Appliance repair bookkeeping: two trips, one job

Appliance repair has a problem most service trades do not: the part is rarely on the truck. A technician diagnoses the fault, orders the part, and comes back days later to fit it. One job, two trips, a part paid for in between — and often a third party paying the bill at a rate you did not set.

Books that treat each visit as a separate event cannot tell you what a repair actually cost or earned. Books that tie both visits and the part to one job can.

One job, two visits

Every repair that needs a second trip should stay one job in the books: the diagnostic visit, the part, the return visit and the labor on both. Then you can see what the whole repair cost against what it billed.

Two things usually come out of that:

• The second trip is under-priced. Drive time and the scheduling slot for a return visit are real costs, and a repair priced as if it were one visit loses money on the second.
• Some appliance types or brands consistently need more trips. Those deserve different pricing.

Parts ordered per job

Parts ordered for a specific repair should be coded to that job when ordered. Parts that arrive and are not used — wrong part, customer cancelled, repair not worth doing — need returning and the credit applied back to the job. Unreturned parts are money sitting on a shelf.

Common parts carried on trucks are inventory. Count them against what was billed. See truck stock and inventory.

Home warranty and manufacturer work

Much appliance repair is paid for by home warranty companies or manufacturers rather than the homeowner. That work comes with fixed rates, authorization steps and claim paperwork, and it often pays slowly.

Three things to track:

• Receivables by payer — each warranty company and manufacturer separately, by claim, with the date submitted. Warranty receivables age quietly and are often lost to missing paperwork rather than refusal.
• The service fee collected from the homeowner at the visit, which is yours on top of what the warranty company pays.
• Margin by payer. Warranty rates frequently fail to cover two-visit repairs. Knowing what each warranty company actually pays per completed job, after both trips, tells you which contracts are worth keeping.

The diagnostic fee

The diagnostic or trip fee covers the first visit whether or not the customer goes ahead. Record it separately from repair revenue, and track how often it is waived or credited toward the repair. A fee that is waived most of the time is not really a fee. See what you should charge for a service call, and the service call price calculator.

Technician time at the real rate

Cost technician hours at the burdened rate — wage plus payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and benefits — divided by the hours that can actually be billed. Drive time and parts pickups are significant in appliance repair. The true hourly cost calculator works it out.

Callbacks

A repeat failure within days of a repair belongs to the original job. Tracked that way, callbacks show which parts, brands or technicians bring you back. See what callbacks are really costing you.

Related

• Garage door company bookkeeping
• When a customer will not pay
• Handyman business bookkeeping

General information, not tax or legal advice.