Cost of services rendered is one of the phrases used to describe cost of services provided, i.e. labor cost. The elements of costs comprise labor, labor benefits, taxes and insurance. Read: Costs of Sales – Various Formats for a more in-depth understanding.
Service based operations do not use the traditional retail based format for the profit and loss statement which utilizes a ‘Cost of Goods Sold’ section, instead the service industry uses a ‘Cost of Services Rendered’ segment. The presentation format is very similar though.
Many business owners misunderstand the use of term ‘Cost of Sales’ by restricting it to just simply ‘Cost of Goods Sold’. Basically, most business entrepreneurs and even accountants don’t realize that it has several different names and presentation formats. But it is essentially costs of sales.
One of the most fascinating business models is the hair salon industry. Many salons are poorly managed and rarely generate adequate profits. To make matters worse, the stylists are like professional sports players. One week they are playing for this team, and next week they are on a new team. In effect, they switch salons. It often happens because of personality conflicts, but the most common reason is that the grass is greener over at the other salon. That is; there is more compensation over at the other salon. How can this exist? How can one salon offer greater compensation than your salon? After all, they face the same economic barriers you deal with on a day to day basis. Given this, what is a fair compensation package? How do you create a model that not only entices better stylists but ensures adequate profit for your salon? This article is written to describe the current industry model, and then I’ll explain what is wrong with the model and finally how to change the model to create a fair compensation package for the stylist and still generate adequate profits for your salon.
Service related businesses require a different format than the traditional profit and loss statement AKA the income statement. The traditional profit and loss focuses on sales of products and a corresponding cost of goods sold section to help the reader evaluate the gross margin. But in service, the owner needs a profit and loss statement formatted to key in on overall productivity and costs of that productivity.
Each industry is different in determining costs of goods sold or cost of services rendered. Retail uses two distinct methods to calculate costs of goods sold. The first is called ‘Specific Identification’ whereby each item sold is specifically identified to its recorded cost. The second method is referred to as ‘Inventory Adjustment’ format. In this method, a beginning and ending balance is recorded along with the purchases throughout the year.
Every service related business wants to maximize the hours the staff bills or provides services to customers. When they are working, the business gets to bill for time and generate revenue. Maximum revenue means the best chance at creating the highest profit.
Simply put, ‘cost of goods sold’ equals the direct costs of materials, human resources, and equipment needed to produce the item sold. However, this can be confusing because there are many marginal cost items that affect the real cost of producing and selling the item.
