Business By The Numbers

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve Do you know what you’ll owe the IRS this spring, or are you hoping the number shrinks on its own? Are you planning to grow from $1.5 million to $1.8 million next year with the same labor rate and the same crew? And if your overhead goes up 5% whether you like it or not, what happens to a shop that keeps its prices flat? In this solo episo...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve Why does QuickBooks show $40,000 in parts when your shop software shows $30,000? Would you notice if someone took $20 a day? And if AI companies are offering shop owners up to $2 million for their internal data, what’s sitting in yours? Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, walks through the free AI tools his firm uses with...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve Did your health insurance renewal just land with another double-digit increase? Paying $800 a month for a group plan your techs could buy themselves for $500? Why can’t you just hand them the difference? Stephanie from Five Creek Automotive asked Hunt that question. Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, opens his own books....

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve What is your shop actually worth, and who will pay it? Two of Hunt’s clients want to sell someday, but neither knows who the buyer will be. As Hunt explains, that answer decides whether you retire today or three years from now. Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, explains why your shop’s value is a range, not a number. At...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve Thought interest rates had peaked? So did most of the country. So what happens when a customer needs a $10,000 repair, owns a home with hundreds of thousands in equity, and still can't pay? Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, returns to interest rates for the first time in over a year. He explains the Federal Reserve's qu...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, and Overdryve Did you buy a truck last December just to shrink your tax bill? Is the year-end bonus you pay yourself actually handing the IRS more money? In part two of his tax series, Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, moves from tax planning to the part every shop owner wants to hear about: paying less. He walks through six strategi...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Do you actually know what you'll owe the IRS next spring, or are you just hoping it works out? And if your accountant has been extending your taxes for years, is that actually saving you anything? This week, Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, kicks off a two-part series on taxes by tackling the piec...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Would you take the job you're offering your own technicians? Could a candidate's spouse be the real decision maker in your next hire, and do you know what she needs to hear? Hunt Demarest sits down with Sam Freeman and Lisa Coyle from Promotive, the recruiting firm that places technicians, service advisors, and shop...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Do you actually know your break-even point, or just a number that feels close enough? And if you hit it, would you even know why? This week's episode started with a phone call. Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, was walking a client through his numbers through July when he realized something: most s...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Are you accidentally paying taxes on money you're never actually going to collect? Could the way you're deleting a bad ticket in your shop management software be costing you more than the deadbeat customer ever did? This week's episode started as a text message. Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, an...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Are you chasing being rich, or are you actually building wealth? Could the shop owner making $150,000 a year retire with more freedom than the one clearing $800,000? Hunt Demarest has seen both, and the answer might surprise you. In this solo episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, steps away fr...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Why do two auto repair shops with virtually identical profits sell for wildly different amounts, one at a nine-time multiple and another at three? And if you're not planning to sell anytime soon, does any of this even apply to you? Recording a preview of the class he's teaching live at the STX World Pac Conference in...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Why are less than 10% of shops operating within even 40% of what they're actually capable of? And if throwing more money at your technicians won't fix your productivity problem, what will? Hunt Demarest sits down with Chris Cotton of AutoFix Shop Coaching, fellow multi-shop owner and host of The Weekly Blitz, to tran...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Is your new LLC actually protecting you, or just quietly draining your bank account? Before you file paperwork for that second location, that self rental, or that "clever" loaner car company, there are three questions you need to answer first. In this solo episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates,...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve You need money. Maybe it's to cover payroll this week, maybe it's to buy the alignment rack you've been eyeing for a year. Either way, Hunt Demarest, CPA, says the loan you should get depends entirely on two questions banks are already asking about you: do you have cash flow, and do you have collateral? In this solo...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Your bank account just hit zero. What do you do in the next 24 hours? And if you're planning six months ahead instead, is a bank loan really your cheapest option? Following up on last week's episode on cash reserve mistakes, Hunt Demarest, CPA, goes solo again to tackle the other side of that coin: how to actually ge...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve How much cash did your shop actually make last month — and how much of it is still sitting in the bank? If you paid off every dollar of debt tomorrow, would you have anything left to cover a bad month? In this episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA, goes solo to tackle a topic he says trips up shop owners more than almost anyth...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Do you actually know how much money your shop made last month? If 90% of new clients walking through Hunt's door don't, what are the odds you do? In this episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA, goes solo to call out the four most common ways shop owners are unknowingly sabotaging their own profit and loss statements — and the p...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Why does the IRS really pick a tax return to audit? And if a CPA who does this for a living can still get dragged through a three-year fight, what chance does the rest of us have? In this episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA, steps out from behind the desk to tell his own story — a three-year audit of his 2023 tax return that...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Why is a shop charging $300 an hour in Texas still taking home less profit than a shop in Maine charging $30 less? Does where you're located actually decide how much money ends up in your pocket — or is something else driving the gap? In the final installment of a three-part dive into the 2026 Auto Shop Benchmark Rep...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Is your shop growing in revenue but shrinking in profit? Are you convinced that raising your labor rate is the fastest path to the bottom line — only to discover that your highest-charging competitors are losing money? And what if the real difference between a shop that keeps 35 cents of every dollar and one that los...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Your technicians got more productive in 2025. Your labor rate went up. Your parts margins improved. So why is the average shop owner keeping almost exactly the same percentage of every dollar as they did the year before? The answer is hiding in your effective labor rate — and most shop owners haven't looked at it onc...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve What if the government — and a few well-known billionaires — were offering to deposit cash directly into an account for your child or grandchild, no strings attached, starting July 4th? Would you sign up? In this solo episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA at Paar Melis & Associates, breaks down everything currently known a...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Is your shop management system telling you one number while QuickBooks says something else entirely? Are parts credits going unclaimed? And if someone were quietly skimming off the top, would your current process ever actually catch it? In this episode, Hunt Demarest, CPA at Paar Melis & Associates, sits down wit...

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Is your advertising budget working for you, or quietly draining you? Are you paying a credit card processing premium you didn't even know existed? When did insurance stop being a routine expense and start becoming one of your biggest threats? And is that rent number on your P&L actually telling you the truth? In...