Automotive Accounting Services

Most Mechanics we work with wake up everyday excited to get right back into the shop, but the same excitement doesn’t exist when it comes to their accounting for Mechanics. However, your shop is still a business; According to the Business School of Wharton “Accounting is the language of Business”. And your business where your customers pay you in cash and you pay your vendors in cash is always under more scrutiny by the IRS.

Therefore bookkeeping is so important to Automotive businesses. The last thing you want is to find yourself facing tax issues and running from the IRS.

If you’re like most Autobody or Mechanic shop owners you don’t want your hands on your accounting at all?

If that’s you, we here at Suncrest Financial Services we have pride ourselves in offering the autobody and auto mechanic industry unique accounting services that will save you an enormous amount of time, reduce operational cost, increase profits, streamline your systems, save you money and protect your bottom line.

Almost every Shop owner we have come across didn’t have a proper inventory, accounting or record-keeping systems. Which in turns let us know that they didn’t know their business numbers and where their business stood financially.

Is that you? If so, your Autobody & Auto Repair Accountants can help!

Accountants in MD for Automotive & Body Shops

We understand that you have cars to fix and a shop to run. We got you.

As you read this, your Accounting may be secondary and that alright for now right now; however, our accounting services for the automotive industry will help you use your accounting to leverage and grow your business.

However, not having a proper inventory, accounting or record-keeping system could put a financial strain on your shops growth and your finances. I must admit you need an Accountant. Just like all of the other Autobody & Mechanic shops we’ve come across and now work with.

Here’s 5 reasons why your Autobody and Mechanic Shops need an Accountant:

1. We can help you drive and increase your profitability
2. We will help you streamline your systems and save you time
3. We will help develop a tax plan to save money
4. We will help you manage your vendor returns and credits
5. We will help you develop the best inventory system for your shop
6. We will help you develop and assess business trends

Accountants in DC for Automotive & Body Shops

You do need an Accountant you need us for everything we mentioned above but lastly because we are your trusted advisers. We are here to help you grow and build the business of your dreams. We understand your industry and plan to learn the ins and out of your business and help you build a profitable, scalable, and sustainable business that can in turn help you build generational wealth.

How can we help your Autobody & Mechanic Shop?

We can help the Accounting of your Automotive business with the many benefits that our Monthly Accounting Services for Automotive & Repair shops includes:

1. Monthly Automotive Accounting & Bookkeeping
2. Annual Tax Planning to Save your Business Money in Taxes
3. Monthly Advisory Services
4. Estimated Tax Payment Management
5. Trend and Business Analysis

Automotive Accountants in PG County MD, Automotive Accountants in Largo MD,

Here’s why Autobody Repair Shops work with Suncrest?

Suncrest specializes in working with  Autobody & Repair Shops. We are experienced with the complexities of your shop your inventory, returns, and high employee turnover.

If you’re like most shop owners that we work with you really hate to be bothered with the Accounting aspect of your company.and that most shop owners really don’t want to have

We are familiar with some of the common collision repair management systems and understand that many of them do not integrate seamlessly with Accounting systems.

We are able and willing to work with your Tax Preparer and CPA to create a solid Tax plan.

Automotive Accountants in DC, Automotive Accountants in MD

Here’s 3 Problems all Shop Owners Face that Suncrest handle and can take control of:

1. Inventory 2/3 of

If you’re like all of the other Shop owners I know you’re trying to handle Inventory,

This is a fantastic industry to focus on – none of the shop owners I know want anything to do with the books, and there are plenty of them that can use our help. I think there are a few key areas where I accounting professionals  m   x take on that coveted advisory role, and we’ll go over them here.

Inventory

To track or not to track? About ⅔ of the shops we work with are small (they average 2 bays per shop) so holding inventory isn’t really an options because they don’t have the physical space to store it so they don’t track quantity on hand. Most of shops that are larger and do have the space have chosen not to track inventory as well – they expense out most of the stuff that they use on a regular basis: filters, clamps, hose, etc. Almost everything else is ordered from their part suppliers and can be delivered same or next day.

About a third of our shops to track inventory and are divided into two types: The first are larger shops with 5+ bays and have a higher volume of vehicles coming through and room to store parts, so they order larger quantities to get better pricing and want to keep track to manage cost and reorder points. The second is the specialty shops that work on performance/racing, foreign or off road vehicles (ie: dune buggies – we have big sand dunes here in Michigan.) The parts have a longer lead time, can be harder to find, and cost more, so tracking quantity on hand is a necessity.

Software

Making sure the shop has the right shop management tool for them. One of my shops only uses QuickBooks Online. He’s a one man band with a small garage with one hoist and at the moment, he doesn’t need the bells and whistles that a full blown shop management solution will offer. It’s easy to know where he is with WIP when he can only get one vehicle in the shop at a time! Most auto repair shops are going to need something tailored to their industry.

Across the board, each of our clients using a shop management solution says these are must haves: national job guide database access, estimating, vehicle maintenance history, Technical Service Bulletins and parts ordering integration. Other things to look for are reporting (both for you and your client!) time tracking, scheduling and integration with accounting and marketing apps.

This is where a needs analysis is a great service to offer; meet with the owner and each employee to find out where their pain points are, then take that information to find a better software solution, or find ways to improve current processes to better use the software they have in place. I’m not going to make any specific software recommendations here, however I will say there is some shop software out there that I absolutely love, but the accounting integration for them is abysmal, so for a few clients we still – GASP! – manually enter sales summaries.

Returns and Cores

Get them a system! For any parts that are wrong/defective, your shops will need to return them. Each vendor will have its own process, and once it’s ready for return, you’ll need a system in place for getting them back to the vendor. We suggest each supply house has a designated area; the techs include any paperwork required for the return, and they log it via a google form, then keep copies of the paperwork in a wall file above the vendor area. We can track everything against vendor bills or credits, the hard copies and google form at the end of the month.

You’ll also have to deal with cores – they’re similar to bottle deposits. You pay the store a deposit for the bottle, then get it back when you bring the bottle back. We set up a process similar to returns for cores, to make sure the shops are getting the correct core credit. Our google form is set up for the techs to choose whether they’re adding a return or a core. Make sure you alway get a receipt from the vendor, and remember that dealerships will (more often than not) have to be reminded to come pick them up. You’ll want to verify the slips from the driver against the google form and and any statements at month end.

Trends

This is one of my favorite things to do for my shops – review trends. Our clients either access their own financial reports or have us send them on a set schedule, but at least once a quarter, I take a look at their financials and send them a quick analysis. We look for anomalies – why are parts costs so high compared to revenue? Is this normal for this time of year? Why, yes, it is – same thing happened this time last year: a government contract customer has open invoices and it’s close to their fiscal year end. When do sales jump? Is school just getting out and customers are getting their cars ready for their summer road tript’s easy to create a chart like the one below – you can see that this chart shows sales trends for one of our shops (I’ve omitted totals). Without even seeing the numbers, we can see there’s a slight uptick in March when people get tax returns back, and again in May, before summer starts.

When it comes to auto repair shops, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to have access to the shop management solution. While setup and troubleshooting are a huge bonus, you need to at least be able extract reporting from it to verify hours, to reconcile credit card batches, and in the case of a now ex client, make sure that all of the cash being taken in is actually making it to the bank!