Fractional CFO for Auto & Fleet Repair Shops in Chicago
Every week you buy parts, fill bays, and manage labor. We turn that into numbers you can price and staff against, instead of instinct.
Three things most Auto & Fleet Repair businesses can’t answer.
The system says one thing. The shop says another.
Your shop software tracks how your team uses it, not what happened in the bay. Reports built on that look right and aren’t.
Nobody knows the real labor rate.
One rate for the fleet account, one set three years ago to win a job. Most shops can’t say what they earn per hour across all their work.
The work isn’t attached to anyone.
The technician field is empty. So you can’t see who’s efficient, match payroll to billed hours, or pay on performance.
These are the ones we hit most often, not a diagnosis of your shop. Finding out which are true for you is what the Read is for.
The office, applied to Auto & Fleet Repair.
The Shop That Was Selling to the Wrong Customer
An auto aesthetics shop spent its marketing on $100,000-car owners who’d pay for a full wrap. That’s not who walked in. Most customers wanted their daily driver protected, and there were far more of them.
Once the repair-order data was organised so you could read it, the answer took a week: the everyday package was where the volume and the profit were. The pitch moved there. The team was rebuilt around what each person did best.
None of this came from new data. They already had every number. It had never been organised into a view anyone could decide from. That is nearly always the job.
What shop owners ask us
Do you replace our shop management software?
No. We connect to what you already run and build on top of it.
Our shop software already has reports. Why do we need this?
Because a report can add up and still be wrong. Shop systems’ own summaries often don’t match their own job records. We check whether your numbers are true before building anything on them.
Is this only for shops with a certain number of bays?
No. It’s about whether you’re making pricing and staffing calls without numbers you trust. Some of our best fits are single-location shops.
Our records are a mess. Are we ready for this?
Messy is the normal starting point. You don’t need to tidy up first. Tidying up is most of what we’d be doing anyway.
What if I’m thinking about selling in a few years?
Then start earlier. Buyers pay for earnings they can verify, and most of what we do is make earnings verifiable. Eighteen months out changes the number. Sixty days out just makes diligence less painful.
Every engagement starts with a Read.
If it doesn’t find more than it costs, you don’t pay for it.