Costs · P&L line 31

Fixed costs

The costs you pay whether you sell anything or not.

The short answer

Fixed costs are what you pay whether or not you sell: rent, salaries, software, retainers, insurance. The test is not how regular a cost looks on a bank statement but whether the next order changes it; if it does not, it is fixed, and contribution margin has to cover it.

Rent, salaries, software subscriptions, agency retainers, insurance. They do not move with the number of orders, which is what makes them fixed, and it is also what makes them dangerous: they are still there in the month nothing sells. They grow by renewal rather than by decision, which is why a quarterly fixed cost review belongs in the calendar.

They should be spread across the days they cover rather than landing whole on the day the invoice arrives, otherwise one day a month looks catastrophic and the rest look better than they are. Even spread, a slow day can show a loss, and a negative margin on one day is rarely a bug.

A yearly invoice divided by 365 and a monthly one multiplied by twelve and divided by 365 both give you a daily slice, which is what a daily P&L needs.

How much you have to sell before they are covered is the question an ecommerce break-even calculator answers.

Where you see it in nouz

The P&L, line 31. Entered under Overhead.

app.nouz.co/pnl
The nouz P&L statement with line 31 marked
Line 31 on the P&L, this month so far.

See this on your own store, every morning.

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