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Where the F##$ is my money going??? please help

How long have you been in the shop?

It takes about 2 years to see a solid $ growth.

First thing I saw was your $3200 per month payment. Gee I do $10 -$11K per week and don’t take that much for myself, and that is Australia where our wages, costs are a lot more than in the US.

I must admit though I ask myself the same question as you did from time to time. You have good sales but it just doen’t seem to translate to $$ in the bank.

The great mystery of accounting and running a business.

Dave
 
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Are you accounting for discount or coupon expense? This could easily add another couple thou to the monthly expenses. How about FICA, FUTA, workers comp, etc - is that calculated as part of your payroll expense? If you have delivery, you also should have unowned auto coverage - if that’s included in your $140 a month ins payment, please give me the name of your agent - I want some! Also don’t forget bank charges (and credit card fees if you accept them). You also don’t include piddly items that are probably around $50 a month like smallwares, office supplies, and so on - those most likely would add up to 3 - 500 per month.

My guess is you’ll find that missing money somewhere in there. Don’t count on making 15% on top of your salary at that sales level, 5% would be okay, 10% would be outstanding! Also, how many sf is your shop? $900 for rent does not sound like much for a place big enough for full service.
 
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You’ve got no advertising costs listed. I would agree about cc fees, matching taxes, workers comp. When all is said and done, you are the one with acess to your bank records. From the numbers you post, there seems to be 6K per 24K month missing. I would imaging that a few hours looking over your bank statements will show you exactly where this money is missing. If you still can’t come up with that 6K per month, this is one of those times where a CPA/bookeeper will save you much more than they cost.

My next question is are you expecting to make 15% on top of your 38+K salary? This just isn’t close to being realistic. I do realize there are some that may run such a tight ship that they can squeeze that much out of those sales. Almost nobody does this and the ones who do have lower fixed costs.
 
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For a low volume shop I think you are doing very well.

You need to count that 1500 interest payment as earnings. That plus your $3200 have you above 16% of sales.

If you want to make more money you need to increase sales.
 
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your rent sounds great at 900.

how could your towels and linen be 300?

sounds a little wacky, unless that includes the 2 guys on the clock handing out warm towels to the bathroom users.
 
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It sounds like your doing just fine. Personally i would drop your pay a little and do some advertising. The only way to make more money is to increase sales & Build a bigger customer base. It took me 3 years to start seeing a bigger increase.

I would dedicate at least 3% to advertising.
 
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my building is only 1400 sf total. we have seating for 34 inside and 16 out on the patio. i pay 900 a month and i have no NNN fee’s.

we really dont do much advertising. we are in a small retirement town of 2000 people. and its all word to mouth. however i am going to do some direct mailings with my pizza promo.

i use heartland payment systems for my CC, they are about the cheapest around.

as far as insurance for my drivers i use the washington state auto plan. its 100 dollars per year for up to 5 drivers then 20 per driver after that.
how ever it is only 50,000 per person 150,000 per accident. i used to cover 1,000,000 of coverage but it was like 5000k per year. and i figure if some one does get in a horrilbe accident where some one got really hurt. the 1,000,000 is not gonna cover your self and your going to be in trouble anyways.

and i use Zurich for my other insurance and that is 1300 per year.

my towels and aprons and rugs run me about 60-90 per week. i am thinking about starting to do it myself for that much money.

other than that i guess i need to just cut down on the small stuff that adds up.

any other thoughts would be great

Thanks
 
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porky's pizza:
how could your towels and linen be 300?
sounds a little wacky, unless that includes the 2 guys on the clock handing out warm towels to the bathroom users.
Click to expand...
lol :lol:
 
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Did you consider your monthly grocery bill, yearley city, county and state taxes and licences, health dept dues any repair work inside building, if it is franchise its royalty. monthly accountant fees, office related expance, and your monthly business credit card expance which might includ gas, automible payments, and misc iteams…
 
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Check if your labor % calculation is including all the taxes and insurance. And while you’re at it, check for ALL taxes and insurance - they tend to pop up out of the blue when you’re new…
 
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If your insurance setup is valid, you are LUCKY. But you may want to doublecheck whether the state program is OK for a delivery business.
I’m thinking those rates are fine for covering a driver in a regular car, but if YOU get sued from a driver hurting someone, that it’ll be excluded completely.
And someone could sue YOU, for a driver of yours simply fender-bendering or “whiplashing” them…
The 5$K/year policy is the one that most of us doing deliveries find we need to protect from those suits. It is a choking cost, but it’ll save your business in case of an accident. Recoup what you can with a delivery fee…
 
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increase sales and the %'s will drop…
follow the money and make sure there are no leaks…ie, employees taking some extra $…guess I am skeptical of that from my experience 😦
Otis
 
MM is right about the insurance. Unless you most valuable personal asset is your pizza oven you need to get real insurance coverage. He is also right about the delivery charge. It was about 5-6 years ago that the insurance companies bailed on pizza delivery. When my rates went from 2K to 5K in one year without ever having a claim I added a delivery charge. If you are doing 500 deliveries a month a $1 charge will cover all your insurance, buy your hot bags and cover a little of your mileage payment to the drivers. When I added a delivery charge I did not receive a single comment.
 
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let see we do about 8 deliverys a night.

The insuarnce plan i have is very very valid. I have a freind that owns a small chain of 14 stores and he as been using them for about 8 years now have they have had claims and paid on them. He is my pizza mentor.

what do you guys think about my pizzapromos direct mailings? i was going to order there 25000 menus for 2100 bucks and have 15000 mailed out to people. and keep 10k for my self.

anyways i am going to keep an eye on things

i should just pay off my note. i have the cash, but for some reason i am affraid to spend my captial. even though i woulld make it back in 2 years. but for some reason i am just affraid to not have a buffer in the bank.

ps that is personal money not company made money
 
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1st of all your running a 35% labor including yourself, add labor taxes and your probably around 39%.

Where in Washington are you? I used to own a pizza shop in Arlington, and I ran several Dominos, & Papa Johns in and around the Puget Sound for the better part of 15 years.

I believe the Current Minimum Wage in Washington is $8.30 per hour.
So you are currently spending 22% labor or about $1320 a week on Variable Labor.

What are your Hours. Are there periods of the day that are regularly slack where you could cut labor, and or close the store. kinda like some Chinese, or Indian restaurants they have lunch from 11 am to 2 pm and then shut down and re-open at 4pm for Dinner. Give your employee a split shift. So instead of working 10 hours they are now working 8.

A thing we used to do with Domino’s Pizza with stores that were under $10,000. The manager would run the lunch all by himself, and he would take the order, make the order, and deliver the order, hanging a sign on the door that would say “ON A DELIVERY, BACK IN 5 MINUTES”, and then he would forward the main line to his Cell phone so as not to loose, and phone in orders. If a call came in while he was on a delivery, he would just answer tell them he was on a delivery, and ask for a # where he could call them back at. This allowed a store manager to save about 20 hours labor a week, and make some tips too.

When was the last time you raised your prices? When I was in Seattle we would raise our prices every year to offset the annual minimum wage increase.
 
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Get out of debt.

This might just be me, but I personally hate using the bank for anything. I can’t wait for the day that this business becomes debt free, because I don’t have that hanging over my head anymore. If I have the money sitting in the bank, and it’s not going to affect my personal financial status, I would pay off the loan and quit paying the bank interest every month.
 
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As for menues, I used www.gotprint.com with great satisfaction in product and service. Using their online calculator, I found they will produce 25,000 full color, glossy 100# book weight, 8.5X11 tri-fold menus/brochures for $1,849 plus tax/shipping. They are located in Burbank, California.

Just making the information known.
 
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