Make catering labor and target margin visible

Price prep and service time

For each dish, the engine adds prep and service hours, multiplies by staff count, and applies the entered hourly rate. The illustrative defaults produce 456 in labor cost at the entered rate.

labor cost = (prep hours + service hours) x staff count x hourly rate

The default rows produce 456 of labor cost before overhead and target-margin pricing.

Apply overhead before the quote

Direct ingredient and labor cost form the base for the entered overhead percentage. With the default 12% overhead, the event cost is 1,169.28 from the illustrative CSV and assumptions.

event cost = ingredient cost + labor cost + (ingredient cost + labor cost) x overhead percent / 100

Keep margin as a contribution target

The suggested quote divides event cost by one minus the target margin. The default 30% target yields a suggested quote of 1,670.40 in the current illustrative scenario; replace prices, labor, and scope before relying on that screen.

suggested quote = event cost / (1 - target margin percent / 100)