please can anyone advise of the difference between fixed direct costs and variable direct costs ?

Fixed costs are cost that generally do not vary based on production such as rent, insurance, property taxes. These are expense you will pay even if you have no sales. Variable costs are expenses that will vary based on production such as labor, and materials. Hope this helps.

Fixed costs are expenses that do not change in proportion to the activity of a business, within the relevant period or scale of production. For example, a retailer must pay rent and utility bills irrespective of sales. Unit fixed costs, called average fixed costs (AFC), decline with volume, following a rectangular hyperbola as the inverse of the volume of production: AFC = FC/N.

Variable costs by contrast change in relation to the activity of a business such as sales or production volume. In the example of the retailer, variable costs may primarily be composed of inventory (goods purchased for sale), and the cost of goods is therefore almost entirely variable. In manufacturing, direct material costs are an example of a variable cost. An example of variable costs are the prices of the supplies needed to produce a product.

Along with variable costs, fixed costs make up one of the two components of total cost. In the most simple production function, total cost is equal to fixed costs plus variable costs.

Calculate the fixed costs per month and variable cost per occupied room using account analysis