Home » Business Calculators

The Basics You Need to Always be Profitable

This series includes 24 key numbers. If you work on getting all of them in the ranges mentioned, your shop should be solidly profitable. There is a fill-in-the-blank form where you can automatically calculate many of these numbers for your shop in our Business Calculators area available to Premium Members.

This is a great learning and working tool for anyone in your shop who should know what the key numbers need to be.

Twenty-three different forms where you enter numbers from your shop. Key management numbers are then automatically calculated, including Gross Profits, Effective Labor Rate, and Average RO. These are excellent tools for service advisors to use when creating estimates, and monitoring shop and individual goals progress.

Key #1 Payroll Cost

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales is spent on gross payroll for all employees of every type except the business owner.

Category
Costs

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #2 Parts Cost

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales is spent on parts.

Category
Costs

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #3 Expenses

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales is spent on expenses.

Category
Costs

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #4 True Net

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales goes to the owner – including both net profit and the gross payroll that goes to him or her.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #5 Marketing Expense

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales is spent on marketing – including discounts that are directly related to marketing (advertised specials, etc.)

Category
Costs

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #6 Parts Gross Profit

For this key number, we want to know what percent of parts sales was profit. That is, the total sale price of parts sold minus the cost of those parts expressed as a percent of the total amount of parts sales.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #7 Tire Gross Profit

For this key number, we want to know what percent of tire sales was profit. That is, the total sale price of tires sold minus the cost of those tires expressed as a percent of the total tire sales price.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #8 Labor Gross Profit

For this key number, we want to know what percent of labor sales was profit. That is, the total sale price of labor sold minus the cost of that labor expressed as a percent of the total labor sales price. This is like parts gross profit except that instead of subtracting the cost of a part you are subtracting the cost of a technician to perform the repair.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #9 Total Gross Profit

For this key number, we want to know what percent of total sales was gross profit. That is, the total of all sales of all types less the cost of those sales expressed as a percent of the total sales amount.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #10 – New Customers Percentage

For this key number, we want to know what percent of customers were first time customers. That is, what percent of RO’s are for customers who have never been to the shop in the past.

 

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #11 – Oil Change Percentage

For this key number, we want to know what percent of RO’s included an oil change. These are RO’s of any size or any amount that include an oil change as one of the services performed. The RO may or may not have services other than the oil change. This should not be confused with RO’s that contain only an oil change and no other service.

 

 

 

Category
Oil Changes

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #12 Gross Profit Dollars per Sold Hour

For this key number, we want to know how many gross profit dollars are being generated during an average sold hour over a certain period. It can also calculate the gross profit per sold hour on individual operations and estimates.

Category
Gross Profit

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #13, 14, 15 Labor Sales vs. Parts Sales

For key number 13, we want to know what percent of total sales is labor sales.
For key number 14, we want to know what percent of total sales is part sales.
For key number 15, we want to know the difference between 13 and 14.

 

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #16 Vehicles Per Tech Per Day

For this key number, we want to know the average number of vehicles a tech in our shop services each day.

Category
Technicians

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #17 – Non-techs vs. Techs Ratio

For this key number, we want to know the ratio of non-technicians to technicians.

Category

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #18 – Average Hours per RO

For this key number, we want to know the average number of hours that are produced on an RO.

 

 

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #19 – Average Hours per Tech per Week

For this key number, we want to know the average number of hours that are produced per technician each week.

 

Category
Technicians

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #20 – Sales Per Production Employee

For this key number, we want to know the average total sales a production employee generates per month.

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #21 – Average RO

We want to know the average dollar amount per RO (repair order) for this key number.

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #22 – Sales Per Available Tech Hour

For this key number, we want to know the total sales amount generated for each hour a technician was available (or punched in) for work while at the shop.

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #23 – Effective Labor Rate

For this key number, we want to know the true labor rate – in other words, how much per hour is the shop really getting as opposed to their posted or normal billing rate.

 

Category
Sales

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view

Key #24 – Sales vs. Same Month Last Year

For this key number, we want to know how our sales for the past month compared to the same month last year by expressing it as a positive or negative percentage.

Category

Premium Membership Feature

Sign up or sign in to view