One of the common oversights I see, is a lack of understanding of the TOTAL costs of staff when budgeting & pricing in the beginning.
What about your contributions to their National Insurance? What about their holiday & sick pay? In a very small operation, where there’s not enough staff to cover someone’s absence, you may have to hire more staff – paying twice fore the same job. These (& other issues) can make a vast difference to your running costs.
Make sure you have budgeted for this in your business plan running costs.
Understanding budgets & margins. Attracting & keeping customers is one thing, but achieving your budgets is critical. Get it wrong and the smallest miscalculation could lead to substantial losses.
40 single dish serves a day undersold by only 10 pence over the course of a year would lose you £1,460 a year. That’s just one dish. Imagine if the same mistake was made across the menu!
A common misconception is that by adding 50% to the food cost gives you a 50% margin. It doesn’t. The Brakes website has a profit calculator which is handy & easy to use. Visit www.brake.co.uk
Make sure you get your pricing right first; you can always lower a price but increasing it once published is very difficult. Your customers would definitely notice.
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