Silly car count question

[UsedTireShop]

I am really paying attention to my numbers. Do you close out an invoice when the customer pays or when the job is complete? Some folks do not pick up for days making one day look great and the other no so good.

[CMillet86]

I don't close out until I've recieved payment.

[xrac]

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[mmotley]

I close out most tickets by the end of the week whether picked up or not so my techs can get paid on their production.

I do similar. Nothing set in stone, but this is the general rule I follow.

 

An exception was last week we had a car that had been sitting for 2 years dropped off at the shop. They were planning on selling it to their nephew. They agreed they would pay for all new fluids, but the nephew called on Friday to get prices for timing belt, water pump, plugs, wires, v/c gaskets, etc and said he would call back Monday to let me know if he wanted to do anything. I held it open and he called today and approved it all.

[carolinahigear]

I don't bill them out until they pay. It makes a clean transaction.

[kars]

Close when payed.

[mspecperformance]

It is much easier to track when you can close out when it is paid. This however causes a bit of a discrepancy in what your true productivity and efficiency number are unless you track with 2 sets of numbers. I personally close out when the job is completed to pay my guys. This also allows me to track accurately what my true numbers are week to week so if I have to review last years numbers they are accurately displaying what we were doing for that week.

 

Draw back is if you are not careful with your cash flow you will have outstanding money waiting to be collected.

[HarrytheCarGeek]

We close out the job when paid. The guys are paid by tracking the productivity report on their hours.

[tyrguy]

I close out the job when completed. If the customer doesn't pick up on that day, I just put in on account. Then when they come in and pay, you do a paid on account. This gives you a more accurate idea of where you are at any point in time. Also, if we have an uncompleted in process job at the end of the week, I make an invoice out to an account called "work in progress " for the hours actually completed on the job. That way I have an accurate record of actual hours completed that week, even if not all are billed. It also makes sure my guys are paid for their hours. Example:10 hour job not finished on Friday to be completed the following Monday. I ask the tech how far along on the job he is. He answers that he has 2 more hours to completion. I invoice 8 hours to the "work in progress" account. Monday when he completes the job, I write a credit to the "work in progress" account. So he gets paid for 8 hours for the Friday and 2 hours for the Monday.

[TheTrustedMechanic]

I agree with mspecperformance. When I worked commission/flat-rate I was responsible for filling out my "time sheet" with the job, the hours billed, the hours I wanted to claim for that job and then had to turn it in at the end of the week in order to get paid. The employer closed out their invoices when they were paid. Yes this often meant I got paid before they did but that's the difference between being the boss and being the employee.

 

One other thing that comes to mind, you will drive yourself nuts if you try to micromanage too much. For example, say you have 3 techs and Monday each one does inspections and diagnoses on 5 cars each. Looks pretty good, your car count is 15 for the day. Well each car needed 6 hours worth of work so you schedule each car accordingly for each tech. That means Monday your car count was 15, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday your car count was 5 each day. What happened? Car count dropped by 66%. But not really, your average daily car count for those 4 days was really 7. Yes you need to know what's happening daily, but you will drive yourself nuts trying to make every day meet the average. Remember, average simply means there are some below and some above.

[Dnzauto]

on Mitchell I close the invoices only when paid, but when I am 'posting' them, I post it to the day it arrived or work was performed, so when I pull reports, it doesn't look like one day was $0, the next day was $ 10000

 

hope this input helps

[bbosselait]

We close at time of payment and our techs know they get paid when we do and they are fine with that. We are on a bi-weekly pay so it works out just fine most of the time.