Question

A salesperson has a base salary of $500 a week and 10% of total sales. If the employee makes $1,200 in a week, what was the total amount of sales?

Answer 1

The money that the employee makes comes from his base salary and a 10% of his total sales, then we can express the money he earns (m) like this:

m = base salary + 10% of total sales

let's take the variable s as the total sales, since the base salary is $500, then we get:

m= $500 + s * 10/100, where we multiply s by 10/100 to get the 10% of its value.

We know that the eployee made $1200, then, let's replace this into the equation and solve for s, like this:

$1200 = $500 + s * 0.1, subtracting $500 on both sides:

$1200 -$500 = $500 - $500 + s * 0.1

$700 = s * 0.1, dividing by 0.1 on both sides:

$700/0.1 = s * 0.1/0.1

s = $700/0.1 = $7000

Then, the total amount of sales is $7000