Break Even Analysis Notes
Break Even Analysis Notes
The break-even point is the point at which total revenue and total cost are equal. Break-
even analysis determines the number of units or amount of revenue that’s needed to cover
your business’s total costs. At the break-even point, you aren’t losing or making any money,
but all the costs associated with your business will have been covered. After breaking even,
the sales made by your business are pure profit. Put simply, break-even analysis helps you
to determine at what point your business – or a new product or service – will become
profitable, while investors also use it to determine the point at which they’ll recoup their
investment and start making money.
Why is it useful?
It can be an excellent tool to use when you’re starting up a new business, as it helps you to
decide whether the idea is viable. Plus, it provides you with information you can use when
designing your pricing strategy.
Benefits Problems
Calculating the break-even point in CVP analysis is easy if variable and fixed costs are set. A
problem arises when the company sells more than one type of product. For companies that
produce more than one product, break-even analysis may be performed for each type of
product if fixed costs can be determined separately for each product. However, fixed costs
are normally incurred for all the products that’s why we need multi-product break-even
point.
Companies price each one of their products or services differently, and the costs associated
with each of those products or services vary as well. In addition, companies have limited
resources, such as time and labor, and must decide which products to sell or produce and in
what quantities, or which services to offer in order to be the most profitable. That’s why its
important for these companies to use multiproduct even analysis to analyze the sales mix
required to break-even. A sales mix represents the proportions of the products that a
company sells—in other words, the percentage of the company’s total revenue that comes
from product A, product B, product C, and so forth.