A repairs account that tells you nothing about the tractors
At year end the accountant shows you a single line: machinery repairs. It is a big number, bigger than last year. Which machines made it big, the accounts cannot say. Every dealer invoice, parts counter receipt, online order for a hydraulic fitting and card payment at the agricultural merchant went into that one account.
You have a feeling about it. The older loader tractor seems to be in the workshop every other week. The baler had a bad year. But a feeling is not much to go on when deciding whether to replace a machine, keep it another season, or hand a job to a contractor.
Why repair costs are not tracked per machine
The information is on the paperwork, just not in a form anyone uses.
- Dealer invoices list the machine's serial or registration somewhere, but not in a field your accounts can read.
- Parts counter receipts say what was bought, not what it was for.
- Online orders and card purchases have no machine reference at all.
- Workshop time spent by your own staff never becomes a cost against a machine.
- Consumables such as oil, filters and grease are bought in bulk and used across the fleet.
The person in the workshop knows which part went on which machine. The office sees an invoice and a bank line. Joining the two means asking, and nobody has time to ask about every receipt.
What not knowing costs
Replacement decisions are made on instinct. The decision itself is yours, and financial advice is for your accountant or adviser, but good information makes it a better conversation. A machine that is steadily costing more each year looks the same in the accounts as one that had a single expensive breakdown.
There are smaller costs too. Parts are bought twice because nobody knew one was on the shelf. Warranty work gets paid for because the invoice was not checked against the warranty period. And the workshop's own time, which is a real cost, is invisible.
Repair costs tagged to the machine, from the paperwork
What we build is a cost record per machine, filled from the paperwork you already get.
- A machine list: every tractor, telehandler, combine, implement and vehicle, with serial numbers and registrations.
- Dealer invoices and parts receipts are photographed or forwarded by email. Each line is read and, where the invoice names a machine, tagged to it automatically.
- Lines with no machine named go to a short question list for the workshop, answered on a phone with a tap: which machine was this for? Unanswered items stay in a general bucket rather than being guessed.
- Workshop staff record time against a machine when they work on it, with a simple start and stop on their phone, and this is costed at a rate you set.
- Bulk consumables are shared across machines by a rule you choose, such as hours worked, so they are included without pretending to more precision than exists.
- Each machine shows its costs by year, by type (parts, dealer labour, own labour, consumables) and per hour worked, using the hour readings from your service record if you keep one. Warranty dates are shown so a repair inside warranty stands out.
| Source | How it reaches the machine |
|---|---|
| Dealer invoice naming the machine | Tagged automatically |
| Parts counter receipt | Question to the workshop, one tap to answer |
| Online or card purchase | Question to the workshop, or general bucket |
| Own workshop time | Logged against the machine by the fitter |
| Bulk oil and filters | Shared by your chosen rule |
Invoices can still flow to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage as they do now, with the machine added as a tracking category if your accounts use one.
The replacement conversation, with numbers
In autumn you sit down to decide whether to replace the loader tractor. The machine view shows its repair and parts costs for the last three years, its own workshop hours and its costs per hour worked, alongside the newer tractor doing similar work. The decision is still yours and your accountant's, but you are not relying on a feeling.
Meanwhile, the workshop answers a couple of 'which machine?' questions a day in a few seconds each, and the parts bought for a machine that was still under warranty got spotted before they were paid for.
Does this sound like your repairs account?
- All repair and parts costs go into one account with no machine attached.
- You have a sense which machines are expensive but no figures.
- Parts are sometimes bought when one was already on the shelf.
- Your own workshop time never shows up as a cost.
- Repair invoices are not checked against warranty dates.