Rate Settings
Set your labor's hourly rate (with a burden %) and your equipment cost by depreciation or per use, from the cost screen or without leaving the recipe.
What it is
The Rate settings screen is where you define two production cost centers: the hourly cost of your labor and the cost of your equipment. These are the rates the app uses to calculate the labor and machinery cost of each recipe.
The screen subtitle reads: "Labor €/hour + equipment usage cost."
How to get there
- Path:
https://app.areacacao.com/costs/rates - How to reach it: Cost management hub → Rate settings tile.
- Shortcut from inside a recipe: in the Costs tab of the recipe editor, click Configure rates (labor section) or Manage equipment (equipment section). A side panel titled "Rates & equipment" opens with this same editor; when you close it, the recipe recalculates its costs instantly.
Why they matter
The real cost of a production run isn't just the ingredients. Labor and equipment often account for a very large share of the total cost of an artisan product. Without rates configured, the calculated cost per recipe only reflects ingredients — an incomplete picture.
What you see
Two tabs
- Labor — a €/hour rate per role, plus a Burden %. Its banner explains: "Labor: €/hour rate per role. Used in production steps to calculate labor cost per recipe."
- Equipment — a cost per piece of equipment, computed by depreciation or per use. Its banner spells out the rate formula: "€/hour = (purchase − salvage) / useful-life + variable cost/hour."
AreaCacao includes predefined rows with a default badge:
- Labor (default roles): Pastry chef/Chocolatier, Production assistant, Head chef, Apprentice, General.
- Equipment (default): Convection oven, Industrial mixer, Refrigerator, Generic equipment.
Labor: base wage + burden %
The labor table has four columns: Name, €/hour, Burden %, and Actions. The Burden % is the markup over the base wage (taxes, insurance, PTO), as the helper text says: "Markup over base wage (taxes, insurance, PTO)."
The loaded rate each recipe uses is:
loaded rate = €/hour × (1 + burden% / 100)That way you keep the wage you actually pay separate from its associated labor costs, without padding it by hand.
Equipment: hourly (depreciation) or per use
Every piece of equipment has a Mode:
-
Hourly (depreciation) — you set Purchase cost, Salvage value, Useful life (hours), and Variable cost/hour. The app derives the €/hour rate using straight-line depreciation:
€/hour = (purchase − salvage) / useful-life + variable cost/hour -
Per use — you set a single value: € per use.
Each row shows its mode and the resulting rate (e.g. Hourly (depreciation) · 1.85 €/h), with buttons to edit (pencil) and archive (trash).
How to edit
Labor is edited inline and autosaves; equipment is edited through a form (Save and Cancel buttons).
Adjust labor
Edit the €/hour or Burden % value of any role. The change autosaves when you leave the field: a Saved HH:MM:SS label appears in the header with the time of the last save. To add a role, fill in the Add a new role block (name, €/h, and burden %) and click Add.
Create or edit a piece of equipment
Click Add equipment (or the pencil on an existing row) to open the form. Pick the Mode, fill in the matching fields, and watch the derived €/hour rate update as you type. Click Save to confirm or Cancel to discard.
Archive a role or piece of equipment
The trash button archives the row (a soft delete): it disappears from the table, but recipes that already used it keep their historical rate. It is not a destructive delete.
Here you only define the rates. Assigning how many hours of which role and which equipment go into each product is done in the Costs tab of the recipe editor, not on this screen.
Best practices
- Use the Burden % to capture your total labor cost (social security, vacation, training) instead of padding the €/hour by hand.
- For expensive equipment, prefer Hourly (depreciation) mode: spread the investment across its useful life in hours and add the variable cost (energy, maintenance) per hour.
- Archive rather than think about deleting: your historical cost sheets stay intact.
- Review your rates yearly, or whenever the minimum wage goes up, you renegotiate a contract, or the price of energy changes.
Plan availability
Available on all plans.