Margin Trends Report

What the Margin Trends Report Shows

The Margin Trends report charts your gross margin percentage month by month. Where the Revenue and Cost Report gives you a snapshot for a selected period, Margin Trends gives you the trajectory — is profitability getting better or worse over time?

The report includes:

• A line chart showing gross margin % for each month in the selected range.
• A table showing revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, and gross margin % side by side for each month.

How to Read the Chart

The vertical axis is gross margin percentage. A flat line means your costs and prices are moving in proportion. An upward slope means you are becoming more profitable — either prices have increased, costs have fallen, or your product mix has shifted toward higher-margin items. A downward slope means profitability is eroding.

Key things to look for:

• A sudden dip — likely a one-off cost event, an unusually expensive production run, or a batch of discounted sales.
• A gradual downward slope — the classic sign of material price inflation that has not been passed on to customers.
• A recovery after a dip — confirms that a price increase had the intended effect.
• A plateau below your target — your pricing is structurally too low for your cost base.

Using Margin Trends to Validate Price Changes

Margin Trends is the best tool for confirming whether a price change worked:

1. Note the month in which you increased prices.
2. Look at the chart — did margin recover in the following months?
3. If margin recovered partially but not fully, your price increase was not large enough to offset the cost increase.
4. If margin continued to fall after a price increase, your costs are rising faster than your price adjustments.

Worked Example

A candle maker notices their margin declining from 48% in January to 38% in April despite steady sales volume. Looking at the table, revenue per month has stayed roughly flat while COGS has increased each month. This points to rising material costs — most likely wax or fragrance oil prices from a supplier. The artisan updates their material costs in CrafterBy, recalculates product costs, and raises prices in May. By July, margin has recovered to 46%.

The Margin Trends chart makes this narrative visible at a glance — the dip and recovery are clearly visible, validating the decision.

Practical Tip

If you see consistent margin decline with stable or growing volume, your material costs have almost certainly risen without a corresponding price adjustment. Use the Revenue and Cost Report to identify the months where COGS jumped, then look at your material purchase history to find the cause.