Dollar Time

Weekly Tracking ASL select group meeting Pella

6-4-09

Presented By Jim Sweetwood

Forward

Early on in the process of learning the business of running a business I realized the need to track the performance of any business. At that time I could tell you specs for most of the current vehicles that came into the shop and the common problems that each Vehicle, Make and Model had. What I could not tell was if the business was doing what all businesses are supposed to do; make a profit.

To find out if the business was making a profit I relied on an Accountant. I soon learned that to understand the Accountant I needed to learn a new language of GP, COGs, and Liabilities. I soon discovered that the information that I needed to base decisions on were at least a quarter old. I have often compared it to driving a car forward by looking into the rearview mirror. You really never know if you are headed in the right direction.

When I questioned my accountant all he could tell me was to increase the amount I was charging. That was a simple idea. I did just that and at the end of the next quarter I found that I had not done much better. To try and better understand what the relationships were I decided to put my home PC to work at the business tracking sales and cost. You have to remember that this was in the mid nineties before Quickbooks or any sort of real Shop Management Software. This is where the Idea weekly tracking started for me. I worked with a Microsoft Spreadsheet in Works. I learned that the business is like a Ship in need of constant small course corrections.

My journey so far has brought me a long way from those early days. Along the way I received a post card from Gary Gunn and an invitation to attend a twenty group meeting. I had no Idea what a twenty group was but the composite was fascinating. At last I could see how my numbers compared to others in our industry.

From those numbers I have constructed a Group Average based on a percentage of income. This Included the cost of goods sold and expenses (Personal, Operating Group and Fixed & Occupancy) all in MS Excel.

You will see the results in the following pages.

My Dollar Time idea is.

In simple terms my Dollar Time idea is a MS excel spread sheet. In actuality it is a complex tool that can track and project business performance based on historical data. It can give a visual representation to a number of key business indicators by use the of graphs, charts and tables.

Getting Started

I have included along with this handout a CD that has 3 files on it. There are two excel files and a word file copy of this handout. The two excel files are “weekly” and “weekly example”. The file labeled “weekly” is a spread sheet with no weekly data or setup information. The file labeled “weekly example” has data and is meant to give you an example. Both files can be copied to your hard drive in a folder of your choice. Once copied to the hard drive, open the file “weekly”. The first time it should open up on the setup worksheet.

From the set up worksheet some basic information can be entered.

1. Company name: This will populate the remaining worksheets of the workbook.2. First week ending: This populates the week ending dates in the worksheets of the

workbook.3. Hourly is your shops hourly rate and is used in a number of calculations throughout

the workbook.4. Yearly goals is used in a number of calculations in the work book. After entering

this information you will be able to see a budget in the sheet YTD Goals and Variance. This is based on ASL group average with a 10% percent net.

5. Tech Name: This sets the tech names in the each of the corresponding tech worksheets.

6. The hourly check box: The check box will change the labor cost in the tech worksheet from billed hours times rate to available time times rate. This would be used for a tech that is compensated by the hour.

1 Co. Name

3 Hourly Rate 4 Yearly Sales Goals

5 Tech Name 6 Check if Hourly not Flat

2 First week ending

Weekly Data Entry

Weekly Data consist of 7 entries. The data for this can be gathered from the reports section of your management software. In Mitchell the Invoice Profit Summary report for the week has 6 of these.

1. Total invoices: This includes all invoices closed for the period2. Zero Tickets:3. Total Weekly Sales : This is the total of all sales4. Cost of Parts5. Sale of parts6. Labor Sales7. New Customers (this is optional)

Weekly Data can be entered by two different ways.

1. Data can be entered directly into the Data entry worksheet cells.

2. Launch the Weekly Data input window from either the Data entry worksheet or the Weekly # Worksheet. Data entered from the Weekly Data input form will populate the next available row in the Data Entry worksheet. Any correction to data entered by this method must be done directly on the Data entry worksheet

1 Data can be entered directly into the worksheet cells

2 launch a data input window

Technician Data Entry

Technician Data consist of two entries and two optional entries. Billed time should be taken from the Shop Management System; In Mitchell the Technician Commission Summary Report has this information. Available Time is taken from Time sheets.

1. Billed Time: Hours that where billed to customers during the week.2. Available Time: This is the number of hours that the Technician was

available to perform work at the shop.

Optional entries

1. Rate: This is the current rate either Flat rate or Hourly that the Technician is being compensated by. This only needs to be input once and again if there is a change in rate. To change rate overtype the current rate in the cell adjacent to the corresponding week that the rate changed.

2. E-Time: E-Time is a modifier that corrects efficiency for non productive time caused by conditions out of the control of the technician. Such as waiting for parts or authorization, or the lack of work.

Additional Data Entries

Additional entries consist of the Monthly Expense and Cost of Goods sold. The workbook includes the ASL Reporting form. This form should be familiar to most of the ASL group members. It is linked to the YTD Goals & Variance worksheet and automatically inputs the YTD$ amounts.

To compare to last year’s numbers it is necessary to enter data into the work sheet named Lastyears #. This can be accomplished by copying the entire weekly# worksheet and pasting it to the Lastyears # worksheet. After copying use the paste special and select the values only. This will preserve the data without the formulas.

The Dashboard

The Dashboard Consists of five pages of graphs and tables to give a quick picture of the business. The first page is Sales. On this page you will find at a glance the following:

1. Current Sales total2. Avg. Weekly Sales3. Projected Sales Total 4. Last Year’s Sales Total5. Last Year’s Avg. Weekly

Sales6. Car Count Current 7. Car Count Projected8. Car Count Average 9. ARO Current10. ARO Last Year11. ARO labor12. ARO Parts

The Graphs include:

1. Sales2. Car Count3. ARO

4. Per Hour Billed Target

The Sales Graph shows the current sales in a line format on top of last year’s data. To compare to last year’s numbers it is necessary to enter data into the work sheet named Lastyears #data

The Car Count Graph shows the current Weekly Car Count compared to the Last years.

ARO or Average Repair Order shows the current ARO compared to Last years

The Per Hour Billed: This graph shows the per hour billed target represented by a solid blue bar and the current per hour billed. Per hour billed is the total revenue divided by the total hours sold. The per hour bill target is a combination of the Cost of goods sold, expenses and projected net profit. Per hour billed target gives a different prospective at looking at how jobs that are heavily loaded with either parts or labor affects the total profit of the shop. For example jobs that have no parts will fall short of the target at the shop rate. To be profitable the shop needs to keep the current per hour billed at the same level as the target or above.

Dash Board Technicians

The Technicians Dashboard shows the following information:

1. Sales per Tech current , projected and weekly average.

2. Last year’s sales per tech and last year’s weekly average

3. Differences between last year’s Sales per Tech and Projected sales and Average weekly Sales.

4. Current production average in a percentage

5. Last year’s production average in a percentage.

6. Billed time is a pie chart showing both billed time

and non-billed time. The Non-billed time is represented in red and the billed time is represented in blue. The non billed time is made up of several factors.

a. Idle time (tech has no job assignment)b. Waiting time (parts/ authorization)c. Inefficient use of time by tech.d. Comeback time that is not billable.e. Any other use of available time that is non billable.

7. Each Technician’s production is represented by a line chart compared against a solid line chart representing the average weekly shop production.

Dash Board Expenses

The Expenses Dash Board is the remaining three pages of the Dashboard. Represented here in a bar graph are the current percentages for the three expense groups, Personnel, Operating Group and Fixed and Occupancy. The red bar represents the budget or group average found in the YTD Goals & Variance worksheet Benchmark. These percentages can be changed in the YTD Goals & Variance worksheet.

The Weekly # Worksheet

This worksheet contains a number of key data.

The First Seven entries are from the weekly data input they include:

1. Total invoices: This includes all invoices closed for the period2. Zero Tickets 3. Total Weekly Sales : This is the total of all sales4. Cost of Parts5. Sale of parts6. Labor Sales7. New Customers

The following is a list of the additional information found on the Weekly # Worksheet.8. Difference vs. Avg. Car CT: This number compares the current week’s car

count to the average weekly car count. Note the average is in constant change.

9. ARO W/O Zero Sales: This number represents the average repair order sales excluding any zero invoices.

10.ARO W Zero sales: This number represents the average repair order sales including any zero invoices.

11. Cost of parts Qb : This is an optional data entry taken from quickbooks. It includes all parts that were purchased during the week. This is used to compare to the parts cost from the management report. This can be helpful in identify unusually high variances in parts cost.

12.Difference QB to Cost of Parts: Dollar value of difference between QB and Parts cost

13.%parts actual cost vs sales: percentage value of difference between QB and Parts cost

14. ARO Parts: This number represents the average repair order sales of parts.15. %parts: This number represents the GP percentage of parts sales.16.Available Hours: This number represents the total number of available

hours for Techs. and is Calculated from data in the Tech worksheets.17.Hours sold: Total of all Tech hours sold.18.Labor rate average: this number represents the average labor rate. It

represents labor sales divided by the total number of sold hours. It is usually under the shop rate because of labor discounts.

19.Labor Cost per hour billed: This is the cost of labor divided by the total number of hours sold.

20.Parts Cost Per hour billed: This is the cost of Parts divided by the total number of hours sold.

21. Expense + Profit: This amount represents all of the expenses plus the current Benchmark net profit goal divided by the total hours sold.

22.Per Hour billed target: This amount represents a target amount for dollars based on an hour of sold labor.

23.Current Per hour billed: Is the current Per Hour Sold Sales24.HPRO: Hour sold per Repair Order25.Days worked by tech: This is the default number of days worked per week

from the setup page and can be changed if one week is shorter. 26.Techs: This is a dynamic calculation based on the number of total available

hours of all techs. For example in a 40 hour work week with two techs that have a available total of 20hours each or 40 hours total the dynamic total would be 1 tech

27. AVG Production All Techs: Average production of all techs28.Cars per tech per day:29.New customer count: This number will give a indication as to how new

customer marketing is working.30.% New Customer of Total:31.Sales $ per tech:32. Sales last year33.% of last year34. Last year accumulative totals35. This year accumulative totals36. Average Weekly Sales to date Last Year37. Average Weekly Sales to Date38. Accumulative% of last year39. Diference %sale ytd AVG vs last year:40. $ difference41. Gross profit labor42. Labor % of GP43. GP $ parts44. Total GP $

YTD Goals & Variance Worksheet

This worksheet compares the ASL numbers, the Current Goal from the setup work sheet and the Benchmark %. The Benchmark percentage is based on the ASL group average. The group average may include Expense items that are relevant to your shops operation. For example you may not have a parts person. To adjust for this you may edit the percentages directly on the sheet. The worksheet is protected for all other cells. The Password to unprotect the sheet is baseball.

This sheet shows current Expenses and Cost of goods sold based on input from the ASL reporting form and weekly inputs. To input ASL data midyear you can use the copy and paste function of widows. Locate the your current months invoice, for example if the May numbers have been sent in and June has not, then copy the June worksheet and paste it to the June worksheet in the Weekly workbook. This will populate the YTD numbers in YTD Goals & Variance worksheet and the following ASL monthly worksheets. From that point forward you can use the Monthly worksheets for your ASL reporting.

Historical Data, Last years #s

To have a number of the Reports and Graphs function to their full potential last year data is needed. This can be done by copying the Weekly# worksheet at years into the next year’s

Weekly workbook. To add data midyear there is one range of cells and three cells that need data input into.

The range is for Total Weekly Sales, Cells E3 to E54. The three other data inputs are:

1. Total Car Count I572. Average Car Count I583. ARO W Zero sales L58