only one sale occurs. This exercise is designed for a continuing business with ongoing sales revenue. Before they begin, developers must know how much profit they will make after the project is completed. A developer prepares a break-even forecast every time she calculates the likely sale proceeds and subtracts estimated costs. Developers can skip this section, unless they need a refresher course on break-even analyses.     To complete a break-even forecast of your business, youll make four separate estimates:     Sales revenue. This consists of the total dollars from sales activity that you bring into your business each month, week or year. Fixed costs. These are sometimes called "overhead" and you must pay them regardless of how well you do. Fixed costs dont vary much from month to month. They include rent, insurance and other set expenses.     Gross profit for each sale. This is defined as how much is left from each sales dollar after paying for the direct costs of that sale. For example, if Antoinette pays $100 for a dress that she sells for $300, her gross profit for that sale is $200.     Break-even sales revenue. This will be the dollar amount your business needs each week or month to pay for both direct product costs and fixed costs. It will not include any profit.     WarningMath alert: The following section requires that you make some simple mathematical calculations, which youll use to analyze your business before writing a complete plan. If the very thought of math makes your head spin, youll probably want to find someone to help you.     1. Forecast Sales Revenue     Your first task is to estimate your most likely sales revenue by month for your first two years of operation. This is both the hardest thing to do and the most important part of your business plan. Much of your hope for success rides on how accurately you estimate sales revenue.     Keep in mind that youre honestly trying to decide if your business will be profitable. This means that you must base your forecast on the volume of business you really expect-not on how much you need to make a good profit. If you estimate sales too high, your business wont have enough money to operate. But if you estimate sales too low, you wont be prepared or able to handle all the business you get.     Appendix 4 contains a Sales Revenue Forecast form, where you can fill in your estimated two-year monthly sales revenue. Depending on the type of business, you may also choose to fill in the number of units you expect to sell. Here are some methods different types of businesses use to forecast sales revenues.     NoteYou may decide to round off your forecasts to the nearest $1,000 instead of writing out each single dollar amount. For instance, a monthly sale of $33,333 would become $33,000. After all, these are guesses, and its hard to guess at single dollar amounts when youre in the five-figure area.     a. Retail Sales Revenue Forecast     The simplest way to forecast retail sales revenue is to find the annual sales revenue per square