Should I Show My Team the Profit and Loss? What Accelerate Found

Yes, and the reason is not what most owners expect. It is not to justify your prices or to make anyone feel guilty. It is so the people working for you understand what you are carrying.

Ange Wall at Accelerate Automotive in Coopers Plains puts it plainly:

"I needed to share that information a bit more, so they could feel my pain points or my stresses a little bit more and not just think I'm cranky for no reason."

Not just think I'm cranky for no reason. That is the gap in most mechanics workshops, and no amount of explaining fixes it while the numbers stay private.

What it was like before

The car park was full. That was the confusing part:

"We were just going, 'Well, the cars are coming in, the cars are going out. There must be money being made, but there wasn't enough,' with the car parks full."

And underneath it, something more serious:

"If we just kept charging like this, we wouldn't have our doors open today."

Then the holidays, which is the measure most owners feel before they feel the money:

"We've always been lucky that we closed for two weeks at Christmas, but that was your holidays. That was your only holiday for a long time."

Two weeks, at a time of year you did not choose, and that was the whole year.

What changed

Systems, forced by circumstance. They built the business so it could run without them during a health crisis. Ange's line about that is the one I would give to any owner who says they have no time:

"You think you don't have time until you have no choice."

A full overhaul, after which the profit and loss goes to the team every week.

Working on the business outside shop hours, which is where the overhaul actually got done.

Then a four-day week, from the start of March.

Watch: Ange, Alan and Carl tell it in under four minutes.

What happened when the team saw the numbers

This is the part worth sitting with. The team's "understanding of a profit and loss statement has just grown tremendous", and then:

"The boys even look forward to them now and they do their homework."

Technicians doing homework on a P&L. Not because they were told to, but because once you can see the scoreboard, the game gets interesting.

Where Accelerate is now

Holidays went from two weeks a year to about five or six. One extra week after joining the Engine Room, then a week at Hamilton Island, then an extra two weeks at the start of a year.

The four-day week did not cost them turnover. In their words, "our turnover didn't change", and February and March were very good months.

Why a team misreads a stressed owner

Your team sees the same shop you do and draws completely different conclusions from it, because they are missing the one thing you have.

They see cars arriving. They see the board full. They see you taking money at the counter. From the floor, a busy week looks like a good week, and there is no reason to think otherwise.

What they cannot see is the parts bill, the rent, the tax set-aside, or what the month actually produced after all of it. So when the owner is short-tempered during a flat-out fortnight, the only available explanation is the one Ange named: he is cranky for no reason.

This matters more than it sounds. A team working without that context will make small decisions all day that move money in the wrong direction, not out of carelessness but because nothing tells them a discount or an unbilled half hour costs anything. They are optimising for the customer in front of them, which is what you would want if the numbers were fine.

Sharing the profit and loss closes that gap directly. It replaces a story about the boss's mood with a scoreboard everyone can read, and it gives the team a reason to care about the things that actually decide whether the shop works.

Which part of this sounds like your shop?

If your car park is full and the money is not there, that is the before, and it is a pricing question before it is a volume question.

If your team thinks you are cranky for no reason, they are missing information you have and they do not.

If your only holiday is the fortnight the whole industry takes at Christmas, that is not a holiday. That is a shutdown you happen to be present for.

What sharing the numbers actually asks of you

It asks for something harder than openness.

It asks you to be able to explain the numbers, which means understanding them yourself first. An owner who shares a profit and loss they cannot talk through has not created transparency, they have created confusion with better access.

That is why the overhaul came before the weekly sharing at Accelerate. Ange and Alan learned to read it, then taught it, and the team's understanding grew from there until the boys were doing homework on it.

Questions auto repair shop owners ask

Won't showing the P&L make my team ask for a pay rise?

It can start a conversation about pay, and that conversation is better had with both of you looking at the same numbers. What Accelerate found was the opposite of resentment: the team engaged with it.

Do I show them everything, including what I earn?

You decide the boundary. Most shops that do this share the trading performance, not the owner's drawings. The point is that the team can see what the business produces and what it costs to produce it.

My team wouldn't understand a P&L.

Neither did Accelerate's at first. Their understanding grew because they saw it every week, with someone walking them through it. Once a month is a lecture. Every week is a habit.

What if the numbers are bad?

Then they are bad whether or not anybody sees them. A team that knows the shop is tight will make different decisions on the floor than a team that assumes it is fine.

How did the four-day week not cost them turnover?

Because the constraint in an automotive workshop is rarely days open. It is what gets sold and billed on the days you are. Fix that, and the fifth day was carrying less than you think.

What to do tonight

Print last month's profit and loss and read it as though you were one of your technicians. What would you not understand? What would surprise you?

Then pick the one line you would be comfortable walking them through on Monday. Start there, and do it again next week.

If stepping back is where you want to end up, our 4 Day Work Week ebook shows what it takes.

Accelerate are one of many. Our clients are named auto repair shop owners, and garage owners across five countries, on camera, telling you what changed.

Where to go next

• How to why you're busy but not making any money
• How to take a holiday without the shop falling apart
• How to build a shop that runs without you
• How to build a team that takes ownership
• How to move to a four day work week without losing profit

More on this topic: all Culture & Meaning articles.

Whenever you're ready, here's how we can help.

• Free. Shop Talk, a 30 day reset for auto repair shop owners, and our free resources.
• Under $50,000 a month? Auto Superstars Academy, $997 one off. Your service advisor is where the charging either holds or does not.
• Over $50,000 a month? The Engine Room, where Accelerate did this, with one on one coaching on demand from a business coach who is a current or former auto repair shop owner.