Maria Chavez owns a catering company that serves food and beverages at parties and business functions. Chavez's business is seasonal, with a heavy schedule during the summer months and holidays and a lighter schedule at other times.
One of the major events Chavez's customers request is a cocktail party. She offers a standard cocktail party and has estimated the cost per guest as follows:

The standard cocktail party lasts three hours and Chavez hires one worker for every six guests, so that works out to one-half hour of labor per guest. These workers are hired only as needed and are paid only for the hours they actually work.
When bidding on cocktail parties, Chavez adds a 15% markup to yield a price of about $31 per guest. She is confident about her estimates of the costs of food and beverages and labor but is not as comfortable with the estimate of overhead cost. The $13.98 overhead cost per labor-hour was determined by dividing total overhead expenses for the last 12 months by total labor-hours for the same period. Monthly data concerning overhead costs and labor-hours follow:

Chavez has received a request to bid on a 180 -guest fund-raising cocktail party to be given next month by an important local charity. (The party would last the usual three hours.) She would like to win this contract because the guest list for this charity event includes many prominent individuals that she would like to land as future clients. Maria is confident that these potential customers would be favorably impressed by her company's services at the charity event.

Required:
Estimate the contribution to profit of a standard 180-guest cocktail party if Chavez charges her usual price of $31 per guest. (In other words, by how much would her overall profit increase?)

Respuesta :

Lowest bid chavez can charge is more than variable cost i.e. approximate 22.92 per guest to have profits.

Calculation of least price per guest which lead to break even

Calculation of Fixed cost, Variable cost and contribution

By using High-Low Method calculate fixed cost and variable cost per unit

Highest activity - 7000 hours and 71000 cost

Lowest Activity - 2300 hours and 53000 cost

Variable cost per Unit = Change in cost/Change in activity level

= (71000 - 53000)/(7000 - 2300)

= 18000/4700 = 3.83 per direct labour hours

Fixed cost = Total cost - Variable cost

Fixed cost = 71000 - (3.83X7000) = 44190

Total Variable cost chart

Particulars                                                        Amount

Food and beverages                                              16

Labour                                                                       5

Overhead (0.5 hours at 3.83 per labour hour)       1.915

Variable cost per guest                                               22.915

Step 3 - Calculation of contribution margin

Particulars                                                               Amount

Revenue          (195 guest X39 Per guest)               7605

Variable cost     (195 guest X 22.915)                     4468.425

Contribution margin                                                 3136.575

Solution 4 - lowest bid chavez can charge is more than variable cost i.e. approximate 22.92 per guest to have profits.

To learn more about Estimate the contribution to profit visit:https://brainly.com/question/14780789

#SPJ4