The Most Important Auto Repair Shop Metrics to Track

There are tons of daily and long-term decisions you have to make to continue growing your business. That means there's a lot of information to keep track of to stay organized.

With the right tools, like real-time reports in your shop management system, it's easier to organize and track everything happening in your shop and to use all of that data at your disposal. In this case, that tool is a modern shop management system.

With every aspect of your shop managed and tracked with a cloud-based SMS, shop owners can use real-time reports to forecast the health of their business and gain a sense of how much money their garage is expected to make before the end of a week, month, or year. 

Here are the most important auto repair shop metrics to track in a cloud-based shop management system.

1. Realtime Productivity

It’s good practice for business owners to have a strong understanding of not only their team's performance overall but also the clarity they need to drill down to look at individual performance as well.

While the exact metrics might differ, both technicians' and service advisor productivity output can be measured. Then armed with the right information, owners can identify and celebrate the wins, while also identifying and working towards areas of improvement.

How Realtime Productivity Reports Power Decisions

With your finger on the pulse of your team's productivity, you can better invest in their growth.

For example, you'll understand which technicians or advisors might be in need of more training. You can then work together to create a plan to help them reach their maximum potential, and measure their progress over time.

Another idea could be leveraging your team's performance data to gamify your shop management.

2. Profit Details

The Profit Details Report gets into the nitty-gritty of the profits you’ve made across all repair orders during a given time period, as well as within individual repair orders.

How Profit Detail Data Powers Decisions

Understanding where your profits are coming from, and the ratio of your profits, over time, enables you to adjust your pricing for parts, labor, sublets, and fees so you can strike better profit margins and investigate anything that looks off.

For example, you might see that your total parts profit was only a couple hundred dollars during a particular month. If this number is lower than what you’re used to seeing, you can start reviewing individual repair order details to try pinpointing the reason behind the lower number.

3. Declined Jobs

It’s an understatement to say that customers don’t always approve every line item on their estimates.

There are some repairs that they want to save for later. The Declined Jobs Report helps service advisors keep track of each “no” so they can reach out to that customer later and get a “yes.”

How Declined Jobs Data Powers Decisions

It’s easier to sell work to existing customers than to sell work to new customers. When a customer declines a job that’s not pressing, service advisors gain a natural conversation opener.

So, when the time for that repair rolls around, a service advisor can contact that customer, say the time has come around for that repair, and ask them if they’d like to come into the shop. Bam, that’s a sale!

4. Sales Details

Understanding your shop's data not only enables you to maximize your profit margins, but also see exactly what brings in the largest profit, and even helps you identify where your biggest losses might be coming from.

• How much have you sold in parts and labor over a given time range?
• How much money have you collected from sublets, fees, and taxes?
• What’s the dollar amount of the discounts you’ve given customers?

How Sales Details Data Powers Decisions

Of course, profit will always give you a more accurate understanding of how your business is doing financially since it reflects your business’s bottom line.

But your sales (revenue) numbers will give you a picture of your top line: exactly how much money is coming in.

You might see, for example, that you have high revenue, but in comparison, your profits are low. That gives you a clue that your business expenses might be too high.

5. Parts Purchased and Usage

A lot can happen when you’re buying and selling parts.

You might end up ordering more parts than you end up using, you might lose a part in a deep dark corner of your shop, a part might get stolen, or a part might just accidentally get left out of a repair estimate.

When used together, Tekmetric’s Parts Purchased Report and Parts Usage Report can help you and your team keep track of the parts in your shop. You can see if you’ve actually been using what you’ve been buying and make adjustments as needed.

How Parts Purchased and Usage Data Power Business Decisions

Used together, the data in each parts report will help you identify any discrepancies with your parts that show up during the accounting and repair process.

For example, if the Parts Purchased Report indicates that your shop purchased 50 units of a particular part last quarter, but only five of those units were used, you have a starting point to figure out if your shop can scale back.

6. End of Day Metrics

Think of the End of Day Report as a holistic overview of how effectively your shop has been selling repair work during a given time range (you’re not limited to just viewing your shop’s stats on a day-to-day basis!).

In other words, the End of Day Report breaks down your shop’s overall shop metrics for the time range of your choosing.

How Real-Time Data Powers Decisions

The data found in your End of Day report can power various short-term and long-term business decisions that help you maintain a profitable shop over time.

For example, if you see that your gross profit dipped over the previous month, you can check a few other data sources to find the root of the problem, like how many new customers your marketing efforts have yielded and your current parts and labor rates.

Make Decisions Backed by Data

Sometimes we start with the “blank page” problem. Or put another way, you don’t know what you don’t know. Without clarity into exactly what’s happening in your shop, it can be difficult to identify the best opportunities to simplify, maximize, or even grow your business.

But when you make business decisions based on real-time data, you have peace of mind that the numbers are backing you up—that yes, it’s time to hire three new technicians or install another bay.