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4.1 The export cost sheet

The cost sheet brings together in one table what you spend to produce, prepare and get an order out of the country. With it you know your floor cost and you do not sell below it.

Module 4: Costs, price and benefits · Reviewed on 20/10/2026 · Español

Goal: Arrange the costs of an order into five groups, calculate the unit cost with the real volume and express your floor cost in a single currency.

The export cost sheet is a table where you record, item by item, everything you spend to produce an order and leave it on board. It serves two purposes. It tells you your floor cost, the price below which you lose money. And it lets you compare one order with another. Without this sheet, you accept the price the buyer proposes instead of the one your business needs.

Organize the costs into five groups. Production: raw material, inputs, labor and indirect costs such as energy or rent. Preparation: packaging, labels, laboratory tests, samples and certifications that the market requires. Leaving the country: transport to the port or airport, customs agent, handling at the terminal and origin paperwork. Finance: interest on working capital and bank fees. International leg: freight, insurance and charges at destination; you add them or not depending on the Incoterm® you agree (topic 4-2). An Incoterm® is a rule of the International Chamber of Commerce that divides costs and risks between seller and buyer.

Separate what is variable from what is fixed. Variable costs grow with the units: fabric, bags, cases. Fixed costs are spread across orders: rent, administrative salaries, accountant. To find the unit cost, add up everything in the order and divide by the units you really ship. A half-filled container pays almost the same freight as a full one, so each unit costs more. Calculate with the real volume of the order, not with the ideal capacity of your plant.

You will almost always have costs in two currencies. Production and labor are paid in soles; freight, terminal and some inputs, in dollars. The exchange rate is the price of one dollar in soles. Choose a reference rate, such as the one published by the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP), and use it throughout the sheet. Then test what happens if the sol appreciates by 3% or 5%: if you are paid in dollars and your costs are in soles, a stronger sol reduces your profit. Exchange-rate risk is studied in depth in the course on Finance, Costs and Payment Methods.

Work with values without IGV. The export of goods is not taxed with IGV, and the tax you paid on your purchases can be recovered as the exporter's credit balance (topic 4-3). If you add it to the cost, your price comes out higher than necessary. Do not forget the hidden costs either: product shrinkage, storage due to delays, container demurrage (a charge for using it more days than allowed), samples that are not charged for, and repeated paperwork caused by errors in the documents.

Key ideas

The cost sheet gives you the floor cost: the price below which you lose money.
Organize the items into five groups: production, preparation, leaving the country, finance and international leg.
Divide the total cost of the order by the units you really ship; a half-filled container makes each unit more expensive.
Use a single reference exchange rate, such as the BCRP's, and test how your margin changes if the sol appreciates.
Calculate with values without IGV: the tax on your purchases is recovered, it is not a cost.
Include the hidden costs: shrinkage, storage, demurrage and repeated paperwork.

Group	What it includes	Who is paid
Production	Raw material, inputs, labor, indirect costs	Suppliers, payroll, utilities
Preparation	Packaging, labeling, tests, samples, certifications	Suppliers, laboratories, certifiers
Leaving the country	Domestic transport, customs agent, terminal handling, origin paperwork	Carrier, customs agency, port terminal
Finance	Interest on working capital, bank fees	Bank
International leg	Freight, cargo insurance, charges at destination	Shipping line or airline, insurer (depending on the Incoterm®)

Worked example

Pima Andina calculates the cost of 12,000 polo shirts up to loading them on board

Pima Andina S.A.C., from Lima, makes Pima cotton polo shirts. It receives an order for 12,000 polo shirts from an importer in the United States, in one 20-foot container. It wants to know how much it costs to leave the container on board the vessel. It uses an assumed exchange rate of S/ 3.50 per US$ 1.
Production, without IGV: fabric and yarn S/ 9.60 per shirt; imported inputs (labels, thread, buttons, bags) US$ 0.40 per shirt, that is S/ 1.40; labor S/ 4.30; indirect costs S/ 1.60. Sum: S/ 16.90 per shirt. For 12,000 shirts: S/ 202,800.
Preparation: cartons, film, palletizing and carton labels for the order: S/ 2,400.
Leaving the country: transport from the plant to the Callao terminal S/ 900; customs agent S/ 700; handling and terminal services US$ 260, which is S/ 910; certificate of origin and paperwork S/ 120. Sum: S/ 2,630.
Finance: it finances S/ 120,000 of working capital at 12% a year for 60 days, on a 360-day year. Interest: 120,000 × 12% × 60 ÷ 360 = S/ 2,400. Bank collection fee: US$ 60, which is S/ 210. Sum: S/ 2,610.
Overheads allocated to the order: S/ 4,000.
Total: 202,800 + 2,400 + 2,630 + 2,610 + 4,000 = S/ 214,440. Unit cost: 214,440 ÷ 12,000 = S/ 17.87 per shirt. In dollars: 17.87 ÷ 3.50 = US$ 5.11.

Result: Each shirt costs S/ 17.87 (US$ 5.11) delivered on board. That is its floor cost: an FOB price below US$ 5.11 per shirt gives it a loss. The margin is added in topic 4-2.

Real cases

Ocean freight rates became more volatile after the Red Sea crisis

24/09/2025

On 24/09/2025, UNCTAD published its Review of Maritime Transport 2025 in Geneva. The report notes that freight rates are more volatile and higher, that the 2024 Red Sea crisis sent them soaring that year and that rerouting pushed ton-miles to a record, with almost 6% more. For a Peruvian exporter, freight is no longer a fixed figure in the cost sheet.

Quote freight with a validity date and leave a safety margin in your cost sheet.

Source: UNCTAD – Review of Maritime Transport 2025 (comunicado de prensa)

PromPerú teaches how to build the price by adding each expense from the plant

02/05/2017

On 02/05/2017, in Lima, PromPerú held the Miércoles del Exportador seminar on export pricing. The presentation starts from the EXW cost and adds international freight, insurance, shipping expenses, customs agent, customs warehouse, certificates and packaging until it reaches FOB, CFR, CIF, DAP or DDP. It uses Incoterms 2010; Incoterms 2020 apply today, but the method of adding each expense on its own line remains the same.

Every expense on the way to the vessel must have its own line in the sheet; what you do not record, you pay out of your margin.

Source: PROMPERÚ – Fijación de Precio de Exportación (Seminario Miércoles del Exportador)

Common mistakes

Adding the IGV on purchases as a cost. Work with values without IGV; that tax is recovered through the exporter's credit balance.
Forgetting exit costs, such as storage, demurrage and paperwork. Use the five groups as a checklist and ask your customs agent for a written quotation.
Mixing soles and dollars without setting an exchange rate. Choose a BCRP reference rate and test a change of 3% to 5%.
Calculating the unit cost with more units than you really ship. Always divide by the real volume of the order.
Copying freight from an old quotation. Ask for a current quotation for each shipment.

Practise with the calculators, the COMEX Simulator and the review questions on the main page.

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