DC Recap: All About Reporting

Hello again, Fullbay friends and family! We’re back with another recap of a Diesel Connect presentation—we hope you’re ready to learn all about Fullbay’s reports.

Yes, it’s true. Chris O’Brien himself led a session focused entirely on Fullbay’s reporting options. Not only did he describe the reports in detail and discuss how he would use them, he also demo’d a bunch of them so curious shop owners and managers could see how they worked. 

We’re not going to detail the demonstrations in this blog—honestly, you’ll benefit far more from the video release in a few months—but we will cover some of the lesser-known reports Chris discussed. You’ve heard plenty about the Revenue Report and Inventory Velocity Report on this blog, but there are several additional reports that we haven’t featured and you may not know about.

Or maybe you do, in which case this blog won’t share anything new, but we hope you enjoy hearing about these reports anyway. =D

DEMYSTIFYING REPORTING

First, Chris had a word of advice for anyone who hears the word data and shrinks into a tiny ball. He suggested we all look at data like we would a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

(Maybe don’t read this when you’re hungry.)

How much bread are you going to use? How much peanut butter? How much jelly? If you want to monetize your sandwich-making skills—let’s say you want to make a PB&J factory—then adding too much or too little jelly could wreck your profitability.

Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a repair shop has several components. Labor, parts, and things with overhead all go into the sandwich of your operation. And if you ignore the numbers they generate (or don’t generate), well, you’re in for some pain. 

Fullbay’s reports help you understand exactly how much peanut butter and jelly to use in your shop. They help you perfect the recipe, so to speak, so you can be a sandwich-making machine—er, successful, profitable repair operation. 

SOLD PARTS REPORT

Chris recommended shops run this report daily if they’re having trouble getting a handle on their inventory. Shops that are comfortable and have a solid parts process can run it weekly.

Basically, you can see what parts were sold and sort by margin. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “Someone’s gonna sell parts under cost.”

Yikes.

“I have gone to too many shops that say that they run 30%, 20%,” Chris said. “I hit the sold parts report…”

And then they realize someone is cutting deals.

It’s often not out of malice, he said. Someone’s trying to hook a friend up, or make up for a poor service experience. But cutting such deals effectively undercuts your revenue over time; it can be the difference between staying in business and shutting your doors.

So run the report. If nothing else, you’ll see your margins. 

Side note for those interested in AI: Chris related the tale of Luke Todd of The Service Company, who fed the Sold Parts Report to ChatGPT and then asked it where the velocity was and what he should stock. 

“It was telling him and doing analytics for him to tell him what to do,” Chris said. He didn’t mention whether Luke took the bot’s advice…we’ll reach out and follow up. But if looking at all that data does feel overwhelming, exhausting, and all the other -ing words, well, letting the robot deal with it might be an option. 

SPECIAL ORDER VELOCITY REPORT

Picture it: You’re suddenly selling a ton of turbos. You don’t keep a stash of them in your parts room, so you need to special order them every time. Huh…maybe you should keep them in stock?

Not so fast, Chris warned. Open up the Special Order Velocity Report first.

It’s a quick check to make sure the data matches your gut. What if you’ve sold 15 turbos, but they’re all different kinds? Nothing to stock. If you sold 15 of the exact same turbo, though, then yeah—think about bringing that into the parts room. 

Chris pointed out that the SOV also lets you look at special orders over time. Did those 15 identical turbos happen all in one month…or is it stretched across a span of two years?

Data, friends. Data.  

We could tell Chris had a special affection for the SOV. “It shows you true demand,” he said, “rather than someone saying, ‘We’re selling a lot of turbos!’”

RETURNS REPORT

The Returns Report is a brand-new (as of this writing) feature that some users haven’t played with yet. This is your signal to go do just that!

Not surprisingly, the Returns Report…um…tells you all about your returns.

If your shop has multiple locations, it’ll show you returns from them, too.

It’s particularly handy to run this report before team meetings, Chris said, so your crew can discuss why particular parts are being returned. “[You should just have] cores being returned, if you’re buying the right stuff,” Chris told attendees. The report has plenty of filters like date range, component, and part type (among others!), allowing you to see exactly what you need when you need to see it. 

Something the report can help you see is whether you’re just buying too many parts and returning them when they go unused. Chris advised against this: “A great way to lose money is to get into the returns game.” 

PRACTICAL TIP: READ THE RELEASE NOTES (PLEASE)

So…look. Fullbay releases updates pretty frequently. Every update comes with release notes, where we detail the new features, how to use them, and where they can fit into your processes. But those notes are pretty useless if no one is reading them. 

(And yeah, we get it, sometimes the last thing you want to do is comb through the update list. But it’s important! And useful!) 

Chris issued a plea: “Somebody in your shop has to consume the release notes,” he said. If not you, then someone else—and then that information has to reach the rest of the crew.

Fullbay does not make changes just because we feel like it. We base our updates on what our customers—repair shop owners like you—ask for! Don’t miss out just because those notes seem like a lot. 

LIKED THIS RECAP? JUST WAIT!

Chris spent plenty of time on other reports and even took audience questions near the end. And yes, for those who are curious, he did cover pivot tables and line dancing.

(That’s a “You had to be there” DC inside joke!)

We hope you enjoyed (and learned from!) this recap, and if you did—just hang in there another couple months, because we’re going to release the full video. 

Until then, check out those reports!