# Fishbowl: 'Cost cannot be negative'

> A cost field rejected a negative value.

## What it means

The system rejected a cost field containing a negative number. Fishbowl requires cost values to be zero or positive. This typically occurs when you manually enter a negative cost or when a formula generates one.

## What to check

- Is the cost value actually negative? Verify the number you entered or the source of a calculated value.
- Are you trying to apply a discount? Use a discount field instead of entering a negative cost.
- If this appeared on a computed field, check the source values feeding into the calculation.

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*From Israel Lopez Consulting (ILC). Custom Fishbowl Inventory integrations and software, and Fishbowl experts since 2015. Written by Israel Lopez. Questions about this topic, or want to reach the people who wrote it? Visit https://israellopezconsulting.com/contact*