Self Service Bay Costs

[washregal]

This one I know is a moving target - however it would be good to have this number. Has there been a study or an avg cost per minute to the operator for self service bay costs with a breakdown of that cost.. I.e 12-20 cents per minute of 1 minute bay use?

 

[chaz]

I’ve never seen anything like this..

Tons of variables...... cost of water, sewage, and power. Percent of time on various functions. And I guess you’d want to factor in some amount for maintenance and cleanup auxh as wash down time. Etc..... though if someone has figured out an excel chart for this...I’d love to see it.

 

[OurTown]

This can be complex if you want to include everything that it takes to run the place plus for us in the North it changes a lot from winter to summer. If you are only looking for cost of water and chemicals then that should be somewhat easy if you have chemical flow meters. The only thing we have calculated was water/sewer and for us it is about $.04/minute.

 

[MEP001]

I can probably put together an Excel sheet where you could enter all your own variables and come up with a fairly accurate answer.

There have been lots of surveys of that sort in car wash magazines, but since almost no one knows their own cost per minute there's probably not a survey for average cost per car. And that number will vary wildly, for example someone on a septic may only spend 15-20% of what someone else paying 5x sewage for water use billed.

 

[soapy]

The ICA did a study on this years ago and I am sure it has been updated since. Check their website for it. Also many of the trade magazines do yearly surveys across the country on this. I used the magazine surveys to setup proformas to secure SBA LOANS when I first started out

 

[washregal]

i did check with the ICA - they didnt have anything on this - I am surprised this hasn't been done somewhere.. Thinking you want to input all data - use per minute as your guide - all costs including cc costs - even if monitoring all cash customers.. I would imagine use the higher number to get your best calculation.. I know alot of variables to this number - but would be well worth a spreadsheet to be put together and posted.

 

[Kevin James]

i did check with the ICA - they didnt have anything on this - I am surprised this hasn't been done somewhere.. Thinking you want to input all data - use per minute as your guide - all costs including cc costs - even if monitoring all cash customers.. I would imagine use the higher number to get your best calculation.. I know alot of variables to this number - but would be well worth a spreadsheet to be put together and posted.

Are you kidding me post what our operating costs are on the internet!! Sounds to me like someone has to much time on their hands or needs a hobby.

 

[washregal]

Kevin James - King of Queens right? I do love that show.. No didn't mean operators post individual costs - meant post a generic spreadsheet as was suggested by others in previous posts.. I am surprised that nothing like this has been done before.. All operators should know their costs. Sort of a fundamental right of passage to be in business - How do you understand profit otherwise?

 

[2Biz]

I posted a generic spreadsheet that tracks all kinds of income v/s costs based on my 4 bay a while back. My water meter is in the Er so I also track water used per week verses bay income that calculates water used per $1.00 of bay income. Its amazing how close week to week it is. I have pop machines and vending machines that are all calculated separately. There is also a part of the spread sheet that validates LED7 coin count with totals for bays and vacs....Its usually within $.25...There's also sections of the spreadsheet that calculate percentages of total income based on each money source, total percentage of profits gain or loss year to year, and also Bay and Vac income percentages minus All utilities, Gas and Electric.

If this is what you are looking for, click the link below to download the spread sheet. You'll have to modify it to how your wash is set up and what you want to track...This should give you a good start and will help show you how calculations are done in Excel. I created this one to tailored my wash and what I wanted to track...

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

 

[Earl Weiss]

I think the only way to do it would be to do the test on a rainy day. Get the start reading for water and gas. Perhaps get an electric reading for an hour when no bays are on and then at the end of the hour when no bays are on so you can subtract non operating electricity. You could try the same if you have a gas meter. Now, run each function 10 minutes using a measuring cup to calculate solution draw during the 10 minutes. If you have 7 functions you can deduct the water and electricity costs by 70 (Gas also if applicable for hot water) And after figuring the solution costs for each, total and divide by 70. This of course assumes all functions used equally, but you could also use it for each function. Some functions use more water, some use more electricity and less or no water. I would imagine that by location cross the country there can be some large differences based on everything from nozzle size, to water cost.

 

[2Biz]

I would imagine that by location cross the country there can be some large differences based on everything from nozzle size, to water cost.

The spreadsheet I created takes all that into consideration and gives true calculations based on all costs and income for every location, regardless of demographics. So there is more than one way to skin this cat. For me, the spread sheet I created gets the job done, Takes less than a few minutes a week to input data and gives me an overall comparison week to week, month to month, and year to year.

 

[washregal]

2Biz - Like how you thought this through.. might have some questions will get back to you on - where do I input the variables of my wash at? All operators should have a spreadsheet like this for SS in my opinion - should be for their entire wash .. My auto is more self propagating with profit and loss - however self serve is a moving target - but certainly good to know where your numbers are..

 

[Dan-Ark]

Thanks 2Biz, I have stolen your spreadsheet!

 

[2Biz]

Where do I input the variables of my wash at?

Looking at the top left of the Spreadsheet, there are 6 columns, Date, Bays, Vacs, Vending, Pop Bottles, and Pop Cans...(I have two pop machines and keep the income separated for comparisons)...If you want, you can change the pop columns with something else you have. FYI you can't delete columns or rows since the calculations are dependent on row and column location. Moving on, rows 3-11 are for January input, 12-20 is February, etc. If you collect weekly, just use the empty boxes down each column. Any box that has zero's or #DIV/0! calculates from the input boxes, so nothing is ever input in those boxes. If you click on one of these boxes, the calculation is output in the bar above the spreadsheet so you can see where and how and what its calculating. All totals for each month is output on the right side under each perspective month. If you input water usage in the "Gallons of Water" column, it calculates how many gallons you've used per dollar taken in the bays. This can be useful in determining when to change nozzles or if someone has discovered how to cheat your bay meters! Its incredible how close this calculation is weekly. It also lets you know how much more weep costs in the winter and can help you adjust price based on fact.

Moving down the spreadsheet, yearly totals are calculated for each column from left to right.

The next set of calculations is Bays and Vacs LED7 Coin count, current week and last week. You start by putting coin count in for the 4 bays "Last Week" column and same for vacs if you have LED7's. The second week you put new coin count in the current week column...The yellow output box subtracts last week from current week and the orange box converts to dollars. The output dollars should coincide with how much you took in for the week or collecting period both bays and vacs. For the 3rd and future inputs, you have to move current week numbers to last week and input new current week readings. Again I use this to validate bay income with meter readings to make sure thugs have not outsmarted me!

Dropping on down, manually input the year, bay total income, and Total for the CW. The output is what the % of bay income is to total income and then % Total is comparison from year to year. To the right is Percentages of income, everything here is calculated from other inputs. Nothing to do here but read the output.

Then bottom right, input Utilities and NG and everything else is calculated for you. Bay and Vac Totals, Clear from Bays and vacs, and what the percentage is - Profit v/s Utility costs. I didn't include mortgage, but could easily be added.

Hopefully this helps explain things a bit. Sorry for the long post, but lots going on in this spreadsheet. Questions?

 

[2Biz]

One more thing, keep a blank copy/template of this for next year, you don't want to have to go through and delete all input from the spreadsheet to start a new year. Much easier to open your saved template, rename it to the current year and start over....

 

[soapy]

I have a copy of the ICA study done years ago somewhere. The ICA is just kind of shunning the self service industry.

 

[Roz]

I would suggest that you figure out the cost per minute for just water, sewer, and soap (basic material) as that can be accurately measured and those costs are based 100% on flow of water used. You will arrive at a number between 5 - 25 cents per minute depending on those variables. At the end of the year you can guesstimate the number of minutes your SS machines where in use (unless you have a time meter on the motors or use the meter timer to track) and amortize your operating costs (depreciation, repairs, maintenance, interest, etc) over that time. Those operating costs usually change year to year so it might not make sense to drive yourself too crazy looking for an exact number beyond the basic material components.

 

[washregal]

Hey Soapy - would love to see that ICA study... calculated costs can go crazy and in depth - I will work on this as I think a very valuable tool for the SS industry - Need to consider water pressure / velocity / nozzel size / gpm / sewer costs / product dilution ratios - and woul dhave the spreadsheet calculate a percentage of use based on ICA user preferences around the dial - this probably can never be 100 % accurate - however would get us in the ball park..

 

[mac]

Back when the trade magazines did their annual surveys, they all showed that your net profit from a self serve would be around 60%. That did not include anything for debt service or your labor. It did include all of the fixed and variable costs though.

 

[soapy]

This months AUto Laundry News has the annual IBA survey. It shows that average gross income per SS bay at facilities with IBAs is $1958 per bay per month. I am pretty sure they still do a SS bay survey every year. One thing I have found over the years is that these magazine surveys tend to be responded to by operators who are actually doing better than most of the industry so the numbers end up on the high end of things. I recall the ICA study showed chemical costs for SS bays was about 5% and profit before debt service overall was about 50%.