Most shop owners are leaving money on the table — and the worst part is, they don’t even know it.
In a recent episode of Business by the Numbers, I talked with Alex from Wicked File, an AI-powered tool built specifically for auto repair shops, and we dug into the common — but often invisible — ways money leaks out of shops every single day.
If you don’t have time to listen, no worries. I’ve broken down the big takeaways here so you can get the value and take action.
How Much Are You Really Losing?
Let’s start with a real story. Alex’s dad runs a multi-shop operation. Over the course of six months, he lost $180,000 through a mix of:
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Parts that were paid for but never installed
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Returns that were never credited
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Sketchy transactions and vendor issues no one caught
He didn’t find out until after the damage was done. And the scary part? He thought everything was running fine.
Where Shops Are Most Vulnerable
Even if you’re doing some kind of reconciliation (or think your bookkeeper is), chances are you’re still missing:
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Uncredited returns
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Duplicate or questionable purchases
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Parts you paid for but didn’t use
Manual reconciliation just can’t keep up with the volume — especially if you’re running multiple shops or trying to grow.
In fact, during a recent live class I taught, only about 5–10% of attendees raised their hand when I asked who was doing true parts reconciliation regularly. That means 90–95% are exposed.
Why AI Changes the Game
What Wicked File has built is something I haven’t seen before:
✅ It pulls from your shop management system, vendors, and accounting
✅ Flags anything suspicious in real time
✅ Gives everyone — you, your manager, your bookkeeper — visibility
✅ And now, with their new Navigator tool, you can literally ask it questions about your business and get answers in plain English
Imagine asking:
“What are our most profitable vehicle makes and models this month?”
“Which vendors have the highest return rate?”
“Where are we losing margin on labor?”
And getting real answers backed by your actual data.
One shop owner used that feature to adjust his parts pricing matrix and saw a 15% profit increase in 30 days. Another multi-shop owner recovered $8,000+ in two weeks just from missed credits.
Parts Reconciliation for Every Shop — Big or Small
Whether you’re a 1-location shop or running a $10M+ operation, you can’t afford to keep flying blind.
Wicked File gives you:
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Time back (so you or your team can stop digging through spreadsheets)
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Peace of mind (knowing what’s actually happening behind the scenes)
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Profit protection (because you can’t fix what you can’t see)
And now, with custom reports and AI insights, it’s not just about tracking — it’s about growing smarter.
👉 Check out Wicked File and start a free trial here
Final Thought: What’s Your Time Worth?
If it takes your bookkeeper 4 hours to manually find a discrepancy, that costs you.
If you’re trusting your team without visibility — that could cost you even more.
Wicked File helps shop owners inspect what they expect, and that alone makes it worth a look.
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– Hunt
