How it runs for auto repair shops and dealerships
A LedgerBPO accountant builds it in Fathom, Google Sheets or your DMS reporting from closed books in QuickBooks, adds weekly shop-system and DMS data for the operational lines and refreshes it every Monday with a short commentary.
What are financial dashboard services?
Financial dashboard services design, build and maintain a visual view of your key financial metrics from your accounting, billing and payroll systems. The provider defines each KPI with you, connects the data, refreshes the figures, and checks that every number ties to the ledger. The result is a page you open any day, not a report you wait for.
What we handle for auto repair shops and dealerships
- Car count, average repair order and hours per repair order, weekly
- Effective labor rate and technician efficiency by technician where hours are available
- Parts margin after returns and cores, and sublet margin
- Warranty, insurance and fleet receivables over 45 days by payer
- Dealership units, gross per unit, aged floor-plan units and contracts in transit
The KPI that matters here
Dashboard refreshed every Monday with the prior week's shop, receivable and cash figures.
Auto compliance notes
State dealer rules and title work
Licensed dealers must remit sales tax on vehicle sales, submit title and registration applications within the state's deadline, often 30 days, and in some states charge no more than a capped documentation fee. We track sales tax, title fees and registration fees collected as liabilities per deal, reconcile them to what the DMV or tag agency was paid, and list any deal where the paperwork or the payment is late. Your compliance officer or attorney interprets the rules; we keep the schedule.
Floor-plan financing
Floor-plan lenders charge interest daily per unit, require curtailment payments as units age and reconcile their records to the lot at audit. We post interest and curtailments per unit, reconcile the lender's statement to the ledger every month, and flag any sold unit whose payoff has not cleared inside the contract window so a sold-out-of-trust position never goes unnoticed.
Parts inventory and core charges
Parts inventory must be counted, valued consistently and reconciled to the ledger, with obsolete stock written down under your CPA's policy. Core charges paid to suppliers are receivables until the core is returned, and supplier returns are receivables until credited. We track both by supplier so the balance sheet reflects what will actually come back.
Cash reporting and consumer financing
Dealerships must file IRS Form 8300 for cash over $10,000 and keep records supporting each finance contract. We list every 8300-reportable transaction from the deal file for your compliance officer to file, and we reconcile finance reserves and chargebacks from lenders to the contracts they relate to. We do not file the forms or give legal advice.
Auto software we work in
- QuickBooks Online
- QuickBooks Desktop
- Square
- Gusto
- Tekmetric
- Shop-Ware
- Mitchell 1
- Shopmonkey
- Dealertrack DMS
- CDK
- All 50 platforms
More for auto repair shops and dealerships
Other services for auto
Frequently asked questions
Which KPIs matter most for an independent repair shop?
Car count, average repair order, effective labor rate, technician efficiency, parts margin and the age of warranty and fleet receivables. Together they show whether the bays are full, whether each ticket is priced and billed properly and whether the money billed is actually arriving. Marketing spend per car and comeback rate are added when your shop system tracks them.
What does a dealer principal's dashboard include?
Units sold by department, front and back gross per unit, days to sale, floor-plan units aged over 60 and 90 days with interest cost, contracts in transit over 5 days, service absorption and parts margin. Floor-plan aging matters most because interest and curtailments rise with age and aged units are where sold-out-of-trust risk hides.
How current is the dashboard between closes?
Financial lines come from the last closed month; shop and DMS lines such as car count, hours and units refresh weekly from system exports, and receivables and cash come from the ledger and bank feeds, so the operational view is at most a week old. The monthly financial reporting service for auto repair shops & dealerships supplies the closed figures.
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