Franchise Money Profit randomly drops and I cant figure out why

[carazan]

So Ive gone bankrupt already on a zoo because I left it running for about 2-3 years (didn't walk away from computer, I monitored it) I was making a lot of money, making sure my animals were happy, etc etc... and within the span of a year, without changing anything... I completely lost money and I couldn't figure out why. Nothing seemed drastically different in the finances tab compared to previous years... So I thought maybe I was just bad at managing stuff... even though I was making profits... And now it's happening again.. I was making decent profit, but this time I got up to go to the bathroom.. came back.. and I'm in the negative.

When I walked away... my profit was +2-3k... how did it drop to -11k within a minute?

I wish this was a bit more understandable... and I could figure out why I'm losing money SO quick when I think I'm making a profit...

Edit: I haven't taken out any loans, so there is no loan repayment.

 

[Aiste]

Did your income drop or expenses raise? If you could post the expanded list, that would be easier to tell. That is definitely not a bug, but only gameplay issues.
Watching the last year, I can tell you that your expenses raised drastically. Did you train your staff? Put a lot of scenery, facilities? Changed food quality?

 

[carazan]

Did your income drop or expenses raise? If you could post the expanded list, that would be easier to tell. That is definitely not a bug, but only gameplay issues.
Watching the last year, I can tell you that your expenses raised drastically. Did you train your staff? Put a lot of scenery, facilities? Changed food quality?

Im certain it's not a bug, you're right. Im just having a hard time trying to figure out what changed. I trained about 3-4 staff to rank 2. Would that change my expenses that much? I didn't change any food quality, or place any facilities or too much scenery, as you can see my purchases are only 2k.

 

[carazan]

I guess my reason for posting this is, I wish it was a bit more obvious about where exactly you're losing the most money... as well as what you can improve to make more money. And was wondering if anyone else struggled with this.

Right now.. I'm just about breaking even for what I'm spending vs making.. and it's NOT at all obvious that, that is the case.

 

[Agathorn]

Other than bugs I find it for the most part pretty clear. You can click on each of those to expand them to show more details inside. The biggest problem is when peopel just plain stop donating for no reason and that's like 90% of an early zoo's profits.

 

[carazan]

Yeah I should add that my zoo is only 2 exhibits(all are golden badge, high appeal animals), 1 of each staff building, and 4 shops. (1drink 1food 1info 1balloons) That's it... I've tried to bump up the prices of everything too ... All the foods and drinks and balloons... Put fees on ATMs... Made sure animals only get grade 1 food, no staff building perks, no marketing, increased ticket prices... It just feels like I'm missing something? I had the park well oiled and NOTHING changed and within minutes I'm in the negative..

 

[ArcanumElite]

wait... you only have 2 exhibits and are trying to sell food and drinks? there is your problem... food and drinks never make money unless the zoo is large enough for people to stay long enough to need food and drinks.. with just 2 exhibits they will check them both out and then leave before ever buying anything.

 

[carazan]

wait... you only have 2 exhibits and are trying to sell food and drinks? there is your problem... food and drinks never make money unless the zoo is large enough for people to stay long enough to need food and drinks.. with just 2 exhibits they will check them both out and then leave before ever buying anything.

okay I'll remove them all and fire the staff... Lmao. I always see huge lines at the food and drink stalls so i assumed it was making money. The balloon stall is always PACKED.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

Definitely avoid training your staff until you have a pretty large income coming in (& do it strategically, not just straight raises across the board), their wage increases will take a big bite out of your budget. If your stalls are making money then by all means keep them open. For food/drink/bathroom I personally wait wait until 500-1000 guests.

 

[carazan]

Definitely avoid training your staff until you have a pretty large income coming in (& do it strategically, not just straight raises across the board), their wage increases will take a big bite out of your budget. If your stalls are making money then by all means keep them open. For food/drink/bathroom I personally wait wait until 500-1000 guests.

That's good advice, thank you! I guess I got too ambitious because I sat and watched my zoo for a bit and I was up to about 50k making a good profit so i thought I could afford to train a zookeeper or two... But maybe that's where I went wrong. And didn't see the decline of the money until it just finally dropped.

And yeah I think I'm around there. 800ish guests. Like I said my animals are high appeal animals and are drawing in huge crowds. They were bred from my animals in my previous franchise that went bankrupt

 

[arishoks]

My issue was thousands and thousands of dollars being "refunded" to all the visitors, causing me to lose 200K. I was back down to 20K and was luckily able to get it back up, but it happened within minutes. Very frustrating, and it doesn't seem to be anything I can fix currently, as far as game-play wise.

 

[TheGaijin87]

also i notice that every 6 months theres a big chunk of money going away (i guess for food expenses and maybe staff wages) so while the income constantly grows on the spend money you have 2 big spikes. so if you noticed that huge jump maybe it was july and it would even out over the next months. so basically if you want to check how you are doing, check right before the jump comes, e.g. end of june.

and we really need some more numbers. id like to see spend money and income of each store and not only "profit" while profit for toilets is zero, which cant be as it costs money but doesnt generate any so it would have to be negative. and also i highly need (!!) a list of how the donations for each animal play out. right now i have like 2 habitats. one with bengal tigers and one with turtles. i am 100% sure the tiger make me lose money while the profit on the turtles is insane. but i would have to check each food cost and each donation box and calculate it myself which is not only tedious but also damn near impossible in factoring all in

 

[MinDeRien]

My issue was thousands and thousands of dollars being "refunded" to all the visitors, causing me to lose 200K. I was back down to 20K and was luckily able to get it back up, but it happened within minutes. Very frustrating, and it doesn't seem to be anything I can fix currently, as far as game-play wise.

Yeah, this ruined one of my zoos. I have no idea what those refunds are. Tried increasing security (thought it might be having to refund the money people lost to pickpockets), but it didn't change much (apart having even more security guards complaining about a low work load)

 

[Kai]

My issue was thousands and thousands of dollars being "refunded" to all the visitors, causing me to lose 200K. I was back down to 20K and was luckily able to get it back up, but it happened within minutes. Very frustrating, and it doesn't seem to be anything I can fix currently, as far as game-play wise.

Yeah, this ruined one of my zoos. I have no idea what those refunds are. Tried increasing security (thought it might be having to refund the money people lost to pickpockets), but it didn't change much (apart having even more security guards complaining about a low work load)

Refunds are people hitting zero happiness and rage leaving your zoo (for any reason). Overlapping educational speakers anywhere in your zoo will cause your guests to rage within a few seconds and demand full refunds. Refunds dropped by 75% once I fixed my speakers, though I'm still getting ~20k refunds per year - I really hate my guests.

 

[MinDeRien]

Refunds are people hitting zero happiness and rage leaving your zoo (for any reason). Overlapping educational speakers anywhere in your zoo will cause your guests to rage within a few seconds and demand full refunds. Refunds dropped by 75% once I fixed my speakers, though I'm still getting ~20k refunds per year - I really hate my guests.

Thank you so much!

 

[arishoks]

Refunds are people hitting zero happiness and rage leaving your zoo (for any reason). Overlapping educational speakers anywhere in your zoo will cause your guests to rage within a few seconds and demand full refunds. Refunds dropped by 75% once I fixed my speakers, though I'm still getting ~20k refunds per year - I really hate my guests.

So my guest happiness has been at 5 stars with green in everything, including education. Do you know why they'd still be getting refunds? :/

 

[Kai]

So my guest happiness has been at 5 stars with green in everything, including education. Do you know why they'd still be getting refunds? :/

Would imagine you've still got a tiny amount of super demanding guests getting 0 happiness and leaving the zoo. Try using the guest needs filter to see if you can spot any red groups.

I've noticed the educational speakers can overlap in obscure tiny places if you build around them - worth a double check. Sometimes the red areas are very subtle.

 

[arishoks]

Would imagine you've still got a tiny amount of super demanding guests getting 0 happiness and leaving the zoo. Try using the guest needs filter to see if you can spot any red groups.

I've noticed the educational speakers can overlap in obscure tiny places if you build around them - worth a double check. Sometimes the red areas are very subtle.

Thank you so much! After checking, I do believe it was the problem after all!! I really appreciate it