Profit — what the work made, and whether there is room for moreNew
Margin, how much of what you quote turns into work, how full the next month is, and how much came from customers who came back.
Written 22 October 2026
What is said in this recording
Four figures on one page, and they answer four different questions: what the work made, how much of what you quote becomes work, whether there is room in the diary to take more on, and how much of the money came from people who had bought before. Three of them are about a period that has happened. The capacity one is about one that has not, and it behaves differently on purpose.
Step by step
- 1
Go to Business Health, then Profit.
- 2
Read profit before overheads first.
What the work made after what it cost to do — materials, parts and anything priced into the job. It does not include rent, vans, insurance or wages that are not on a job.
- 3
Then how much of what you quote becomes work.
Of the quotes customers have answered, the share that became a job.
- 4
Check how full the next 30 days are before you chase more work.
A business at 95% does not need more enquiries this week; it needs another pair of hands or a longer lead time.
- 5
Open any figure to see the records behind it.
Profit opens your reports, quotes opens your quotes, the diary opens Scheduling.
Worth knowing
How full the next 30 days are does NOT follow the period you picked
Every other figure on this page is about a period that has already happened. “How full are we” is about one that has not, so picking This year would otherwise tell you how full the next twelve months are — a question about a diary nobody has filled in yet. It says so on the card, and it behaves the same way the debtor ageing card on Reports does: what is booked is booked whichever period is picked.
Over a hundred per cent is shown, never rounded down to full
A week with more work in it than hours is the single most useful thing this page can tell you, and capping it at 100% would throw away exactly the number worth acting on. Where any day is overbooked, the sentence under the figure leads with that rather than with the headline — a business at 80% with three impossible Tuesdays has a problem the percentage hides.
It counts people, not bays, ramps or chairs
Capacity here is how much of your team’s working time is spoken for. A garage with three ramps can have six cars booked with every mechanic inside their hours, and that is a different question. The card says how many people it speaks for so you know what the figure covers.
A day nobody works is not capacity
Weekends, days off and anybody’s holiday are left out of both halves of the sum. Counting them would put every five-day business at about 70% for ever and make the figure worthless. If nobody has set working hours at all, you get a line saying so rather than a percentage — there is nothing to measure a diary against.
“Came back” means they had bought before, ever
Not before this month. Somebody first billed three years ago and billed again this week is a returning customer. Deciding it from the period alone would report everybody as new on the 1st and most of them as returning by the 30th. And nobody is counted as both: their first ever invoice plus a second one in the same period makes them a new customer who bought again.
What it deliberately does NOT do
It does not forecast how full you will be — it adds up what is in the diary, so a quiet-looking month is a month with nothing BOOKED rather than a month with no work coming. It does not say what counts as healthily full, because that depends on how much of your week is travel, quoting and paperwork, and the app does not know that. And it does not tell you what to do about any of it.