What is cost of sales also known as?
Henry Morales
Published Feb 14, 2026
Cost of goods sold (COGS) refers to the direct costs of producing the goods sold by a company. It excludes indirect expenses, such as distribution costs and sales force costs. Cost of goods sold is also referred to as “cost of sales.”
What is periodic cost?
Period costs are costs that cannot be capitalized on a company’s balance sheet. The financial statements are key to both financial modeling and accounting.. In other words, they are expensed in the period incurred and appear on the income statement. Period costs are also called period expenses.
How do you calculate periodic cost?
Here are some steps you may take to report period costs for your business:
- Keep track of your period costs. Make sure you track how much money you spend on period costs and expense them during the period you incur the costs.
- Include your period costs on your income statement.
- Reevaluate your period costs each year.
Is COGS and cost of sales same?
Companies will often list on their balance sheets cost of goods sold (COGS) or cost of sales (and sometimes both), leading to confusion about what the two terms mean. Fundamentally, there is almost no difference between cost of goods sold and cost of sales. In accounting, the two terms are often used interchangeably.
What is the difference between COGS and COGS?
The key difference between the cost of sales vs the cost of goods sold is that the cost of goods sold refers to the analysis of direct cost related to the production of goods and no indirect cost is involved in the cost of goods sold.
Is cost of goods sold on the balance sheet?
Cost of goods sold figure is not shown on the statement of financial position or balance sheet, but it’s constituent inventory indirectly affects profit or loss figure shown on the statement of financial position that is calculated in the statement of comprehensive income under the head cost of goods sold.