A salesman earns a base salary of $100 per week plus a 5% commission on all sales over 500. Find his total earnings in a week in which he sells r dollars worth of merchandise, with r being greater than 500?

1 Answer
Sep 7, 2017

See a solution process below:

Explanation:

We can use this equation to find the salesperson's total earnings:

#t = b + (c * (s - m))#

Where:

#t# is the salesperson's total earning. What we are solving for.

#b# is the salesperson's base salary per week: $100 for this problem.

#c# is the salespersons commission rate: 5% for this problem. "Percent" or "%" means "out of 100" or "per 100", Therefore 5% can be written as #5/100# or #0.05#.

#s# is the salespersons weekly sales: #r# for this problem.

#m# is the salespersons minimal sales for commission. $500 for this problem

Susbtituting gives:

#t = $100 + (0.05 * (r - $500))#