Costing an Event

Prerequisites: Modules 3, 47, 54.

The sequence

Cost the food at edible portion.

Cost the labor, including transport and setup.

Cost the equipment and the losses.

And compare against what was quoted.

The decisions

What to include. The labor is the number that gets underestimated — setup, transport, service, and breakdown are hours nobody counted when the quote was written.

And the guaranteed count question. Producing to a guarantee and serving fewer is a cost somebody agreed to bear, and that should have been settled in Lesson 1.

What you are reading

Actual against quoted, after every event. That comparison is the only thing that makes the next quote better.

What goes wrong here

Labor uncosted.

And no post-event comparison, which means the same underestimate repeats.

Verification

The actual-versus-quoted comparison.

The boundary

Pricing, contracts, and financial matters belong with a CPA and a licensed attorney.