I recently started as a manufacturer, and looked at my finances tab, and was horrified by how much money it said I was losing. I looked through the numbers, and the issue was that output had an inventory cost of zero. This means that I was effectively writing off inputs.
This seems to be misleading, as any increase in production (as happens to a new player) inevitably means there is a loss generated. There will then be abnormal profits generated later by selling “zero cost” goods.
The income figure would better match reality if the cost of inventory inputs were rolled into the outputs.
This would not completely reflect the true cost of production (since it is not including labour cost or depreciation of buildings), but it would give a better guide to players about their financial situation.
Or if there is an option to assign a value of the output unit while placing the production order. Then you could include other estimated costs transport costs of worker cost.
As an accounting update. K1ttencorp was founded 54 days ago, and according to the numbers, I have a cumulative loss of 7,700 NCC.
Meanwhile, I have a second base, and 14 production buildings.
I am vertically integrated, and produce my own BFAB/LFABs. The way the game accounting system works now, all my inputs are written down to zero, and so almost everything on my balance sheet has a book value of zero. This helps explain the strangeness of my financials.
Ok I have played over a month. However I am still new. If this game is ever going to get real traction then it should have a full robust Firangi style accounting system. Every order should have profit and lost figures and balance sheet weight. Every shipment allocated costs to each item moved. Vertical integration should use standard costing for each building’s use and for each set of materials consumed. Infact every piece of code and hence action in the system should report multiple accounting actions. Thus you could track how much human time it took for shipment. Profit by order, by hour. by day. by week, by division, by company, by project, by event, by bar-stool or planet, by product, by expert, by time spent and with all the fancy graphing of modern businesses. And yes I have built accounting system like this.