Where each number comes from
- Chairs booked: the invite list with a deposit paid against each name. A chair without a deposit is a hope, and the night's costs do not wait for hope.
- Deposit per chair: your party booking terms, read by counsel before they go on the invite. It comes off the patient's bill, so it does not add to revenue; it tells you how much of the night is already paid for.
- Units per chair: your record system, the average units for patients like the ones invited. Confirm units and dosing with your medical director.
- Price per unit at the party: your party price, if it sits below the menu price. That gap is the first reason parties lose money.
- Cost per unit: the vial invoice divided by the units each vial yields after reconstitution. Confirm with your medical director.
- Vial yield waste: units paid for and discarded, because a vial was opened for a patient who needed part of it. The rest could not be used inside the window your medical director sets. Count it from your last party if you kept the vial log. Confirm with your medical director.
- Injector and desk hours: everyone, from the moment setup starts to the moment the room is clean, including travel if the party is off site.
- Loaded cost per injector or desk hour: payroll, including taxes, benefits and insurance, averaged across the people on the night.
- Other costs for the night: every receipt for the party that would not exist without it.
What the number means
Four things go wrong, and all four can be counted before the invite goes out. The party price eats the margin per unit. The chairs were RSVPs rather than deposits. Vials were opened for patients who used part of them, and the rest sat past the window your medical director sets. A night of injector and desk time never went on the sheet. Profit is what is left after all four. Break-even chairs is the number of paying patients the night needs just to cover its people and its costs. If that number is close to the chairs booked, one no-show turns the party into a loss.
The deposit does not change the profit on the page, because it is part of the bill. What it changes is whether the chairs booked will be sat in. A patient who paid to hold a chair either shows up or loses the deposit under the terms you set with counsel. Counsel should read those terms before they go on the invite. Whether the deposit covers the vial you opened for an empty chair is your own math. It does only when it is at least the product cost of that chair: units per chair times your cost per unit.
The full method is in the tox party guide, also linked below. It covers the invite, the deposit terms, the chair grouping that keeps vial waste down, and the follow-up that keeps a party patient on the calendar.