Do you track the money for each service? Bay 1,2 vac 1,2 etc...

[Bethel Car Wash]

Right now I get the quarters from each bay and vacuums and dump them into the changer. I don't count them to see which bay/vac is doing better. (I want to start!) I get the bills out of the changer make a deposit in the bank write checks to pay the utilities then repeat. Does anyone have a spread sheet that they currently use to track each bay, each vac, how many little trees, how many armor all sponges etc...?
I imagine this would be the correct and smartest way to do it.
Thanks,
Tim

 

[2Biz]

I use an Excel Spread Sheet to track income. I keep bays, vacs, vending, and pop machines separate. I also track water usage (Meter is in ER) and compare to bay income....I have all Led 7 timers, so I get coin count off the timers and compare to income to make sure I'm not getting tampered with. Its scary how close the numbers are to the readings every week! Makes for peace of mind knowing nobody is messing with you.

I pull bills every day and compare to coin count on hopper for verification. I only count the money collected from all the vaults weekly to determine income, that's the only way I know to determine how much the wash makes? Once counted, I can use the quarters to refill the hopper.

 

[Randy]

We only go to our car wash 3 times a week, we have employees who take care of it the rest of the week. We pull the money from vac’s, bays and vending, counting each separately. We don’t keep track of each individual vac, bay or vending machine, to time consuming. We put X amount of coins in each Hopper and replenish the Hoppers with the amount of coins that have been dispensed. We don’t take meter numbers from the LED-7 timers or from the water meter, I see no benefit in doing that. We take an inventory once a year to see how much vending we’ve sold and how much soap and wax we’ve used. We pay 8.7% sales tax on sales, bay time is classified as a sale. We also pay 8.7% use tax on everything we buy from out of state, like soap, parts from Kleen-rite etc.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I had to chuckle at this. As I was reading the original post, I was thinking to myself "I bet 2Biz does that" only to look down and see the very next post backing me up. You can know someone without ever meeting them.

 

[MEP001]

I also use an Excel spreadsheet. Everything has counters, everything pulled gets entered next to the counts. The vacs and vending are each counted en masse, the bays with shared safes are obviously counted together, and the coins added back to the changer are tracked so I can at any time valuate the changer to see if it's short by stringing. I use a cheap Dell netbook with a USB keypad. The spreadsheed is configured with all the data in one row so I can just punch in the numbers and hit Enter all the way down.

 

[2Biz]

I had to chuckle at this. As I was reading the original post, I was thinking to myself "I bet 2Biz does that" only to look down and see the very next post backing me up. You can know someone without ever meeting them.

Is it that obvious?!?!?!

 

[2Biz]

If your hopper has an accurate coin counter, you can also check for stringing by validating the bills you take out by comparing to the counter reading. I write the coin counter reading on a calendar in the ER every evening. When I pull the bills out, I subtract the coin count from the day before and divide by 4....Bill count should match exactly. If someone strings you, the coin count v/s bill count will be way off. I think its better to do it this way "Just in Case" it doesn't validate. Then you can go back through the DVR and see what happened easier than figuring it out a week or so later.

 

[Jeff_L]

If I was making money hand over fist and had all the time in the world, I would track every service, weather conditions, time of day, etc. However, not the case, I only track revenue per wash. Would love to decompose the revenue so I knew what each service was providing. I’m sure people have developed systems that track each coin, bill, and cc insertion, but that just takes money to track money.

 

[2Biz]

Do you have LED 7 timers? Coin count is built in to the timer. Takes me all of 2 minutes to extract the coin count off 8 timers...The spread sheet (Excel) I created allows me to enter the coin count reading and subtracts the previous week. Then you can validate reading to actual $$$ you pulled....The whole process only adds about 10 minutes to my week...Its scary how accurate it is. Rarely off $.25 ....I have one coin box that coins hang up above the coin box...Tracking lets me know when I have to open the box and get the coins out! Validating also lets me see if anyone has figured a new way of ripping me off...

I don't go to the length of tracking weather conditions or time of day...I'm only interested in making sure the $$$ collected validates with the coin count on the timers. Otherwise, how do you know $$$ is not going out the window?

 

[2Biz]

I'd be willing to share the spread sheet I created if anyone's interested. It tracks weekly income and separates bays, vacs, vending, and 2 pop machines. It also calculates monthly totals and yearly totals....It also tracks percentage of increase or decrease year to year. Oh and it also tracks water usage and how many gallons per dollar taken in from the bays....Its all about tracking income and being able to tell where the $$$ is leaking out!

OK...Laugh!

 

[MEP001]

If I was making money hand over fist and had all the time in the world, I would track every service, weather conditions, time of day, etc. However, not the case, I only track revenue per wash. Would love to decompose the revenue so I knew what each service was providing. I’m sure people have developed systems that track each coin, bill, and cc insertion, but that just takes money to track money.

I only do it so I know if something weird has happened, for instance someone came through with keys that fit the vacs and was draining the vaults, then about a year later someone else with a key to the top door was using a shop vac to suck quarters up through the slot. I might never had known if it weren't for keeping track.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

MEP100 your comment reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago.
I was on vacation and stopped at a self serv. to wash my car.
Put 2 quarters in and it jammed, no cc or bills acceptors.
I saw that the old boxes were from the same manufacturer that I have at my washes so I pulled out my keys to see if they worked.
First key opened the door and I unjammed the quarters (several dollars) and dropped them in the box. Went to close up the door and a customer came over to me and said his quarters jammed too and could I fix it. Fixed it and left a note in the coin box saying that I fixed his 2 jammed acceptors and that he needed to put a lock on the coin box door too.

 

[MEP001]

I once stopped at a wash to clean my work truck and the bay acceptor was jammed. I cleared the jam because they had a nickel stuffed between the door and the box to hold it closed.

 

[2Biz]

I've had some requests for the spreadsheet...Here is a link so you can download it. All data gets entered to the left....Calculations are to the right. If you have easy access to gallons of water used, you can put usage under "Gallons". It calculates gallons used per Dollar taken in...Probably a mindless calculation for some. It helped me figure out how much weep was costing me and when to shut down bays when it gets really cold...

If this Spreadsheet doesn't work for you, it might give you an idea on how to set one up that is tailored to your operation.

http://www.bcoweb.com/photos/spreadsheet.xls

 

[MEP001]

Mine's not anywhere near that complicated, it's really just to track the counters vs pulls so I know right away if something is short, plus let me know the total deposit. The rest is done in Quicken.

 

[Jeff_L]

Yep, I get it, I'm a data guy and wish I had the time to count every acceptor. I accept the risk of things going awry in trade for the time saved not doing it. I applaud those of you who have figured out how to do it quickly.

 

[Mel(NC)]

I use a spreadsheet to track 8 different categories of income. Here are the results as a percentage of total income for this year so far:
Adams Vacs (bills) 3%
Adams Vacs (qts) 6%
Frag combo (bills) 3%
Frag combo (qts) 3%
Vending 3%
Bays (qtrs) 23%
Bays (bills) 48%
Bays CC 10%

A few observations:
I have a lot less use on credit cards than I see posted from others. Not sure why. My wash is in a low income area so maybe that has something to do with it.
I have 3 Adams vacs that pull in 9% of gross income and 1 Fragramatics combo that pulls in 6% by itself, i wish I had bought more combos and less standard vacs.

 

[2Biz]

I like knowing the percentages of each service compared to total income. Thanks for the Idea Mel! So I added it to the Spreadsheet if anyone is interested....

http://www.bcoweb.com/photos/spreadsheet.xls

Here are my Percentages so far this year...

Bays 65.03%
Vacs 7.03%
Vending 3.18%
Pop Bottles 16.62%
Pop Cans 8.14%

And Last Years Total 2017

Bays 57.89%
Vacs 7.22%
Vending 3.82%
Pop Bottles 19.05%
Pop Cans 12.01%

 

[MEP001]

Now you've got me thinking about ways to track the cost per function of the bays.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I'm wondering why he doesn't have more soft drink machines...seriously, is that correct?