In economics and business, specifically cost accounting, the break-even point is the point at which costs or expenses and revenue are equal - there is no net loss or gain, and one has "broken even".
A profit or a loss has not been made, although opportunity costs have been "paid", and capital has received the risk-adjusted, expected return. For example, if a business sells fewer than 200 tables each month, it will make a loss. If the business sells more, it will make a profit. With this information, the business managers will then need to see if they expect to be able to make and sell 200 tables per month. If they think they cannot sell that many, to ensure viability they could:
In the linear Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis model, the break-even point - in terms of Unit Sales (X) - can be directly computed in terms of Total Revenue (TR) and Total Costs (TC) as: where TFC is Total Fixed Costs, P is Unit Sale Price, and V is Unit Variable Cost. The quantity (P - V) is of interest in its own right, and is called the Unit Contribution Margin (C). It is the marginal profit per unit, or alternatively the portion of each sale that contributes to Fixed Costs. Thus the break-even point can be more simply computed as the point where Total Contribution = Total Fixed Cost:
Break-Even Analysis Using Contribution Margin
A break-even quantity can also be found using contribution margin.
Break-Even Calculation
We can derive the calculation for the break-even quantity from the relation of total revenue to total costs.
The break-even point is one of the simplest analytical tools in management. It helps to provide a dynamic view of the relationships between sales, costs, and profits. A better understanding of break-even, for example, is expressing break-even sales as a percentage of actual sales. This can give managers a chance to understand when to expect to break even (by linking the percent to when in the week/month this percent of sales might occur). In terms of pricing decisions, break-even analysis can give a company a benchmark quantity of goods to be sold. This quantity can then be used to derive the average fixed and variable costs, the sum of which can be used as the basis for markup pricing, et cetera. Some limitations of break-even analysis include:
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