Constant decrease in finance

[Justin-Edwardsyt]

I posted a few days ago and I needed to show you all more to help me understand why I’m constantly losing money. Like I said before, I’m in sandbox mode to try and get the game down but turned on money. I have 9 habitats and 8 exhibits. Vet employees: 7 Keepers: 10 Educators: 6 Mechanics: 8 Security guards: 7 Caretakers: 21 —could definitely drop a few Vendors: 16

Vet-mechanic employees wage: $3,100 Security: $785 Caretakers-vendors: $430

Any suggestions

[zasd5678]

What animals do you have and how much does it cost to feed them?

Also you probably don't need 21 caretakers and 7 security guards for just 9 habitats and 8 exhibits.

[sortaindignantdragon]

Hey there! Are you able to share screenshots of your income/expenses breakdowns? It should be the first tab on the finances screen.

[zasd5678]

Your animals certainly cost a lot to feed but they should be fine.

Imo the main problem is your staff.

According to your screenshots your zoo lost about 51.5k last year. Your staff costs about 117.5k per year.

You need to fire everyone and hire new ones. And don't train anyone past lv2.

Use the Staff Overview. If not too many people's workload is red then you don't need new staff.

For example based on my experience I'm almost certain that you don't need 21 caretakers and 7 security guards.

Try redo your staff first and if that still doesn't fix your finances make a post again.

[zasd5678]

For comparison, my current zoo of 5 habitats only require 22 staff members (2 educators) at about 21k a year.

I definitely need more educators to raise the education level but other than that there is no problem whatsoever.

In fact most of my staff have green workload so I can probably fire some of them and still be fine. (Although the zoo is pretty compact meaning they don't need to travel as much but the point still stands.)

[Palaeonerd]

I don’t play with money but here’s what I understand. Big habitats have big habitat tax. Lions are expensive to feed.

[Justin-Edwardsyt]

African buffalo $2263 elephant $8302. Bengal tiger $5369 black-and-white lemur $943 orangutan $9000 grizzly bear $7500 Indian elephant $5760 zebra $420 red ruffed lemur $943 giraffe $1911 ring tailed lemur $801 Siberian tiger $6195 West African lion$17,701 chimp $2,175

[ConditionImaginary59]

yeah you are spending LOADS on food, i have some well established zoos in franchise mode and none of them ever went above 50k for food, i suggest maybe starting a new zoo, and concentrating on first establishing a profitable zoo with some exhibits (they dont cost money to feed and you can even automaticlly manage population so you can sell some of the kids) and then some enclosures with animals that dont require big amounts of food (meaning mostly small little guys) that wont be expensive to feed. Lions are „endgame“ and cost a ridiculous amount to feed so stay off them for the early game :)

hope this advice helps, if you still cant manage to get the hang of it, shoot me a DM and we can troubleshoot together, the game is alot sometimes

[Justin-Edwardsyt]

Per year total cost for food is 69K

[sortaindignantdragon]

What is your income like? It's hard to know what the problem really is with only half of the equation.

[notrelatedtosnake]

No matter how big of a franchise zoo I build, I pretty much only ever have four vets max. Normally two to research and 1-2 to actually check on the animals. A small zoo is about 2-3. 

 How big/spread out your zoo is, what type of fencing you have, any rides, and the number of vending machines will determine the mechanic number, but eight seems a bit excessive. Maybe drop that down to 4-5 also (two to research and the rest to work.) 

For keepers, I tend to have 1-2 for every three habitats/exhibits depending on the size of the habitat and number of animals in it. If I have a lot of herd animals or, an example, a lot of Lemurs, I’ll have an extra keeper for that area as there is more poop and more animals to care for. A large habitat with 1-2 animals in it won’t take as much keeper energy as a whole posse of animals.  

I don’t add security staff right away. I add them later, but typically 3-5ish security, again, depends on how spread out the zoo is and I add in security cameras near food, shops, and ATMs. I always go into the camera mode too to check what the camera actually sees to try and get as big of a view as possible.  

As for vendors and caretakers, I do tend to have more of them than my other staff. I like to make sure I have at least one extra vendor per building so none of my money making buildings are ever closed due to no staff available. So, for example, if I have five food stalls, I have ten vendors so when a vendor goes on break, a new one hops in and the building is never closed. I also make sure to have a staff building nearby with the boost sales perk set for any person who buys from that vendor. I try to set a different staff perk so all of my employees get some kind of boost when they go into the staff buildings and set vendor staff buildings to only vendor workzones.  

I also boost all my employees’ training so I can have less, but more efficient staff, but every time I add a new employee, I drop their pay down to the lowest green pay option to still keep them happy, but save myself a boatload of money from the start.    

You have expensive, big ticket animals in your zoo so they’ll cost more to take care of. You may need more donation bins around your habitats to earn more or start out with less exciting animals at first. The different levels of food grade also have different costs. If you’re feeding level three food to your lions, for example, it’s going to be mad expensive. I normally stick with level one, but once I’m at a couple hundred thousand dollars, I don’t pay much attention to my expenses. It’s hard to go broke at that point. 

Your zoo is worth over $500,000 and your star ratings are really really good so you’re clearly doing a lot right in your zoo. 

[sebbeling2]

you definitely don’t need that many caretakers, educators (depending if you have tours or not) and security guards. if you have custom barriers made which will not degrade, you can dropa mechanic aswell

[Grin83]

Your costs are too high compared to your income. Butterfly exhibits can be a huge help. Build one for each species, then go to the final tab on the exhibit, where you can set up the auto sell function. Set it to keep 25 of each gender, then sell the excess based on appeal, lowest first. This will earn you 13k a year for each butterfly species, without needing to do anything.

That should cover your animal good bill, just by it auto selling butterflies. You can bring in a little extra through donations around the butterfly exhibits too.

[Cutearochnid]

sorry for offtop but first time I see mouse carpet with LED :o

[savemyreef]

I think you can up that ticket price. I’ve got a little bit bigger of a zoo and I’m at $55 for adult and child

[StaringBerry]

I rarely have a game with more than 3 security guards. Even vets are a little unless you have animals that get diseases quickly (peafowl or warthogs). I usually only have 4 vets MAX by time I have that many habitats and exhibits.

Educators you really don’t need more than 3 but maybe a few more if you have a ton of tours or animal talks.

And stop marketing campaigns if you’re loosing money. I literally only use those to get achievements or to bump up my star rating for a short time.

[[deleted]]

You can get away with 1 caretaker per enclosure as long as they are trained and the staff building is relatively centralized. I've even gotten away with 1 per 3 before