Cost Variance

The question: where does cost leak? The report holds three figures side by side for every product — the standard cost you set (§6.8), the moving average the stock actually carries, and the last-in cost — and adds the buying verdict: purchase price variance, the difference between what purchase orders expected to pay and what the invoices actually charged, order by order accumulated into a number with a sign. Read it as a diagnostic, not a league table: a standard far from the average says the standard is stale, not that the buyers failed; a purchase variance that grows in one category says the grid's purchase prices (§6.7) have drifted from the market, and the fix belongs there. Costs, prices and variances meet on this one page precisely so the three stories can be told apart.