Variable Costs Examples, Formula, Guide to Analyzing Costs

He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University. High operating leverage can benefit companies since more profits are obtained from each incremental dollar of revenue generated beyond the break-even point. For example, a company executive’s base salary would be considered a fixed cost because the dollar amount owed by the company is outlined in an employment contract signed by the relevant parties.

Cost is one of the most significant factors to determine success when running a business.
However, variable costs can sometimes be too abstract for people to wrap their heads around at first glance, especially if they are new to their business endeavors.
Since variable costs are tied to output, lower production volume means fewer costs are incurred, which eases the cost pressure on a company — but fixed costs must still be paid regardless.
Your average variable cost crunches these two variable costs down to one manageable figure.

A scatter graph shows plots of points that represent actual costs incurred for various levels of activity. Once the scatter graph is constructed, we draw a line (often referred to as a trend line) that appears to best fit the pattern of dots. When interpreting a scatter graph, it is important to remember that different people would likely draw different lines, which would lead to different estimations of fixed and variable costs. No one person’s line and cost estimates would necessarily be right or wrong compared to another; they would just be different. Estimation is also useful for using current data to predict the effects of future changes in production on total costs. Three estimation techniques that can be used include the scatter graph, the high-low method, and regression analysis.

The variable cost ratio is a cost accounting tool used to express a company’s variable production costs as a percentage of its net sales. The ratio is calculated by dividing the variable costs by the net revenues of the company. The company’s net revenue includes the sum of its returns, allowances, and discounts subtracted from the total sales.

You can us our labor cost calculator and VAT calculator to understand more on this topic. First, it is important to know that $598,000 in manufacturing costs to produce 1,000,000 phone cases includes fixed costs such as insurance, equipment, building, and utilities. Therefore, we should use variable costing when determining whether to accept this special order. In scatter graphs, cost is considered the dependent variable because cost depends upon the level of activity. The activity is considered the independent variable since it is the cause of the variation in costs.

Variable Cost Explained in 200 Words (& How to Calculate It)

For example, utility costs incur monthly but are considered variable because they change in proportion to energy usage. Using a scatter graph to determine if this linear relationship exists is an essential first step in cost behavior analysis. If the scatter graph reveals a linear cost behavior, then managers can proceed with a more sophisticated analyses to separate mixed costs into their fixed and variable components. However, if this linear relationship is not present, then other methods of analysis are not appropriate. Let’s examine the cost data from Regent Airline using the high-low method.

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For example, Amy is quite concerned about her bakery as the revenue generated from sales are below the total costs of running the bakery.
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In all three examples, managers used cost data they have collected to forecast future costs at various activity levels.
The first step in analyzing mixed costs with the high-low method is to identify the periods with the highest and lowest levels of activity.

Take the case of a small ecommerce business called PetsCo, which produced 100 units of an 80 lb bag of premium dog food in February 2022. Additionally, a lower cost per unit can also identify gaps in internal efficiencies. Using the maintenance cost data from Regent Airlines shown in Figure 2.32, we will examine how this method works in practice. Don’t forget to consider costs for production equipment (including computer software), employee wages, commissions, any packaging or shipment costs, translation fees, in addition to the others listed above. It’s a good idea to make a list of these costs so that you can revisit them later when you run through this exercise at a later date.

Since costs of variable nature are output-dependent, the costs incurred increase (or decrease) given varying production volumes. The concept of relevant range primarily relates to fixed costs, though variable earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses costs may experience a relevant range of their own. This may hold true for tangible products going into a good as well as labor costs (i.e. it may cost overtime rates if a certain amount of hours are worked).

Packaging and Shipping Costs

While you can always try to get customers to spend more (or you can charge them more money), the root cause of low margins is often high costs for the business. While the cost per unit refers to how much you spend to deliver one unit, the price per unit refers to how much you charge customers for each item sold. As you can see from the calculator above, calculating cost per unit includes a few main components. A low per-unit cost is an indicator of efficient production and logistics, which ensures profit is being made per sale. Of course, quality plays a role, as higher quality or premium goods typically cost more to produce than less durable or cheaper materials.

What Is a Variable Cost?

The accountant at an events management company is preparing a payroll budget based on costs from the past year. This same approach can be used to predict costs for service and merchandising firms, as shown by examining the costs incurred by J&L Accounting to prepare a corporate income tax return, shown in Table 2.10. Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Double Entry Bookkeeping. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries.

ShipBob also helps your online business with tracking distribution metrics and inventory management KPIs so you can easily make cost-conscious supply chain decisions. Whether it’s a slow-selling item or obsolete inventory, having an inventory management system in place can enhance visibility so you can make wise decisions about your product catalog sooner than later. Dealing with these common inventory challenges can hike up logistics costs, from higher storage costs to returns management (e.g., shipping labels, processing and restocking). Procurement logistics and freight shipping costs also need to be evaluated to ensure finished goods are being received at the lowest costs. To calculate the profit or loss per unit, you will need to find the difference between the cost and unit price.

Variable Cost Ratio

In addition, variable costs are necessary to determine sale targets for a specific profit target. Average variable costs can be calculated using division and subtraction methods. For example, suppose you were thinking about adding a new product to your product line but needed to make sure it made sense financially. In that case, you need to have a decent idea of not only your fixed cost for the business, but what the variable cost for a new product might look like.

This is a prudent choice when the need for increased capacity is not clear. The Total cost refers to a summation of the fixed and variable costs of production. Suppose the variable cost per unit is fixed, and fixed costs at the highest and lowest production levels remain the same.

Waymaker Furniture has collected cost information from its production process and now wants to predict costs for various levels of activity. J&L can make predictions for their costs because they have the data they need, but what happens when a business wants to estimate total costs but has not collected data regarding per-unit costs? This is the case for the managers at the Beach Inn, a small hotel on the coast of South Carolina. They know what their costs were for June, but now they want to predict their costs for July. If the number of units produced in the period is 1,000 then the variable cost per unit is calculated as follows. Both variable and fixed costs are essential to getting a complete picture of how much it costs to produce an item — and how much profit remains after each sale.

Estimate your expected unit sales

There is also a category of costs that falls between fixed and variable costs, known as semi-variable costs (also known as semi-fixed costs or mixed costs). These are costs composed of a mixture of both fixed and variable components. Examples of fixed costs are rent, employee salaries, insurance, and office supplies. A company must still pay its rent for the space it occupies to run its business operations irrespective of the volume of products manufactured and sold. If a business increased production or decreased production, rent will stay exactly the same. Although fixed costs can change over a period of time, the change will not be related to production, and as such, fixed costs are viewed as long-term costs.

Since fixed costs are static, however, the weight of fixed costs will decline as production scales up. A company that seeks to increase its profit by decreasing variable costs may need to cut down on fluctuating costs for raw materials, direct labor, and advertising. However, the cost cut should not affect product or service quality as this would have an adverse effect on sales. By reducing its variable costs, a business increases its gross profit margin or contribution margin. Since the average variable cost is determined from total variable costs, it can indicate the overall variable expenditure of a company. Most companies have limits to such costs and they want to contain the total variable costs within set limits.

If the athletic brand doesn’t make the shoes, it won’t incur the cost of leather, synthetic mesh, canvas, or other raw materials. In general, a company should spend roughly the same amount on raw materials for every unit produced assuming no major differences in manufacturing one unit versus another. Depending on the type of business you run, you may have fixed or variable costs that could impact a monumental decision, such as adding new products or closing the doors to a business.

In turn, this can help you deliver orders to customers more affordably while keeping product prices competitive. The company approves a 5% pay raise at the start of each year and expects that work hours will be 20,000 for the next quarter considering the new hires. Double Entry Bookkeeping is here to provide you with free online information to help you learn and understand bookkeeping and introductory accounting. To illustrate, suppose a business has costs which are classified as shown below.