One of the most important things service businesses tend to miss is tracking indirect labor. This directly affects your GROSS PROFIT. Indirect time is the time your employees are not producing work on a job site. This is time at the shop loading material. Time in the vehicle driving from one property to the next (windshield time). This also includes time at gas stations FILLING UP TRUCKS.
Filling up at the gas station is not only costing you money in fuel but also in lost production time and wages! If you have two employees getting paid $15.00 an hour ($18.00 fully loaded) each time they sit at the gas station for 15 minutes to fill up the truck its costing your company $9.00 in wages for them to fill up the vehicle. On top of that you are losing production time and efficiency within your company.
For example a company spending $10,000 a year in fuel will fill up there vehicles approximately 200 times over the course of a a year. 200 fill ups at $9.00 (in wages) per fill up is $1,800 a year. One way to negate this cost is using fuel barrels at your shop for gas and diesel.
If you have a shop and local city code will allow you to have a fuel barrel you can get 500 gallons of diesel or gas delivered directly to your shop. All your equipment can be filled at the shop for a fraction of the price at the pump. You can fill 5 trucks in 15 minutes. It would take an hour or more to take them to the gas station for fueling!
If you looking to save money and increase your bottom line this option is definitely worth looking into. See some advantages of having fuel barrels below.
Advantages of fuel barrels
- Better fuel delivered directly to your shop from the pipeline.
- No gas cards needed for employees
- Save money on labor keeping employees out of the gas stations
- Convenience of having your own gas station at your shop.
- One bill for fuel from one supplier. Easier for book keeping purposes.
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By Corey Sedrel