Setting Up Overhead Allocation

Overhead costs are the fixed costs of running your business that cannot be tied to a specific product. CrafterBy can allocate a share of these costs to each product you make, so your prices cover them.

What counts as overhead

Common overhead costs for makers include:

• Workshop or studio rent
• Electricity, gas, and water
• Insurance (studio, product liability)
• Equipment subscriptions or tool maintenance that spans many products
• Packaging materials used across many products (if not tracked per product)
• Software and platform fees

Do not include costs you track at the product level -- those are already captured in your bill of materials or machine costs.

Entering your overhead

1. Go to Settings > Overhead.
2. Enter your total monthly overhead as a single figure. Add up all the fixed costs listed above for one month.
3. Choose an allocation method (see below).
4. Click Save.

Allocation methods

Per product (equal split)

CrafterBy divides your total monthly overhead by the number of units you expect to produce per month. Each unit carries an equal overhead share regardless of how long it takes to make.

Example: Your workshop costs 400 EUR/month in rent and utilities. You produce 100 items per month across all products. CrafterBy adds 4.00 EUR overhead to each item.

Use this method if your products take similar amounts of time to make.

By labour hours

CrafterBy allocates overhead in proportion to how much labour each product requires. Products that take more time to make absorb more overhead.

Example: Your monthly overhead is 400 EUR and you work 80 hours a month. The overhead rate is 5.00 EUR per labour hour. A product that takes 30 minutes gets 2.50 EUR of overhead; a product that takes 2 hours gets 10.00 EUR.

Use this method if your products vary significantly in production time.

Reviewing the effect

After saving overhead settings, open any product and check its cost breakdown. The overhead line will show the allocation for that product. If the figure looks wrong, check your total monthly overhead figure and your expected monthly units.