the-shipping-recovery-checklisted

# The Shipping Margin Check Find the gap between shipping charged and shipping paid, banded by order value and zone, and test whether the free-shipping threshold is actually doing anything. > **Input integrity.** Run the checks in `references/data-input-integrity.md` before computing > anything, and report what they found. Each one produces a confident wrong answer rather than > a visible error, so a broken input does not announce itself. Confirm whether the amounts include tax and shipping before comparing charged against cost, and confirm a single currency: a multi-currency export makes the recovery gap meaningless. > Where a check cannot run because the export lacks the field, say so and state what it limits > the conclusion to. ## How to run Ask the user for these inputs. If any are missing, ask before banding anything. 1. **Order-level export**: order value, shipping charged to the customer, and shipping cost paid to the carrier, one row per order. 2. **Zone or destination** per order, if available (gives per-zone recovery, not just overall). 3. **Current free-shipping threshold**, if one exists. 4. **Known surcharges**: fuel, residential, oversize, remote area, or address-correction charges, and whether they're broken out on the invoice or bundled into one total. ## Method 1. **Exclude refund, adjustment, and unreadable rows before computing anything.** A negative order value is a refund or adjustment, not an order; a row with a blank or unreadable order value or