Fixed business costs
Log your recurring business costs and let AreaCacao prorate them to a monthly total to spread across your recipes.
What it is
Fixed business costs are the recurring costs that aren't tied to a specific recipe (rent, utilities, insurance, marketing…). This screen logs them and prorates them to a monthly total so the app can spread them proportionally across your production.
The screen subtitle reads: "Monthly fixed costs to allocate across your recipes."
How to get there
- Path:
https://app.areacacao.com/costs/business - How to get there: Cost management hub → Fixed business costs tile.
Why it matters
Without accounting for fixed costs, the calculated cost of a recipe is optimistic: margins that look healthy on screen but don't cover your real costs. Prorating them to a monthly figure gives you the indirect cost that each product has to carry.
What you see
KPIs
- Total monthly (allocated) — the sum of all your costs already normalized to a monthly figure.
- Costs defined — how many costs you have on file.
- Average / cost — the average amount per cost.
List grouped by category
Costs are grouped by category. Each group shows its icon, its number of costs, and its monthly total in your profile currency, followed by /mo. The available categories are:
- Facility costs
- Utilities
- Administrative staff
- Insurance and licenses
- Marketing and advertising
- Maintenance and repairs
- Professional services
- Cleaning
- Other costs
How prorating works
Prorating is simply a normalization by recurrence to a monthly total. The app applies:
| Recurrence | Contribution to the monthly total |
|---|---|
| Monthly | The full amount |
| Quarterly | The amount divided by 3 |
| Annual | The amount divided by 12 |
| One-time | Does not add to the monthly total |
| Custom | Does not add to the monthly total |
There are no "by productive hours," "by weight produced," or "manual" allocation methods. The only criterion is the cost's recurrence normalized to a monthly figure.
Where the monthly total is used
The Total monthly (allocated) figure feeds three calculations:
- A recipe's indirect costs, if you choose the % of business sales method in its Costs tab: the recipe absorbs the percentage of that total you enter, spread over the units you sell per month.
- The break-even of each sales channel, in the Costs tab and in the cost breakdown: that total divided by the contribution margin per unit.
- The monthly indirect costs of the AI cost assistant.
Express costing can add three starting lines here (Workshop rent, Energy and utilities and Insurance and admin) as monthly fixed costs; you edit or delete them like any other cost.
Add or edit a cost
Open the form
Click New cost (or Create your first cost if you don't have any yet). The New business cost modal opens, with the subtitle "It will be allocated monthly across your recipes." To edit an existing one, use its pencil icon: it opens the same modal in Edit cost mode.
Fill in the fields
- Name (required) — placeholder e.g. Workshop rent, Electricity, Liability insurance…
- Category — one of the nine listed above.
- Recurrence — Monthly, Quarterly, Annual, One-time, or Custom. The default value when you create a cost is Monthly.
- Amount (required) — the field shows your profile currency symbol in front (placeholder 800.00).
- Type — Fixed or Variable. It's informational: it doesn't change the monthly total.
- Description — optional; placeholder Supplier, terms, notes.
Save
Click Save (or Cancel). The cost lands in its category group and the KPIs recalculate.
To delete a cost, use its trash icon; the app asks for confirmation: "Delete this cost?".
Empty states
- Empty: "You haven't logged any business costs yet. Start by adding rent, utilities, marketing, and so on."
- Modal validation: "Enter a name", "Enter a valid amount".
Best practices
- Review your fixed costs at least every six months.
- Add each cost with the recurrence at which you actually pay it (annual, quarterly, monthly); the app normalizes it for you.
Availability by plan
Available on all plans.