row, and a share-of-price column, exactly as Order A's own sheet already showed. A brand-new style needs that same skeleton first, with every amount still blank, and the total and share-of-price columns already wired as formulas before a single dollar figure is typed in. Building the skeleton first, then filling it, means a real number can be dropped into any row the moment it is confirmed, without ever restructuring the sheet itself.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds the skeleton first | A factory merchandiser often builds it while waiting on a fabric quotation. An agent like Meridian Sourcing may build the same skeleton on behalf of a buyer, to check a factory's eventual numbers against an independent estimate. | The skeleton belongs to no single party; whoever needs to think about the price first can build it, before anyone has a firm number. |
| How placeholder numbers are shown | Some skeletons leave amounts blank until confirmed. Others use a clearly labelled estimate or a range, such as "fabric: about 1.10 to 1.20, pending quotation," so a rough total can still be discussed. | A labelled estimate lets people talk about a likely price early, as long as nobody mistakes it for a confirmed figure. |
| Order of confirmation | Fabric price and consumption are usually confirmed first, since they need supplier quotations. Making charge often follows once a sample is sewn and timed. Overhead and profit are usually the factory's own decisions, confirmed last. | Building the skeleton first means this order does not need to be decided in advance; each row fills in whenever its own information becomes available. |
| Export or domestic destination for the same skeleton | The same five-row skeleton ends in an FOB total for an export buyer, or an ex-factory total for a domestic one; the skeleton itself does not change, only the total's own label. | A skeleton built before the buyer is even confirmed still works, since the five rows do not depend on which total label will eventually apply. |
Meridian Sourcing, an agent representing a European buyer, asks Delta Garments to consider a brand-new T-shirt style. No fabric has been sourced, no sample sewn, and no price quoted yet. Before the first real number exists, Meridian Sourcing builds the skeleton, using Order A's own already-fixed sheet as the model for its structure, not for its amounts.
| Row | Amount (USD per piece) | Share of price (formula) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fabric | (blank) | (formula, will show 0% until filled) | Awaiting a mill quotation |
| Trims | (blank) | (formula) | Awaiting a Trimco quotation |
| Making | (blank) | (formula) | Awaiting a sewn sample and SMV |
| Overhead | (blank) | (formula) | Awaiting Delta Garments' own allocation rate |
| Profit | (blank) | (formula) | Awaiting Delta Garments' own decision |
| Total | (formula, sums the five rows) | (formula, always 100% once filled) | Skeleton ready, no real numbers yet |
An agent under pressure to quote a competitive price quickly can be tempted to start from a target total, for example "this style should land around USD 3.00," and then divide that figure into five component-shaped numbers that happen to sum to it. This produces a sheet that looks exactly like a properly built one, five rows and a total, but none of its component numbers are real: no mill has actually quoted that fabric price, no sample has actually produced that making charge. The mistake is invisible on the page and only surfaces once real quotations arrive and none of them match the invented numbers.
A costing sheet skeleton is the same five rows, in the same order, and the same two formulas, whether the style is brand-new or already priced: fabric, trims, making, overhead, profit, a total that adds them up, and a share-of-price column that divides each by the total. For a brand-new style, none of the five amounts exist yet, but the skeleton can still be built, with the formulas already working correctly even while every row is blank. Real numbers are typed in later, one row at a time, whenever each one is actually confirmed. The mistake to avoid is picking a target total first and inventing five numbers to match it, since none of those numbers would be real, and the mistake would not show up until a real quotation finally disagreed with it.
A trainee at Meridian Sourcing is asked to prepare a practice costing sheet using Order A as the example, but has not yet seen Course 7's own breakdown. Under time pressure, the trainee considers simply picking five plausible-looking numbers that add up to the already known total of USD 3.20, rather than looking up Order A's real, already-fixed component figures.
Here is what the trainee is considering:
Does it matter whether the trainee looks up Order A's real components, since the invented numbers would still sum to the correct USD 3.20 total? Decide before opening the answer.
Yes, it matters, even though the total would come out correct. Two facts decide this together.
First, that a correct total does not mean correct components. Many different sets of five numbers can sum to USD 3.20; only one set, fabric 1.15, trims 0.20, making 1.10, overhead 0.49, profit 0.26, is Order A's real, already-fixed breakdown.
Second, that the components are what the whole course has been teaching. Course 7 and this course both teach the reader to trust and check each component's own driver, fabric price times consumption, making charge from SMV, and so on. Inventing plausible-looking numbers defeats that entire purpose, even if the bottom line matches.
The trainee should look up Order A's real components, not invent numbers that merely add up. A correct total built from invented parts teaches nothing and cannot be trusted the next time any one part actually changes.
Framed qualitatively, a trainee who becomes used to inventing plausible component numbers that merely sum correctly is practicing exactly the backward-building mistake this lesson warns against. The habit costs nothing while practicing on Order A, since the total happens to still be correct, but the same habit applied to a brand-new style produces a skeleton whose component numbers are not real, and that mismatch is only discovered once actual mill and factory quotations arrive and disagree with the invented figures.
The cost is not a wrong total today; it is a habit that produces an undetectable error the next time no answer key exists to catch it.
Open the Cost build-up sheet workbook linked below one last time. Copy its structure, five component rows, a total row, and a share-of-price column, into a new set of rows for any brand-new style. Leave every amount blank until it is genuinely confirmed, and confirm the total and share-of-price formulas already calculate correctly, showing 0% everywhere, before typing in a single real number.
[Download the Cost build-up sheet](../../templates/T12-C01-cost-build-up-sheet.xlsx)
1. What must be true about a skeleton's total and share-of-price formulas before any amount is entered?
2. Why is picking a target total first and inventing five numbers to match it a mistake, even if the total comes out correct?
3. A new style's fabric quote arrives at USD 1.30, but every other row is blank. What should the share-of-price formula show for fabric?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost component | عنصر التكلفة | Élément de coût | Maliyet bileşeni | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Fabric cost | تكلفة القماش | Coût du tissu | Kumaş maliyeti | The cost of the fabric used in one garment, driven by fabric price per kilogram and consumption per piece. |
| Making charge | تكلفة التصنيع | Coût de façon | İşçilik (fason) maliyeti | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment. |
| Overhead | التكاليف العامة | Frais généraux | Genel giderler | A factory's running costs that are not fabric, trims or direct labour: rent, electricity, management salaries and similar costs, shared across all the pieces it makes. |
| Profit | الربح | Profit | Kâr | The money left over after all costs are paid, out of a selling price. |
| Share of price | نسبة السعر | Part du prix | Fiyat payı | One cost component's dollar value divided by the total price, usually shown as a percentage. |
This is the last lesson of Course 1. Course 2, Calculate Material Consumption and Cost, goes one level deeper into how a fabric consumption figure itself is worked out from a marker and a size set. Back to the course map