Table & Till

Intelligence for independent restaurant owners

Weekly Labor Budget Planner

Translate a sales forecast into departmental labor budgets and compare planned costs.

Use your own loaded hourly costs and explicit fixed allocations. The planner neither calculates payroll law nor guarantees safe staffing or service capacity.

Your scenario

Only the premium not already included in loaded hourly costs.
Seven daily net-sales forecasts

Day 1 is the selected week start. Exclude sales tax and tips; use the same sales definition throughout.

Kitchen
Include your applicable employer burdens; no tax rate is assumed.
Service
Include your applicable employer burdens; no tax rate is assumed.
Other
Include your applicable employer burdens; no tax rate is assumed.

Shares must total 100%. Different departmental costs produce different budget hours. This is a budget, not an employee schedule.

Saving is optional, stays in this browser on this device, and does not sync. Only save on a device you trust.

Your results

Choose Calculate to evaluate the illustrative inputs or your own scenario.

What the result means

Positive variance is over the total target budget; negative variance is under it. If fixed costs exceed the target, the assumptions conflict. The result does not instruct you to reduce headcount.

Assumptions & methodology

Weekly sales = sum of seven daily net-sales forecasts. Total labor target = weekly sales × target percentage.

Hourly budget = total target − fixed salary − other fixed labor − explicit overtime premium. Department budget = hourly budget × department share. Budget hours = department budget ÷ that department’s loaded hourly cost.

Planned labor = sum of departmental planned hours × loaded hourly cost + salary + other fixed labor + explicit overtime premium. Variance = planned labor − total target.

Budget shares must total 100%; every hourly cost must be positive. Zero sales has no meaningful labor percentage. A negative remaining budget has no feasible positive budget hours.

Enter only the extra overtime premium not already in hourly costs. Local wage, tax, overtime, break, and staffing requirements need separate verification. Department totals cannot establish any employee’s lawful pay.

Related owner questions

  • Is the forecast realistic for this week and operating schedule?
  • Which service and prep tasks still need coverage even when sales fall?

Related articles

Data & privacy

Calculations run in this browser. Financial inputs are not sent to a server, AI model, advertising service, analytics endpoint, or URL. Optional saved settings use browser storage; Reset deletes this tool’s saved settings. No login, account, or spreadsheet download is required.

A worked example

Hypothetical example: $10,000 weekly net sales at a 30% labor target gives $3,000. After $500 fixed salary, $2,500 remains for hourly labor. Allocating it all to a department at $25 per hour gives 100 budget hours. Planning 110 hours costs $3,250 including salary, or $250 over target. This budget does not establish adequate staffing or lawful pay.