Sorry about the OT post but I need some help. I just noticed that we have several vendors billing for "Shop Supplies" on our invoices.Some states have made that practice illegal, We are in Texas and I can not find information one way or the other?I checked the BBB(what a joke)and have looked into the deceptive trades practices but it leaves you still wondering. I know that we all use shop rags,go-jo,grease and such but do you guys p*** that on to your customers as "shop supplies" or itemize the bill or just eat the overhead? Is it illegal in Tejas? We need a HAMB lawyer some days. Thanks a ton BrotherBob
I have found that 2% is the magic number. If it is a large job using lots of consumables I take 2% of the totall and add it for supplies such as welding gas/wire/abrasives. I annotate it so the customer knows WHY that little charge is on there. I also use some disgression, many jobs dont rightly use up ANY supplies, not fair to bill that guy for 2%, some shops do that however
I worked at a M*rcedes shop for a while. They used to invoice 95% of our customers for 'sundries' the dab of grease, squirt of WD40, shop rags etc. Added usually a couple of bucks. Nobody really questioned it. Hope this helps? Dave
After changing all the tierod ends,I got the front end aligned on my daily late model. They charged me a couple bucks extra for "Disposal of liquids".
I work at a harley dealer, when we speck out a chrome queen we're supposed to include up to $50.00 for shop supplies. usually includes seals, oil, hardware and other stuff that you might miss while billing out an order. It prevents chargebacks.
when i worked for chebbrolet, we would charge out any thing used for that specific job(aerosol cleaner, rtv, rolocs, fluids, etc.) but general purpose shop supplies (wd-40, rags, solvent etc.) were considered overhead. depending on what state you live in, every job gets a haz mat disposal surcharge.
I work in a GM dealer in Minnesota. We charge 10% of the total bill (parts & labor) up to a max of $10.00. If a customer puts us a fuss we toss the charge but I bet it only happens once or twice a month. On the fanatical statement the money collected off sets items billed as "shop supplies" like penetrating oil, WD40, razor blades, brake cleaner, etc.
Wow responses! Yeah guys I used to do it also but some states like FL and NC have a laws against it? I was wondering how legal it is in TX ?BTW this is your tax money we are talking about here we build 10-20 ton green ARMY hot rods at work and dont want to pay for something we are not getting....
when i ran a body shop in nj i would bill for every thing that went into the car. any nut bolt washer spray can tack rag then there was also the hwr (hazardous waste removal) charge materials (paint primer clear coat sand paper)sand and polish was extra with its own additional materials. I had the numbers down so good that we would collect every penny back.
I do machine shop services, and at my work we charge 7% on all shop jobs, but no more than $7.oo max. It does help out as we go through flywheel grinding stones, valve seat grinding stones, valve grinding stones, brake clean, rags, grease, ***embly grease, hot tank cleaning mix, rolocs, sandpaper, oil, wd 40, drill bits, taps and dies, tools, honeing stones, brush hones, brake lathe bits, sandblast cabinet sand and tips, well any ways, i could go on forever. And alot of that stuff costs a bunch of money, its not hard to spend a couple of hundred bucks at Goodson shop supplies!! And like said above, if they complain well usually brush it off. JEFF
At my shop we charge 3% of the ticket up to $25.00 to cover the cost of misc shop supplys, uniforms, etc & to cover the cost of credit card fees. Its illegal in Wisc to charge for credit card fees, so we call our extra charge a "waste handling & environmental sursharge". Its like Eyeball says tho, if anyone *****es too much we waive it.DAVE
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