작성자 James Chae — 엑스퍼트 사피엔스 공동창업자
검토됨 6월 2026
Finance & Accounting
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)이란 무엇인가요?
정의
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is the direct cost of producing the goods or services a company sells — materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead — excluding indirect expenses like marketing, rent, or admin salaries.
COGS appears directly below revenue on the income statement, and Revenue − COGS = Gross Profit, the starting point for measuring how efficiently a company turns sales into margin before overhead is factored in. For a product business, COGS includes raw materials, factory labor, and shipping to get the product ready for sale. For a service business, it typically includes the direct labor cost of delivering the service (e.g., a consultant's billable hours), though many service companies track this less rigorously than product companies do.
What counts as COGS versus operating expense matters for accurate margin analysis: rent on a factory is COGS, rent on a corporate office is not; a customer support rep answering post-sale tickets is typically an operating expense, while a technician installing the product is often COGS. Getting this classification consistent matters for comparing gross margin over time and against industry benchmarks.
왜 중요한가
Misclassifying costs between COGS and operating expenses distorts gross margin — the metric investors and lenders use to judge whether a business model is fundamentally sound before overhead is even considered. An accountant or bookkeeper can set up a chart of accounts that classifies costs correctly from day one, so margin reporting is accurate and comparable as the business scales.