Normally I don't pass costs for pans along to the customer but I am considering it in this instance. The customer wants a cake for 100 people. The only thing she is concerned about is that she has a cake in the shape of 50. The rest can be a sheet cake. Anyway, it will cost $22 for plastic 50 pans. I'm not sure how many times these pans can be used and I don't forsee needing them on a regular basis. What do you think?

PS... i haven't quoted her a price yet.

Personally for me if I was not going to see a future use of the pans then I would carve the numbers out of a sheet cake. I don't want the extra pans that I used once taking up the space.

But to answer your question, I would not charge her for the pans b/c it is an investment in business. The only time I have charged someone is if I had to order a specialty item that I could not use for anyone else. I have a chiropractor that orders cookies and I am going to have a cookie cutter made expecially for her orders, so she will pay for the cutter since it is a special order item.

I carved the 5 from a square cake and used the oval pan for the 0 I use the oval pans often glad I have them I have 2 sets of 5 different sizes.

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1111573

That gallery photo has a sketch to show you how to cut cakes into numbers. Maybe that will help you.

Here's a 50 cake that I carved from a sheetcake. It was a lot easier than carving and icing a 5 and a 0 separately.

The way I see it, a business doesn't charge you for every staple or envelope that they use, they take that out of their profit. Except for banks. And the Gov't. But don't get me started... That's a whole other thread!!!!

You can see this in two different ways. You can charge a sculpting fee. You will have to throw away extra cake.
Or you can just get the number pans and charge her the 22 dollars.
I would charge her extra either way. The sculpting would actually cost more.

There are several options here if buying equipment you don't think you'll use again.

If it is something you really don't want to buy then seek alternative solution such as been suggested above such as carving.

Can you hire special shaped pans from somewhere/someone locally? Include cost of hire (and collection and return) in the cake cost.

Or, to keep the cost down for the customer, I have in the past suggested they go and hire them and bring them to me to use.

You could buy and take a chance on it actually being useful (I have had this happen to me - bought some scalloped oval pans and use them more often than plain ovals).

Buy it but price your cake to offset in part (say 30% of the cost of what is a capital cost anyway). Not sure how comfortable I'd be with this but if you had to make a special purchase or trip to buy them then there is your time and gas costs etc to consider. Too complicated for my little brain so I'd probably not go for this option!

Housemouse

I would work the cost of the pans into the product (or partial cost) but you don't have to let her know that. There are a lot of costs (rent, pest control. taxes) that go into all the products that we buy and aren't aware of.

http://www.f o n d a n t s o u r c e .com/paplba.html much cheaper here... just $10 for both plus shipping, and if you use coupon code DOLLAR it'll take a buck off

Maybe just charge her for half of the pan expense if you go that route !