We talk a lot over here about being proactive vs reactive. The basic idea is that if you’re constantly stuck in the muck of emergencies in your parts department, it’s impossible to be developing plans and or making big-picture analyses of your operation. Making the shift isn’t easy and, for many parts managers, it means getting a lot more help. That being said, assessing your operation holistically and noticing patterns in ‘emergencies’ so you can make a plan for them is well worth the temporary discomfort. Monthly Reconciliations are a powerful tool for auditing your operation and identifying breakdowns before they turn into burnout. If you’re not already, we recommend running a monthly reconciliation for optimal data. Here’s why.
Monthly reconciliations will give you a clear picture of employee accounting accuracy and help you catch errors before they are repeated. Plus, at the end of the year, your books and records will be better balanced. While you won’t be able to count your physical inventory each month, you’ll assume your accounts are accurate in order to make frequent reconciliations sustainable. Look out for big jumps and always investigate discrepancies.
When creating a comprehensive reconciliation, you’ll want to break down claims, manufacturer returns, core returns outstanding, invoice and repair orders in process, customer pay, repair order parts, and much more. For a complete breakdown of categories and an easy guide for adding it all up, download our free Monthly Reconciliation Worksheet.
Having a clean, updated, and systemized DMS management system is essential for depending on reporting for your monthly reconciliations. PartsEdge can help you transform your parts inventory settings, controls, and pricing matrix’s with daily audits resulting in an accurate and optimized inventory. Our monthly service saves parts managers hundreds of hours, allowing them to focus back on the proactive overall department health .
Our clients see an average 20% drop in total inventory, 15% less idle inventory, a 50% increase in ROI, and a 20% increase in parts sales. If you’re ready to put our parts power-tool to work, send us a message! We’ve been helping dealerships for over 20 years and our testimonials speak for themselves.