Fixkosten are the costs that do not move when volume moves. Rent, core staffing, insurance premiums, software licences and depreciation on equipment fall due in the same amount whether the pharmacy serves four hundred customers in a week or three hundred. Variable Kosten move with each unit sold or each appointment run, which in a service context means consumables, the laboratory fee, the payment card charge and any hours worked beyond the normal roster.
The split depends on the period under consideration. Personnel cost is fixed over a month, because the roster is already set and the contracts are already signed, and it becomes partly variable over a year, because hours and headcount can be planned. That is why the same cost can appear on either side of the line depending on the question being asked, and why the Personalkostenquote is read as a ratio rather than as a fixed or variable item.
This is the split that decides whether an added service is worth running. Rent and core staffing are already paid whether the consultation room is used on a Tuesday afternoon or stands empty, so those costs are not what the service has to cover. The relevant question is the variable cost per appointment, the consumables and the laboratory charge and the time that would otherwise have been spent elsewhere, set against the fee actually received. Anything the fee covers beyond that variable cost contributes to the fixed block and to the Betriebsergebnis. Loading a share of the rent onto each appointment makes a workable service look unprofitable on paper.
For orientation on the size of the fixed block, the Treuhand-Verband reported in March 2024, on September 2023 data, that personnel costs run at around 50 percent of Rohertrag in single pharmacies and under 60 percent in branches, and that healthy pharmacies keep total operating costs slightly above 80 percent of Rohertrag while weaker ones exceed 85 percent. Those figures describe September 2023 and are not current, so they serve as a rough frame rather than as a target.
Reading the two groups apart in practice depends on the account structure in the Betriebswirtschaftliche Auswertung. How a shared cost such as electricity or a leased device is allocated between dispensing and a new service depends on the pharmacy's own circumstances and belongs with the Steuerberater before the first invoice.
This glossary entry is general information about German pharmacy law and practice. It is not legal advice. For binding guidance on your own pharmacy, contact your Landesapothekerkammer.
