The workshop numbers that actually make a decision.

Turnover is the figure that obscures the most

A busy month isn't always profitable, and of all the garage metrics, turnover is the least reliable in distinguishing between them.

A garage can boost turnover by increasing low-margin parts work, discounting to fill bays, or covering travel for mobile jobs, all of which appear successful in the headline figure but harm the business.

The valuable garage metrics lie beneath: what the sold time actually earned and the proportion of available time that was sold.

Sold hours versus available hours

Of all the garage metrics, this is the closest to a single honest measure. It reveals what portion of the time you paid for was actually billed to a customer.

It uncovers what turnover hides: technicians waiting for parts, jobs exceeding quoted time, gaps between bookings, and unlogged rework that seemed like a small favour.

The figure is seldom as high as expected, and the first accurate measurement is often uncomfortable. That discomfort is intentional, as everything above it represents recoverable revenue.

The difference between quoted and actual time

Monitor planned duration against actual duration by job type, and a pattern emerges within weeks.

It's rarely general optimism. It's two or three job types with long-standing inaccurate estimates, quietly eating into the schedule and margins.

Fixing those estimates is the most cost-effective operational improvement, as it requires no changes in how anyone works. The schedule just stops overpromising what the garage can't deliver.

Advisory work identified, quoted, and converted

Work identified on a vehicle is revenue you've already paid to uncover, yet most garages can't track its outcome.

• How much advisory work was identified this month?
• How much was actually quoted instead of just mentioned?
• How much converted, and in what timeframe?
• Which job types generate advisories that convert, and which do not?
• How much was never followed up, typically the largest of the five?

A garage that enhances just the middle two, without gaining a single new customer, usually sees more revenue than any marketing spend.

Customer return rate, measured accurately

New customers are costly, while returning ones are almost free, so the return rate is a better health indicator than new customer counts.

Measure it over a period that reflects your work, as a service interval is a year and a tyre cycle is longer. A month is too brief to be meaningful, and a lifetime figure flatters an old business.

A declining return rate is an early warning that appears long before turnover shifts, which is precisely what you want from a figure.

Margin by job type, not just overall.

An overall margin figure obscures what you need to see: some categories support others.

Split it by job type and the picture often shifts. Tyre fitting, servicing, diagnostics, MOT prep, and parts supply have distinct margin profiles, and a workshop can grow the lowest-margin category quickly without anyone realising.

This affects the decision on where to allocate capacity. A bay hour on the strongest category is worth significantly more than the same hour on the weakest, and once that gap is clear, scheduling and quoting priorities shift accordingly rather than from habit.

Fewer figures, reviewed more frequently.

A report with forty figures is read once. A report with five is read monthly, and only the latter drives change.

The test for whether a number is relevant is straightforward: name the decision it would influence. If no one can, it’s tracked for being countable rather than for its importance.

This typically narrows workshop reporting to sold hours, compared to actual time, advisory conversion, return rate, and margin by job type. Five figures, reviewed monthly, with accountability for each.