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average out my fuel cost? I am trying to guestimate my mileage and fuel cost on a daily and per job basis.

What is the successful formula?

quote:

Originally posted by Ankur:
Thanks all again for the feedback.

I think I am trying to get a better idea before my business actually starts on what the estimates would run per trip. I know that depends to a huge extent on my location and what type of business I am serving.

I am just trying to estimate cost before the we are active. Any tips on how you estimated cost before you started your business. Or what is the average cost of your vehicles right now for fuel.

Take your Operating expenses and make a List.
1. Car Payments if any yearly
2. Insurance Payments Yearly
3. Employee Cost Payroll (Projected Yearly) This is not necessary but helps you gage the actual costs per run when broken down we will do in a Minute.
4. fuel Factor $4.50 a gallon for arguments sake and if your useing a TC average Miliage is 12 to 16 or slightly better depending on area and road conditions.
5. Over head---Office supplies, rent, phone, fax advertizing, cleaning supplies, Workmans Comp, Tax's on Payroll Tri-Met or Public Transportation tax's required by the sate or Municipality you live in or around/
6. Amenities anticipated cost, News Papers, coffee, water, wine, champagne anything you may offer clients as a Prop or freebee

Once you have the larger Big ticket items yearly divide by 12 to get a Monthly average or break it further by dividing by sum by 30 to get a better idea of daily costs.

Factor the fuel by miles and cost per mile, factor the labor by an average of 160 a month based on a 40 hour work week? Are you paying yourself or do you actually have employees you intend to pay? Think about it.

I did not pay myself for the first 2 years and redirected everything back into the company but I was able to do that my wife had one great job and covered all the Living expenses while I covered $8500 a Month in Bill on average..

My experience for what its worth the average pay for a driver per Job in a stretch Lincoln is $10 an Hour Employee status plus 20% Gratuity of my Hourly rate charged depending on the Limousine used and a 4 Hour Minimum = $40 in hourly pay plus $64 in Gratuity for a 4 hour Job in my Lincoln stretch. Not bad. I offered all my Guys the Option of $25 an Hour straight Pay or $10 plus Gratuity they all took the $10 plus 20% Gratuity. LOL

That’s $104 Gross wages before tax’s on a 4 hour Lincoln
The Excursion would have earned them $136
The Hummer would have earned them $160

Sedan runs on average earn them $15 for an airport transfer plus 3 Hour Minimum or $45 before tax’s.

In truth you can break out all the expenses and do a cost analysis for every run to the penny if you do the detail reporting correct. I set up excel reports which adjust the Payroll, tax’s, fuel and cost and show me the profit per Job and it took awhile to fine tune the excel sheet but it functions well and allows me to at a glance see what I am doing daily weekly monthly and yearly within a few seconds and real time adjustments. That’s nice to have to do a Budget of course.

Happy 4th by the way to one and all

It really ranges on what type of work you are doing. Out here, rates are set so that our airport runs pay out to where our fuel is 40% (and rising). But other runs could be as low as 15% depending on how trip is set up.

Thanks all again for the feedback.

I think I am trying to get a better idea before my business actually starts on what the estimates would run per trip. I know that depends to a huge extent on my location and what type of business I am serving.

I am just trying to estimate cost before the we are active. Any tips on how you estimated cost before you started your business. Or what is the average cost of your vehicles right now for fuel.

Indeed set up an excel sheet to track it.

I have start mileage--end miliage divide by gallons used and average miles per gallon will be the result per vehicle. It can Vary by driver but you will need to track it for several weeks to see the trend and get a better picture of the costs. I do this daily as well as track payroll gratuity and fuel surcharges, not to mention additional costs like amenities offered flowers or water or drinks cider and decorations and maintiance costs it is the basis for cost controls and profitability as a whole after all the payments go out and collections come in.

ROI or return on your investment is important to create a break even point in charges and setting a budget and hourly rates for survival per vehicle.

Just like Limo Scene wrote, have each driver track mileage per trip. After each trip (as long as time permits), fill up. You can create an Excel spread sheet that has miles, fuel, price per gallon and divide the miles by gallons used. This will give you the exact miles per gallon for that trip, then multiply by the cost per gallon (which you can average for a week or day) and this will give you your actual cost per trip.

Ankur,

Each trip ticket should have a place for starting and ending mileage. At the conclusion of each job, have your chauffeur fuel the car whenever practical. By doing it this way, you know EXACTLY how much fuel was used on a particular job along with the MPG achieved.

If you really want to track it, you can record it on linked spreadsheet - One for the vehicle and the other for the chauffeur.

At the end of the month you can see what the average MPG is for each vehicle and you can see who has a lead foot as their MPG will be significantly higher than their peers when operating the same vehicle.