Determining Your Break-Even Point: A Step-by-Step Guide

Calculating your break-even point is a crucial aspect of running a successful restaurant. It helps you understand the minimum amount of sales you need to generate in order to cover all of your costs, including your fixed expenses and variable costs. By knowing your break-even point, you can make informed decisions about pricing, promotions, and other strategies that can impact your bottom line. In this article, we will walk you through the process of calculating your break-even point.

Step 1: Identify Your Fixed Costs

The first step in calculating your break-even point is to identify your fixed costs. These are the expenses that you have to pay regardless of the number of sales you make. Examples of fixed costs include rent, salaries, utilities, insurance, and loan payments. You need to have an accurate understanding of your fixed costs in order to determine your break-even point.

Step 2: Identify Your Variable Costs

The next step is to identify your variable costs, which are expenses that vary based on the number of sales you make. Examples of variable costs include cost of goods sold (COGS), such as the cost of raw materials and labor, as well as marketing and promotional expenses. With Dashy Dash you will quickly identify any price changes and find better suppliers to keep your variable cost down.

Step 3: Calculate Your Total Cost

Once you have identified your fixed and variable costs, you can calculate your total cost by adding the two together. This will give you an overall picture of the expenses you need to cover in order to achieve your break-even point. Since your fixed cost can't be improved, your goal is to improve those variable cost that affect your bottom-line. Dashy Dash is constantly working to gather data of fluctuating prices, better alternatives and ways you can save more money on what you already buy.

Step 4: Determine Your Average Sale Price

The next step is to determine your average sale price. This is the average amount you receive for each sale, and it is important to know this in order to calculate your break-even point. You can determine your average sale price by dividing your total sales revenue by the number of sales.

Step 5: Calculate Your Break-Even Point

Now that you have all of the information you need, you can calculate your break-even point by dividing your total cost by your average sale price. The result is the number of sales you need to make in order to cover all of your expenses and break even.

In conclusion, calculating your break-even point is a valuable tool for understanding the financial health of your business. By following these steps, you can make informed decisions that will help you reach your financial goals and ensure long-term success for your restaurant.


About Dashy Dash

Dashy Dash helps restaurants, restaurant groups, and chains of all types control supply costs with less work.

With Dashy Dash restaurants can manage invoices, track product price histories, and drill down into expense categories. We help restaurants...

  • Automatically catch rising prices before they spin out of control
  • Benchmark prices for supplies against those paid by similar restaurants and bars
  • Easily find alternative products and suppliers in their area
  • Capture credits by automatically auditing invoices for errors

Try it now

More From Dashy

Let Us Get Started Working For You!

If you’re a restaurant owner, manager, or chef interested in learning more, join our waitlist and be the first to learn about our new community tools, features, and reports.