Allocation Rules
Choose how Nabu distributes your fixed overhead across services — this setting shapes every cost and break-even calculation in the app.
What is overhead allocation?
Your fixed costs — rent, utilities, admin salaries, insurance, and similar expenses — don't naturally attach to specific services. They're just there every month regardless of what you do. Overhead allocation is the method for fairly distributing those costs across your services.
Think of it this way: your clinic pays $8,000/month in rent. That cost has to end up somewhere in your profitability math. The question is: how do you divide $8,000 fairly across a 30-minute facial, a 90-minute laser treatment, and a 15-minute Botox appointment?
Allocation rules answer that question.
The three allocation methods
Per appointment
Every appointment absorbs the same share of overhead, regardless of how long it takes or how much revenue it generates.
- Example: If your total monthly overhead is $10,000 and you do 200 appointments per month, each appointment carries $50 of overhead.
- Best for: Clinics with a narrow service menu where most services take roughly the same time.
- Limitation: A 15-minute Botox touch-up and a 2-hour full-face laser treatment both get the same overhead — which isn't quite fair.
Per treatment minute
Overhead is divided by total available treatment room minutes per month, then charged to each service based on how long it takes.
- Example: If your overhead is $10,000 and your clinic has 10,000 available treatment minutes per month, the overhead rate is $1.00 per minute. A 60-minute service carries $60 of overhead. A 15-minute service carries $15.
- Best for: Most clinics — this method most accurately reflects how services actually consume room time.
- Recommended default: This is what Nabu sets as the default allocation method.
Per revenue dollar
Overhead is distributed in proportion to each service's revenue contribution. Higher-revenue services absorb more overhead.
- Example: If a Botox appointment generates 10% of your monthly revenue, it carries 10% of your overhead.
- Best for: Clinics that believe overhead should scale with a service's earning power, or where pricing already reflects the true complexity of each service.
- Limitation: Lower-priced services look artificially more profitable, which can lead to underpricing.
Which method should you choose?
For most aesthetic clinics, per treatment minute is the best starting point. It's the most intuitive — services that use more room time cost more to run, and that should show up in their cost structure.
Start there. Once you're comfortable with Nabu and have looked at your service profitability numbers, you can experiment with other methods to see how they change the picture.
How Nabu configures this
Allocation Rules is auto-configured with "per treatment minute" as the default. You don't have to change anything if that method works for you — just confirm the section and move on.
If you want a different method, select it here before you build out your services. Changing the method later will recalculate all your service costs immediately.
How the setting affects calculations
This single setting touches almost everything:
- Every service's overhead cost component
- Each service's break-even volume (appointments needed to cover costs)
- Overall clinic break-even analysis
- Profitability reports and margin calculations
It's worth choosing deliberately rather than accepting the default blindly. "Per treatment minute" is right for most clinics, but if your service menu is very homogeneous (say, 90% Botox appointments of similar length), "per appointment" would give nearly identical results with simpler math.
Common questions
Can I change this later? Yes. Any change to your allocation method recalculates all service costs immediately. There's no data loss — just a different distribution. It's safe to try different methods and see how they affect your numbers.
What if I have services in very expensive rooms and services in basic rooms? Per treatment minute handles this better than per appointment, since longer treatments in those rooms will absorb more overhead. If you want to get even more precise, consider allocating room-specific overhead separately — but per treatment minute is a good approximation for most clinics.
Does this affect revenue figures? No. Allocation only affects how costs are distributed. Your revenue numbers are always based on what clients paid, regardless of allocation method.