Been crunching some numbers this last week. Had a thought that I wanted to get a census on…
how many employees are you going to start 2015 with?
is your daily operating cost over or under $250 per day before payroll?
o employess
yes under
10 Employes
Over $250
I’d love to get this thread going a bit more.
if anyone has questions about our programs or systems, feel free to ask.
knowing your daily operating cost is essential for knowing exactly how much money you can make.
Just me. I set $100 aside for tools, maintenance, etc each work day automatically (unless I only make like $50 that day, of course.), in addition to what I hold out for taxes. If I make over $1000 I set aside $200.
That said, I haven’t calculated my expenses exactly yet, as one day I may be doing my small, 4 stop storefront route, the next I may be running my WFP or PW non-stop…I try to set aside more than what I need to.
Jesse
Atlas Window Cleaning
North Carolina
Hard to determine daily operating costs when the use of supplies can be divided over an extended period of time. Operating costs are almost negligible compared to payroll since window cleaning has such a low overhead to begin with and it takes very little to maintain once you have all of your equipment. Last year I was at a net profit margin of 52% when I looked over my numbers, which is unheard of in most other businesses. Accounting/tax/book keeping firms top the list of small businesses for profitability and they are only at 20% for net profit margins. Net profit margins is a good indicator of how much “bang for your buck” you are getting out of operating costs.
Was that before or after taking a personal salary?
4 and yes (below $250, before payroll)
Dave
When you say operating cost are you talking about the cost that you pay weather or not you actually have work which is fixed cost?? Like Rent, insurance, office
or
are you including materials such as chemicals or squeegees. which is variable cost and can change daily depending on your work load.
or both
Dave maybe you should give us your definition of operating cost to make sure we are on the same page.
This is an interesting thread but the problem is the question is too vague and the answers are equally as vague.
There is no magic number because every market and every owners is different but you can get closer to an answer that helps by being more specific.
i like the idea of the thread though
Before, I’m the only shareholder.
best way to find out the answer on this question is after Jan 1st each calendar year.too many thing to be add it before you can get exact calculation
at the end of the year, you need to know
- gross sales
- every expense (break it down into as much detail as possible to determine things you can cut out)
- payroll
- number of days worked
- number of days available to work but had nothing on the schedule
- number of jobs (broken down into commercial and residential)
- [U]average[/U] amount charged per job
do the math and you will know exactly where YOU are and where YOU need to be in the future based on YOUR needs.
I LOVE that you break down ‘days of opportunity’ vs. ‘days worked.’ 
I’m the same way.
I’m kind of a nut with categories: But I love my stats. 
[B]- Gutters
- Windows
- PWashing
[/B][B]- Janitorial.[/B] I include “high dusting” for older customers, quick light fixture, etc…
[B]- Residential
- Commercial
- Municipal
[/B][B]- Storefront/Retail[/B] which is separate from “Commercial”
(I realize that some of you reading this think it’s overkill, and I drive you crazy when I bring it up.
So, sue me.):rolleyes:
you better track your marketing if you want to know how to get their
Marketing falls under expense, but I should have listed it under its own category for the purpose of this thread. And marketing can be divided into so many sub groups that can drive you nuts. Track them all but dont over analyze to the point of becoming paralyzed, sometimes you have to live with not knowing why something did or didn’t work, especially when results are different year to year for some unknown reason…
Sorry for being so broad,
my definition of operating cost is the $ amount it costs to run the business on a daily basis, before payroll.
Rent, insurance, work comp, office, storage, trucks, supplies, advertising.
Do you measure per work day, or on a 365 day average?
i ran a report for a 8 month season with only 20 work days a week, along with a 12 month 365 day report to compare
That’s what I figured. In order to make an accurate comparison with other businesses, you need to give yourself a competitive salary for all of the roles you fulfill: labor, sales, bookkeeping, etc., and count all of that as an “expense” before calculating your profit margin.
