Contribution per camper-week
The camper-week is the unit everything else should be priced and measured in: one child, one session week, and every cost that week drags behind it. Food scales with camper-days, buses scale with routes rather than riders, counsellor payroll scales with the supervision ratios you set for each age group, and the site, insurance and director salaries sit underneath as fixed cost waiting to be spread. Once the books code costs by session, the margin question stops being seasonal folklore and becomes arithmetic: which sessions carry the camp, which age groups cost the most to supervise, and what a price change is actually worth.
| Cost line | What moves it | The lever |
|---|---|---|
| Counsellor payroll | Supervision ratios by age group; younger cabins need more staff per camper | Session and age mix, hiring pace matched to enrolment |
| Food service | Camper-days, menu design, allergy accommodation | A season-long supplier agreement instead of week-to-week buying |
| Transport | Route count and length, not headcount | Stop consolidation and fill rate per route |
| Site, insurance, year-round staff | Fixed, whatever the season does | Utilization: more camper-weeks spread over the same base |
| Refunds | Policy generosity and cut-off dates | Session-credit options and cut-offs that match spending commitments |
Registration pace is the leading indicator
Deposits start arriving in January, and the weekly pace of them, read against the same week last year, session by session, is the truest forecast a camp has. It answers the operating questions while they are still cheap: whether a soft session should be merged or marketed, when to open an extra week, and how fast to hire, since a staff grid built in March for an enrolment that never comes is the classic way camps turn a fine season into a loss. We build the pacing report from the registration system and the books, and sit in a short monthly review from January so the decisions track the curve, moving to weekly once the season is close.
Cash from Labour Day to the first deposit
The stretch that breaks camps is not July; it is the months when payroll for the director and registrar, site carrying costs, insurance renewals and early-bird marketing all continue while revenue is zero. The instrument for that is a 13-week rolling cash forecast kept honest all winter, with one camp-specific correction: deposits collected in winter are not all spendable, because part of them remains refundable under your own policy until the cut-offs pass. Where the forecast shows a gap, a line of credit arranged in the fall beats one begged for in April, and lenders respond to a credible package; Business Financing Advisory builds it, with Compilation & Review Engagements supplying statements a bank will accept.
Reserves for the week that doesn't run
Every camp now plans for the week that cannot go ahead: a heat wave, an air-quality closure, a storm that takes out the waterfront, or a cancellation wave in a soft economy. The exposure is measurable, and that is the point: refund exposure on any date is the fees collected multiplied by the share still refundable under policy on that date, and the reserve should cover it plus the fixed costs of a lost week. The policy end matters as much as the cash end, since offering a session credit instead of a cash refund changes the exposure curve, and cancellation cut-offs should sit just ahead of the dates the camp commits to staff and suppliers. As your Fractional CFO, we set the reserve policy with you, report against it monthly, and keep the number visible so a bad week is absorbed rather than fatal. Scope and fee are quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, sized for a business that needs a finance chair, not a finance department.
