Business question

[bertsmobile1]

They are all easy to use but a PIA to set up.
All of them are either a set of data bases or spreadsheets with fancy dancy data input windows & output windows .
BEhind that are just cell calculations look ups and relations rules .
I find it too cumbersome to use as intended.
So I use one of the business templates that does not have inventory ( Accountant , Doctor, etc etc ).
That way the printed invoice has billed hours & I add the parts as individual line items .

IF you set up as a repair business then you have to add all of your parts inventory, including the parts you have bought for this job, before you can bill the customer for them.
Then you have to remember all of the parts numbers & I find that a bit onerous .
IT also can not handle things like parts that have 2 or more numbers like an air filter which can have a JD number, an MTD number , a Husky number & a B&S number .
Then there are pulleys where you need to bill the customer for a Toro part but you fitted a Husqvarna one that is the same size .
Same story for belt where I fit a Hustler belt which is a 1/4" shorter to the Time Cutters but 1/2 the price.
On he invoice I need to show the Toro number but the softwear will not allow a different description to the one you entered in the inventory .
Thus the use of a service invoice and the keeping of 2 sets of accounts .
In my carbon book I can write the actual part used on the back of the opposite page so I know I fitted a 265-918 belt while the invoice shows a 954-0441 belt .
Then at a latter date sit down and enter what I need to from the carbon copy into the computer so I have a computer record for taxation purposes to do all the adding & subtracting .
For parts the computer I just have three account names ,parts bought , parts sold and parts inventory .
So all of the bills from the parts suppliers go into parts bought account and all of the parts used come out then the balance is inventory which goes onto my tax return.

The other problem is I do parity pricing with one of the bigger internet parts retailers so my selling price continually changes .
So again I have to either allow overiding which is not a good idea or continually change the selling price every time I do an invoice .
Then there are trade customers which get different pricing again but not a std discount rate .
I really do not need most of the information that these applications produce except for lodging tax returns .
Charts , graphs & tables are fine if you are full time manager but as a sole trader a bit of overkill for me.
I use a lot of grab packs for cube carbs so end up invoicing for a "rebuild kit " or "diaphragm & gasket kit " when I keep neither in stock but have no intention of invoicing for the actual parts used as individual items.

The other trick is to set up your business file then duplicate it and work on the duplicate so if you have to change things latter you have the clean copy with no data in it .
Again work on a copy of that file , it might take a dozen or more tries till you get it right but it takes a lot less work to import a customer list or accounts list than it does to re-enter all of that information time & time again.
Use a fresh file for each year calll them PT 19-20 , PT 20-21 etc so if you need to change them you can do it easily without having to go back to scratch again.

 

[PTmowerMech]

Holy crap. I just wanna fix small engine equipment. I got a head ache trying to take in all of this.

Secretaries are way under rated and under paid. lol

 

[StarTech]

And you just thought they just sat looking pretty. Now you know why some are grey headed and willing to bite your head off if you cross them.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

Holy crap. I just wanna fix small engine equipment. I got a head ache trying to take in all of this.

Secretaries are way under rated and under paid. lol

I used to keep meticulous records of every piece of equipment i worked on. Every part, what i paid, what i charged. What i did. How much time. What a PITA. My accountant told me no need for all that. So now i have personalized sales books with a carbon. Every month i just add up all the sales and sales tax from the carbons. Do my sales tax on the Ohio Business Gateway. At tax time i give my accountant totals for all my expenses by category, parts, tool, shop supplies, insurance, advertising, mileage. I just have to keep all the receipts. I don't keep enough inventory on hand to have to pay tax on inventory. Other countries are probably different but i try to keep it as simple as i can.

 

[StarTech]

That I suggested the software all that gets taken care of as you go. This I can go back up to 10 yrs and easily find out I did to a machine without having to dig through tons of paperwork.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I rule up the inside front cover of an indexed ( numbered pages ) carbon book .
The customers name & job get written there so Joe - saw or something similar.
The books when filled get numbered & dated so it is not a great deal to go back through them.
A triplicate book works even better because there are only 50 pages so more space on the inside of the cover per invoice .
Using that you give the customer the top copy and leave the second copy there till you get paid so you can see easily when invoices are outstanding.
When paid the 2nd copy get removed and put into the "income " shoe box .
I found this the easiest way for me to keep track of things .
Every night is a glass of red while the information from the carbon book goes into the computer ( MYOB ) for the purpose of tax records and a filemonger database for my benefit .
It took about 3 years to get the database to where I wanted it to be but now I can search by customer , by equipment, by equipment brand , by equipment maker , by equipment type , by job type by parts used, by part numbers or by date .
It is just a matter of creating the data fields you need .
Every job gets a workshop job card where I can write stuff down as I go , they are on clipboards complete with individual pencils and stay with the job.
Some of what is there gets added to the data base .

The other thing I have found very beneficial is not to open any mail till I am sitting in front of the computer so every bill can get added to MYOB the instant I see it .
After that it goes into the "to pay " folder and when a cheque is written for it the cheque number goes onto the invoice which gets moved into the done box .

The problem I have always had with package soft wear is they are all written by computer geeks according to what they think you need and is easy for you to do.
So none of them actually fit.
WE ran the courier business, the location van business, the wedding car business, the hire car business & my professional consulting business all out of MYOB and in every case it took a year or more to set it up to work for us .

I do not know what your soft wear is like because it is PC only and right now I am using linux on a mac .

 

[cpurvis]

I haven't read all six pages, so if someone else has said this, I apologize.

Before you do anything, add up all the FIXED annual expenses you will have--rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, etc.. Then divide this number by the average amount of gross profit you will have on each unit you repair. That will tell you how many units you have to profitably repair, just to break even. Only after you have done that many units at that level of profit will you start to make any money.

If you add in your expected annual salary to the fixed expenses and then divide that by the average gross profit, that will be how many units you've got to fix to make the money you want to make.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Interesting way to look at it Cpurvis .
However you have to know what an average profit is first.
Sort of difficult to do until you have been doing it for a while,
Add to that the massive variation in profit from making a chain loop right through to a full engine rebuild .
I did accidentally come across a sort of trick.a while back that has boosted oil sales & fuel can sales.
So now when a customer comes in to pick up a mower, it is always parked right in front of a display stand full of oil, blade kits, oil change kits etc etc.
When I go to the big box stores to get some hardwear I slip in to the mower section & photograph their prices .
That gets printed out and stuck on the stand along with a sign that reads "don't be fooled by the BS lowest price scam "
They then see that the shop is selling 30W mower oil for $ 15 /L and I am selling it for $ 10 / L and my blades are about 1/2 their price .
SO now I am selling 10 times the number of these sundry items and that adds quite bit to the bottom line as it all counts to bigger volume discounts from my suppiers .

Prior to that they collected their mowers on the lawn so I could demonstrate how easy it now starts and how well it cuts.
Pride / vanity / ego does not pay the bills and no one remembers how good the mower is now but they will tell others that they got a bottle of oil $ 10 cheaper than the big shop .

 

[StarTech]

I haven't read all six pages, so if someone else has said this, I apologize.

Before you do anything, add up all the FIXED annual expenses you will have--rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, etc.. Then divide this number by the average amount of gross profit you will have on each unit you repair. That will tell you how many units you have to profitably repair, just to break even. Only after you have done that many units at that level of profit will you start to make any money.

If you add in your expected annual salary to the fixed expenses and then divide that by the average gross profit, that will be how many units you've got to fix to make the money you want to make.

So an on screen report like this isn't of any help?

or a monthly Income statement like this of any help.


or have something like this just at a glance.



And this get done as you do year daily business entries.

And before barks that haven't make much profit yes I am having a rough start to the year. Things are going about in the next week alone as I get the current major repairs out the door.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I can get all of that from MYOB plus it will make next year predictions and this year predictions based on the recurring transactions frequency.
Don't think the version I use will do graphs and again I can not see much benefit of the graphs other than to alert you to keep some extra cash on hand to cover costs on lean months and when to schedule holidays.
MYOB uses account number codes to group like accounts together so all the cost of sales are displayed as a group which is a bit handy, but in the long run the financials are not what I need to play with.
I just use MYOB to generate some numbers to keep the tax man happy.
What I need to know is when Dave Allen Lawn & Garden last brought the HRC219 in for service so I can send him a service reminder or check what parts I used for his service so they will be in stock when it comes in or when we put the last drive belt on this Fast Cut 34.
With MYOB and probably this system it is hard to search for a piece of equipment a particular customer gets serviced particularly if they have 20 or more items.
This is why I wrote the data base so I can search for " Fast Cut 34" blade " and that will bring up all of those I have fitted regardless of weather I fitted ASP , RGS , Stens or genuine Greenfields blades
Then do a secondary find on that find to include only a single customer then a cronological sort to see which blades lasted the longest.
I can also use custom invoice numbers so Dave gets DA2001 to DA20xx this year ( 21 next year ) and that helps both him & me keep track of invoices & payments as any one of his crew could bring in a mower and in busy times I might get one or two a day for a whole week dropped off by the B ,C ,D, or E team which he will not know about then nothing for a month .
The next modification I need to do is to add a booked date so I can see what takes forever & a day to get out the door.
The data base is actually quicker than MYOB for data entry because I search DA L & G ( in custome name ) then fast cut 34 ( in equipment field ) then duplicate and I get a new copy with everything filled in so just change the date , invoice number and items , job done.
Most times the items will be the same, oil, oil filter, deck belt, blades etc.
In MYOB and probably your program I can only do that if I have previously logged DAL&G Fastcut 34 as a reocuring transaction and then it only automatically enters what was there last time plus assigns a sequential invoice number that is not custom one.
And of course I have to remember the code I gave to DAL&G Fastcut 34 service and will need to have a code for each & every piece of his equipment so DAL&G will have 50 entries in the reocuring transactions window along with similar numbers for all of the other teams.
Then we come to inventory
I do not have to enter a set of ASP Fastcut 34" blades into inventory before I can bill DA for them and I don't need an item code for the 4 34" blades and of course another 4 for the 42" blades considering that these are trial fitting till he decides which one he wants to use.