What is the Cost of Goods Sold?

The cost of goods sold is usually the largest expense that a business incurs. It includes the costs of all direct materials, direct labor, and overhead associated with the goods or services sold to customers. It appears in the income statement, immediately after the sales line items and before the selling and administrative line items. A sample presentation of the cost of goods sold in an income statement appears in the following exhibit.

How to Classify the Cost of Goods Sold

The cost of goods sold is considered to be linked to sales under the matching principle. Thus, once you recognize revenues when a sale occurs, you must recognize the cost of goods sold at the same time, as the primary offsetting expense. This means that the cost of goods sold is an expense.

If there are no sales of goods or services, then there should theoretically be no cost of goods sold. Instead, the costs associated with goods and services are recorded in the inventory asset account, which appears in the balance sheet as a current asset. In actuality, some costs recorded within the cost of goods sold accounts may actually be period costs, and so may not necessarily be directly associated with goods or services, and will not be allocated to them. Also, there may be production-related expenses (such as facility rent) even when there is no production at all, as would be the case when there is a union walkout. In these cases, it is possible for there to be a cost of goods sold expense even in the absence of sales.