Equally, it doesn’t take into account external events or those which are out of your control . It’s a question that’s relevant to businesses of all kinds in this sector, no matter their size. The good news is that, when you hit break even, you’re probably growing; it’s a massive step forward. Glimpse provides business analytics and loss prevention technology for bars, restaurants and nightclubs. Now that we have the two most important pieces of information , we can use a relatively simple formula and calculate the break-even point. Download this restaurant KPI spreadsheet in Excel format to calculate key metrics such as gross profit, inventory turnover, variance, and more.

Now, it may be a little bit of a cash flow nightmare because, you know, if you only have enough money coming in and it’s going out at the same rate, that feels like a struggle. Here’s why it’s important to understand why you should know how to lower your break even point to find a path to success to get through this pandemic.

How to calculate your restaurant’s break even point

Conducting a restaurant break-even analysis helps you determine how much you need to sell so that your business’ expenses match its revenue. Knowing your break-even point enables you to understand how well your restaurant is doing financially. Over the course of a month, your restaurant will have a number of fixed costs. Rent or mortgage, advertising, insurance, payroll, utility bills and taxes will be costs every restaurant has every month, with additional expenses varying from business to business. Add up all of these costs, and you’ll get a figure that every single month, you will have to spend no matter what. Are recurring, constant costs that are incurred regardless of sales. That includes rent, salaries, licensing fees, insurance premiums, and the like.

• Easy and crucial, is the ability to track break-even analysis daily to better understand your restaurant performance.
• As we mentioned, knowing your business’ break even point can help you set realistic business goals.
• Get the best business coverage in Chicago, from breaking news to razor-sharp analysis, in print and online.
• So let’s see how Pete of Pete’s Pizza can use his restaurant break even analysis to set sales targets for his shop.
• So know your break-even and lucky you, this post helps you figure it out.

However, it is important to conduct a break-even analysis to understand how profitable your business is. This will help you set the right prices for your products and aim at reaching optimal sales volume. When your total sales equals your fixed and variable costs, you’ve reached break even. For instance, the cost of food production might momentarily reduce if you’re able to buy a specific ingredient in bulk for a short period of time. A break-even analysis is a financial calculation that weighs the costs of a new business, service or product against the unit sell price to determine the point at which you will break even.

Break-Even Calculation

Doing this analysis forces you to think of all these miscellaneous expenses and catch your errors. Now with our prices and goals set, next we use the break-even also as a benchmark to track our performance. The break-even metric is one of the most important financial analysis metrics for your small, medium or large restaurant.

To get the variable cost per guest, you can take the total cost of goods sold for food and/or beverage for a set period dividing by the number of plates or drinks sold. However, for the break-even analysis, it is smart to take the average of such mixed cost items and include https://quickbooks-payroll.org/ it in your fixed costs. Simply take your annual expenditure for said category, divide by 12 and use for our analysis. Finally, when you divide your fixed costs by the contribution margin ratio (Fixed Costs / Contribution Margin Ratio), you end up with your break-even point.

questions to ask yourself before reaching break-even

It represents the amount of revenue needed to cover the restaurant’s fixed and total variable costs over a specific time period. Once this figure has been calculated, you get to know the number of sales you need to make a profit. It lets you know the number of people you need to serve at a determined average price point for your restaurant to make a profit. Using the known factors of total fixed costs and variable costs, restaurant break even analysis businesses can assess the impact of changing sales prices on the number of units it needs to break even. Break-even analysis is an effective way to analyze product costs and determine how many units the business must sell before it realizes a profit. The process of calculating costs, including fixed and variable costs, allows businesses to track business expenses and determine when changes might be necessary.

In order for Pete’s Pizza to break even, it needs to generate approximately $2,951 in revenue or sell 73 pizzas every day for two years. When you have sales targets, you can break them down into realistic mini goals or milestones, which are easier to achieve. Create custom floor plans and menus, take tableside orders, accept payments and manage your whole business from one intuitive platform. There are also administrative tasks that, while less thrilling, are critical to the success of the restaurant. You find out that you need to generate $35,000 in monthly sales to break even. Family Style Turn more tables and delight guests with a POS built for family style restaurants.