Take a look at what the biggest expenses are that your business incurs. Labor is typically the largest line item, anywhere from 25% to 35%. How can you cut down on the labor and still maintain the work load? First place I'd look is your non-billable hours. You've already mentioned the fueling and loading/unloading.
Do you charge your customer's travel time? Perhaps you can do more portal to portal billing instead of curb side billing?
Overtime compensation is something you can cut out. If you have excessive overtime you can hire spot labor, a part time employee or maybe you're ready to add another full time employee. You'll save on the 50% plus the burden.
Make sure your material purchases are spot on - make sure you don't over buy for jobs.
Fuel is typically only 2% to 3%, very minor. I wouldn't beat yourself over this one. Or for that matter your smaller office purchases. It's wise of you to be conscience of them, but I wouldn't obcess over the really small things. All the energy you put into cutting the minor expenses could be refocused into the selling of new profitable jobs.
Spend time working on the job costing and the production rates for your work and see if you can tighten up the daily operation of your work to be as efficient as possible. Your use of PDA's shows that you're creative and willing to take some relatively unconventional approaches, I'm sure you'll find some more ways to tighten the belt.
Check insurance costs with your carrier. If you own trucks that are older do you really need to carry comprehensive or collision? Could you just cut back to liability? What if you raised your deductable?
Do you charge your customer's travel time? Perhaps you can do more portal to portal billing instead of curb side billing?
Overtime compensation is something you can cut out. If you have excessive overtime you can hire spot labor, a part time employee or maybe you're ready to add another full time employee. You'll save on the 50% plus the burden.
Make sure your material purchases are spot on - make sure you don't over buy for jobs.
Fuel is typically only 2% to 3%, very minor. I wouldn't beat yourself over this one. Or for that matter your smaller office purchases. It's wise of you to be conscience of them, but I wouldn't obcess over the really small things. All the energy you put into cutting the minor expenses could be refocused into the selling of new profitable jobs.
Spend time working on the job costing and the production rates for your work and see if you can tighten up the daily operation of your work to be as efficient as possible. Your use of PDA's shows that you're creative and willing to take some relatively unconventional approaches, I'm sure you'll find some more ways to tighten the belt.
Check insurance costs with your carrier. If you own trucks that are older do you really need to carry comprehensive or collision? Could you just cut back to liability? What if you raised your deductable?
