Articles on: Costs and Expenses

Add Costs for Deleted Products and Variants

When you delete a product or variant in Shopify, the orders that sold it stay in your history, but the item they point to no longer exists in your catalog. Profitario marks these order lines as deleted and lets you set costs for them, so profit for past orders stays accurate.

Where Deleted Items Appear

In the orders list. A gray trash marker appears next to any order line whose product or variant was deleted in your store. Hover over it to see which of the two applies. The red dollar marker next to it means the line has no cost yet; a deleted line usually shows both until you set its cost.

In the screenshot, the Terracotta and Sand lines carry both markers: their variants were deleted and no cost is set. The Medium (7 oz) line in order #1065 shows only the trash marker, because its deleted variant already has a cost and the line is fully counted.

In Product Costs. Set the status filter to With Sales to see order coverage per product. A product with order lines for deleted variants gets its own badge, for example 5 deleted · 5 missing cost. Once every deleted line has a cost, the badge turns gray and shows only the count.

Set a Cost for a Deleted Variant

There are two ways in:

In Product Costs, click the deleted badge on the product row.
In Orders, click the order line with the trash marker.

Both open the price change editor on the Costs step, with a separate Deleted variants group at the bottom of the variant list. Each deleted variant shows a trash marker, its SKU, and how many order lines used it.

Enter the unit cost and handling cost exactly like for a live variant, then continue to Review and save. Only deleted variants where you enter a value are saved; rows you leave empty are skipped.

When you arrive from an order line and all live variants of the product share one cost, that cost is pre-filled for the deleted variant and the input is focused, so you can confirm or adjust it and save in a few clicks.

After saving, Profitario recalculates all past orders that used the deleted variant. Allow a few minutes for the numbers to update.

Relink When the Variant Was Re-Created

Merchants sometimes delete a variant and immediately re-create it, keeping the same SKU. In that case there is no need to maintain two costs. When a deleted variant's SKU exactly matches a live variant of the same product that already has a cost, its row in the Deleted variants group shows a relink action instead of asking for a cost:

Click the link icon to review the match. Profitario shows both variants, the live variant's current cost, and how many order lines would move:

Relink updates the affected order lines to point to the live variant. Its existing cost, including any price changes, then applies to those orders automatically, and no separate cost entry is needed. If the two variants are genuinely different items, choose Set cost separately (or Cancel) and enter a cost for the deleted variant instead.

Relinking rewrites which variant the past order lines belong to and cannot be undone with a single click. Use it only when the live variant truly replaced the deleted one.

Ghost Rows: Deleted Items That Have Costs

A deleted variant with a cost stays visible in the Product Costs table with a Ghost badge, even when the Show deleted toggle is off. A deleted product whose variants have costs appears the same way. This keeps the cost visible and editable for as long as it matters to your history.

In the screenshot, the deleted product Rattan Pendant Lamp appears as its own ghost row, and inside the candle product the deleted Medium (7 oz) variant carries the Ghost badge next to its saved cost.

Common Questions

Why do I not see the deleted badge in Product Costs? The order coverage badges only load when the status filter is set to With Sales (or when you arrive from a missing-costs link on the dashboard). The trash markers in the orders list are always visible.

Does any of this change my Shopify store? No. Deleted products and variants are gone in Shopify either way. Costs and relinking only affect how Profitario calculates your profit.

Do the costs apply to old date ranges? Yes. A cost saved for a deleted variant applies to every past order that used it, based on each order's date, exactly like costs for live variants.

What if no matching live variant exists? Then no relink is offered and setting a cost directly is the right way. The relink offer only appears for an exact SKU match on the same product.