Developing a Decision-Support Application for a Small Busine

Choice Coffee of the Month is a newly-formed one-person company that markets choice coffees through a monthly subscription service. For an annual subscription fee, Coffee of the Month will send subscribers a different choice coffee, such as Colombian, Mocha Java or French Dark Roast, every month. Its founder, Martha Staunton, feels this service will appeal to coffee-loving young professional couples who like to experiment with new flavors and ideas.

Martha plans to place small ads in the back of various gourmet magazines, but is unsure of the response rate. Before she invests heavily in advertising, inventory, and office space, Martha needs to know if there is a future in this type of business and at what point it will produce a profit.

This is a classic problem for all businesses: determining what objectives must be met to produce a profit or to minimize losses. What Martha must do is utilize the managerial accounting concept of Breakeven Analysis. Breakeven Analysis establishes the breakeven point, which is the number of units that must be sold to yield no profit and incur no loss. Any units sold beyond the breakeven point will represent profit, and a

Often the best way to display the results of breakeven analysis is in graphic form. It is also useful to use breakeven analysis to generate pro forma income statements which convert unit data to dollars and display projected sales revenue..

Some topics in this essay:
Coffee Month, Martha Staunton, Breakeven Analysis, choice coffee, coffee month, Choice Coffee, choice coffee month, contribution margin, margin unit, contribution margin unit, breakeven analysis, RECCOMENDATION Start, variable costs, Dark Roast, pro forma income, pro forma, breakeven units, income statements, data series, forma income statements, data series display,