Aqua Pure Water Filters are among the more widely known and used ones in the water purifier industry, but are they really the best? If you’ve read my review of, you know that the popular filters aren’t always the best.

Is this true for Aqua Pure too? The company themselves state that you need to find out the potential hazards in your particular water supply prior to buying any purification system.

This is because the dangers for one house may be different for another, and before you know the right one to buy, you have to know what you need taken out of your water.

All you have to do to test the water is get a small portion of it, and put a test strip inside it. Then you see what color the strip has turned. The color is what will inform you what things are inside your water, and therefore what needs to be eliminated.

This is why one particular water purifier model will not work for every house, simply due to the act that different harmful substances exist in different areas. If you live in an area where the water is not pretreated, for example, your purification needs will be far different than if you were in a place where it was.

There are many basic contaminants you should be looking for. For a full list, you just look online. The Aqua Pure Water Filters receive their ratings because of how many microns they are capable of eliminating, and most filters are somewhere from five to one-half.

The smaller that micron number is, the better the filter is, because the more microns it is capable of. Most basic filters can at least get rid of most chlorine and lead, the more basic things, but often times aren’t able to get rid of the micro bacteria often found in water.

The micron number for Aqua Pure Water Filter models is different for each variety. I’m not saying you need to get the lowest number one there is, as this will also be the most expensive, but don’t cut corners on your health either.

If you’ve ever watched the long-running PBS series Antiques Roadshow, you know that some people have precious treasure hidden in plain sight. It’s astounding to see the priceless items people have stashed in their attics, basements, and even in their walls; it’s all treasure waiting for the right person to come along. These are some of the most valuable and bizarre finds of all.

Comic Relief

In 2013, David Gonzalez bought a dilapidated house in Elbow Lake, Minnesota. Gonzalez, a contractor by trade, immediately set out to gut the interior walls of the fixer-upper. As his sledgehammer busted through the drywall, he noticed it was filled with paper for insulation, a common practice in the 1930s. A comic book caught Gonzalez’ eye amid the shreds of newspaper. It turns out it was Action Comics No. 1 – the first appearance of Superman – the holy grail of comic books. A nearly-mint-condition copy of the comic sold at auction for over $2 million. The copy Gonzalez found was nowhere near mint, with back pages missing and severe weathering. It still sold for $175,000 at auction. Considering he paid $10,000 for the house, it’s safe to say he was alright with that.

Seven-Figure Figurine

George Davis was a longtime employee of Hammer Galleries in Manhattan, and over the years, he purchased a handful of antiques. When he passed away in late 2013, his relatives found a small, unadorned box in the attic of his home upstate. The box held a small figurine that turned out to be worth a fortune. The doll was a Faberge figure of an Imperial Russian commander from before World War I. The trim on the uniform was made of real gold, and the medals and insignia were set in precious stones. It was originally commissioned by Czar Nicholas II for his wife in 1912, bought by an American industrialist and then eventually by Mr. Davis in 1934 for $2,250. It was appraised at nearly $800,000, but it sold for over $5 million at auction.

Here’s Looking at You, Kid

In 2015, Randy and Linda Guajiro were looking through some antiques at a store in Fresno, California, when they came across a box of old photographs. They looked through them, and, although nothing jumped out at them, a voice in Randy’s head told him to hold on to the dark tintype photo of the young man holding a croquet mallet. The Guajiros paid $2 for three photos in all, including the tintype one. Randy eventually took it to an expert on Americana antiques in the San Francisco Bay Area who helped piece together the identity of the men in the photo. It’s the only known photograph of Billy the Kid with his gang, the Regulators, making it a priceless piece of American history. The only other photo of the legendary outlaw sold at auction for $2.6 million. This photo’s value is set at $5 million because it shows the Kid with his gang, notorious legends of the wild west in their own right.

Next time you’re rifling through some junk in the attic, take a second look. You never know what you’ll find.

Tom Yan Kung is a very popular Thai dish and ranks high on the top ten Thai cuisines loved by foreigners. Tom yan kung came originally from Laos and is very famous in Thailand. It is a spicy shrimp soup and is also comes in paste type for seasoning. There are many ways on how to prepare this delicious dish. Using shrimps as main ingredient is the most popular but other ingredients can also be used. It also goes well with other meat like pork, beef and chicken. It also goes well with vegetables. Often it is used to compliment soupy dishes but it can also be used to compliment other, more drier cuisines. It is being sold at Thai groceries but if you don’t have access to a Thai grocery near you, you can get it online. Tom Yan Kung paste are usually sold in bottles or cans, but sometimes they are also sold in plastic packs. Fresh paste must always be kept refrigerated when not in use.

My first time eating Tom Yan Kung was at a Thai restaurant just a few blocks away from my house. There were other delicious Thai dishes served but this instantly became one of my favorite. It has a distinct exotic spicy-sour taste that made me come back for more.

Pork Tom Yan Kun Recipe

Ingredients:

– 200 grams of pork cut in cubes

– 200 grams of chicken meat

– 15 pieces fish balls

– 10 shrimps (about the size of a finger)

– Two onions peeled, sliced and cubed

– 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

– 3 potatoes peeled, sliced and cubed

– 1 whole cabbage, sliced

– Some cooking oil to fry the meat

– 6 to 7 cups of water

– 1/4 cup of tom yan kun

Preparation:

– Fry pork, chicken lightly on a frying pan

– Add garlic and onions and cook for about 4 to five minutes

– On another larger cooking pot, add water and boil

– Add potato and wait until it is nearly soft to eat

– Add shrimps and fish balls together with the cabbage

– Add pork and chicken with onions and garlic to to pot

– Add tom yan kun and stir

– Wait for another 7 to 10 minutes or until the all the meat a done.

– Serve while hot

Please try and enjoy it with your family and loved ones.

Basic Real Estate Statistics Explained

We are going to define some of the basic real estate statistics that get thrown around on a regular basis. To do that, we will use one real estate market, located in Hood County Texas. Even more granular, we will use the single family numbers for homes in Granbury Tx, a small town of approximately 8,000 residents which has seen substantial real estate growth in the past 12 months. It is important when reviewing real estate statistics to use a group of numbers large enough for consistency, but granular enough to tell your story.

The statistics that we will be referencing are true and accurate for the year discussed but are being used to define the real estate statistic itself.

We have chosen Granbury Tx as our example because the growth of the local real estate market there make the statics stand out.

Anytime you are evaluating statistics, especially in real estate, the source of the numbers are extremely important. In most instances, the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) provides the most accurate numbers when referring to real estate. This is because they have all listings by all local real estate brokers in their database. For the sake of explanation of the data, we will be looking at the numbers for home sales in Granbury Tx, directly from the MLS. These numbers are meant to give an example of how to read the statistics themselves. Anytime you evaluate real estate numbers, its important to pay close attention to how the numbers are gathered. In this instance, we will be using ONLY single family properties in the city of Granbury.

Basic Real Estate Statistics

• Number of Sales – This one is pretty self explanatory. It is simply the number of single family homes sold in a particular month. In January of 2015, they had 51 single family homes sold. One thing to pay attention to when looking at this statistic is are they using the Under Contract date or the day the property actually went to closing. These two dates are usually between 30 and 60 days apart, so its critical that you know which one is being referenced. In addition, many of the homes that get calculated, if you are using the “under contract” number may not actually close! In our example, we are using the number of homes that actually closed. In January of 2016 they had an increase of over 49% which brought the total to 77 from 51. Growth of that level is very seldom ever seen.
• Sales Volume – Sales Volume is simply the total amount of dollars spent on single family housing within that month. Once again, when reviewing this statistic, its important to keep the property types consistent. If you are comparing two areas to see which one has grown more and you include vacant land in the number for one area, you must include it in the other too. As previously mentioned, our examples only include single family properties. With Number of Sales looking at the units, you would expect the Sales Volume to go up appropriately, but in this instance, it went up even more than the units (by percentage). The total Sales Volume of single family homes in Granbury in January of 2016 was $15,191,500 as opposed to the January of 2015 number of $9,281,915. That is an increase of over 63%. Because the Sales Volume went up at a larger rate than the number of units, this reflects the average home sale being much larger in 2016 than 2015.
• Months of Inventory – This is a commonly referred to statistic when examining a real estate market. This statistic refers to at the current rate of sales, how long will it take to sell through the existing level of inventory. This reflects the supply and demand for the market. In our example, in January of 2015 the level of inventory was 9 months and in January of 2016 it had dropped to 6 months. That is a 33% drop in available inventory! This means if you are looking to buy a home in Granbury Tx, it will be a little tougher in 2016 as there is less inventory available to buy.
• Median Days To Sell – This stat simply refers to how long it takes for single family properties to be put under contract. Don’t let the “to sell” confuse you. To accurately show the demand for active homes, you really want to track how long it takes to go “under contract”. The process of acquiring final lender approval, insurance and getting to a closing can vary on a variety of factors. In January of 2015, the Median Days to Sell was 88. That number dropped by over 30% to 61. Once again, this tells you if you are looking for homes in Granbury TX, you better get your offers in quickly as the most desirable homes are going fast!
• Average Price – This statistic can be derived in a variety of ways. We are going to use it in its most raw form and simply be the Average Price of Homes Sold within that month. Be careful when looking at this statistic printed anywhere as how the user defines the date sold can vary. Needless to say, Average Price can be used for active homes for sale or for the homes that sold. The Average Price of ACTIVE homes for sale is generally a pretty useless number as you can list a home for any price, without any possibility of it ever selling. Many homes listed for sale are at unrealistic prices thus the Average Price of Active homes for sale can fluctuate dramatically and give little insight into the market. You will want to look at the Average Price of SOLD homes. In January of 2015, the Average Home Sale was $181,998 and it jumped to $199,888 in the same month in 2016. This is an increase of almost 10%. This is not a number that truly tells the increase in home values across the board, but simply of the homes sold in that month, what the average was.
• Median Price – The Average Home Sales Price can be skewed by a variety of factors. All it takes is one 5 million dollar home sale to throw those numbers off. To get a better view of the overall increase in value, it can be better to look at the Median Sales Price. Median Sales Price takes the number that is perfectly in the middle. For instance, if you have 11 homes that you are using in your statistic, you would take the sales price of the 6th one. This leaves 5 homes sold higher and 5 homes sold lower. In this instance, they are pretty close as the Median Sales Price increase from January 2015 to 2016 was 9.69%. This shows that we didn’t have the Average Price skewed too much because of an extremely large or extremely small sale.

There are hundreds of ways to look at the same numbers, when referencing to real estate, so be very careful to read the fine print on exactly what numbers they are using. When making comparisons, you will want to make absolutely sure that both are referencing the same property types, dates etc. It like the old saying says… there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

Are you struggling to sell your home? I guess it must be said it is very much a buyer’s market at the moment. With the sharp economic decline of the past few years, house prices steadily falling and no such thing as a stable job, things have swung in favour of the buyer considerably! There are so many undervalued homes on the market, it’s no wonder there are millions of people out there looking to get on the property ladder with the best deal possible. Within the article I would like to provide some helpful tips to sell your house:-

1) If money is a problem and you don’t want to pay out for a real estate agent, you have plenty of help online. Did you know that there are numerous companies that can supply you with a “For Sale” board and an extensive sellers pack to guide you through the process?

Also check out other property listings online and in the newspapers. Make a note of any listings that stand out or really catch your eye. What attracted you to them? What was good or even bad about them? One of the best tips to sell your house I can offer is to learn from what others do well and also from the mistakes they make!

2) If you are using an agent, they will always tell you that they will deal with any potential buyers as buyers don’t want the “home owner” there when they are viewing your home. This is true to an extent, no-one wants someone else breathing down their neck when they have such an important decision to make. However, the buyers will want to eventually meet you. A great tip on selling your house is to make your buyers more inquisitive about you.

A great way to do this is to make up a useful information pack for prospective buyers. You should include things such as local schools, restaurants, gyms and stores. Perhaps add some additional information about local travel routes and even places of interest or relaxation. Also include your contact details with your information pack. Believe me, buyers will greatly appreciate the effort you have gone to and will want to meet you. This is then your opportunity to gauge how serious any offers actually are!

3) Probably the best tip on selling your house is to get the price right! If your valuation is too high, your property could sit unsold for a very, very long time. If you value your home far too low, then you will always be wondering what you lost out on! You can get a professional valuation done. There are even tools online that will ask you to provide certain information about your property and then give you a standard valuation.

You may choose to visit websites or newspaper listing to get an idea of what comparative properties are selling for.

There are two types of car liquidation: voluntary and compulsory. A voluntary liquidation is when a car dealership agrees to have their cars sold at a liquidation auction. There are several reasons why a voluntary car liquidation auction would take place. For one, if a business is struggling they may choose to auction off their merchandise early enough that they will be able to pay their debts before things get out of hand. An individual that owes for a vehicle may find themselves in a situation where they will not be able to finish paying for the car. In this case they may choose to voluntarily have their car sold at an auction in hopes of selling it for enough to pay off the loan.

A compulsory liquidation is when a business or individual is forced to participate in this auction. This type of car liquidation is usually court ordered, which means that they have no choice but to participate. For example, if a car dealership went out of business or filed for bankruptcy, then the cars would be liquidated and sold at an auction. Vehicles that are impounded or retrieved from criminals such as drug dealers are sold at car liquidation auctions.

What does a car liquidation auction mean for you? Why would it be beneficial to know when these auctions are taking place? The majority of these cars are in good running condition. Many of them have great warranties and they are being sold for a low price, which means great savings for anyone in the market for a new or used car. It would be easy for you to check the history of any of these cars that you have an interested in. All you need to do is have the VIN number to receive the history through Car Fax. Then you will have all the information you need to make a good decision about the car you want to buy. Basically, it means that you can get a good, dependable car at a really cheap price.

The clock is ticking

‘Time is money’ in bodyshops and service workshops. Essentially, these operations buy and sell the time of panel beaters, painters and technicians. A service workshop, for example, might buy one hour from a technician for £10 and sell it to a customer for £40, and make a profit of £30. (These figures are, of course, notional).

Buying and selling the time of productives is, or should be, the major source of revenue and profit in bodyshops and service workshops. Profits from the sale of spare parts; oils and lubricants; paint and materials; and sublet and sundry are all subsidiary to the buying and selling of productives’ time. If you don’t sell time, you don’t sell any of these other things.

Just as you would take great care when buying and selling a spare part, you have to pay equal attention to buying and selling productives’ time – or even more so, because you cannot ‘stock’ productives’ time. In other words, if you don’t sell their time today, you cannot sell it tomorrow.

Time for sale

So once time is gone it’s gone, whereas a spare part will still be in stock. So it is a good idea to know how much time you have for sale. This would seem pretty simple. If you have six productives, and they are there eight hours every day, surely you have 48 hours for sale? Well, no, you don’t.

For a start, productives might be in the workshop for eight hours every day, but they don’t work on paying jobs for eight solid hours. For example, a customer could come back with a car that you serviced yesterday and complain that it keeps stalling. It will then be necessary for a productive to rectify the problem, and of course you cannot charge the customer for that. If it takes two hours, then you only have 46 hours left to sell, in our example.

Time sold

To complicate things further, you can actually end up selling more than 48 hours. Imagine, for instance, that a vehicle manufacturer’s standard time for a major service is two hours and you quote the customer on this basis. If your technician completes the service in one hour (unlikely, we know) then you will still charge the customer for two hours.

If this happened all day long, you could sell 96 hours less the four hours you could have sold if one of your technicians hadn’t spent two hours spent rectifying the engine stalling problem. (It’s four hours because you are selling two hours for every hour worked in this example.) So if your productives could halve the standard times all day, that’s 92 hours sold rather than 48 hours.

Three measures of time

What we are talking about here is the three kinds of time available in a bodyshop or service workshop:

Attended time – this is the time that panel beaters, painters or technicians are in the workplace available to work.

Work time – this is the time they spend actually working on jobs that, at the end of the day, a customer pays for. Clearly ‘work time’ does not include any time spent rectifying problems, or anything else they do that does not have a paying customer at the end.

Sold time – this is the time that you charge customers for. It could be the time quoted on an estimate for an insurance company, or a menu-priced service.

You could say that ‘attended time’ and ‘work time’ are both ‘real’, because you can almost see them. You can see when a productive is in the workshop, and you can see a productive working on paying jobs. What’s more, you can measure ‘attended time’ and ‘work time’ using a clock.

On the other hand, ‘sold time’ is not ‘real’. You can’t see it, and you can’t measure it using a clock. But at the end of every day you can add up all the time you have sold to customers from your job cards or invoices.

How fast and how long

If you measure attended time and work time, and add up sold time at the end of the day, you can then see how fast and how long your productives have worked during the day.

How fast they have worked is sold hours divided by work hours. In our example, that’s 92 hours sold compared to 46 hours worked, or 200% expressed as a percentage. That is, your productives are working twice as fast as the standard time.

How long they have worked is work hours divided by attended hours. In our example that’s 46 hours compared to 48 hours, or 95.8% expressed as a percentage. That is, your productives were working on paying jobs for 95.8% of the time.

Labour efficiency

What we have just worked out as percentages are two ‘labour efficiencies’:

Productive efficiency tells you how fast productives are working compared to standard times, or the estimate in the case of a body repair job – how many sold hours they produced compared to the work time it took them to produce these sold hours.

Labour utilisation (sometimes called ‘selling efficiency’) tells you how long productives worked on paying jobs compared to the time they attended the workplace.

As formulae, productive efficiency and labour utilisation are calculated like this:

Productive efficiency = (Sold Hours/ Work Hours) x 100%

Labour utilisation = (Work Hours/Attended Hours) x 100%

Overall labour efficiency

There is one other measure of labour efficiency and that’s called overall efficiency. This is a simple combination of productive efficiency and labour utilisation, and comes from multiplying them together:

Overall Efficiency = Productive Efficiency x Labour Utilisation

Or, another way of looking at overall efficiency is as sold hours divided by attended hours:

Overall efficiency = (Sold Hours/Attended Hours) x 100%

How labour efficiency affects profit

Obviously you will make more profit if you can squeeze more sold hours from the hours your productives attend. We have already said that if you buy one hour from a service workshop technician for £10 and sell it to a customer for £40 you will make a profit of £30. But if you bought one hour from the technician and then sold two hours, you will make much more profit – £70.

It is equally obvious that if you buy one hour from a service workshop technician for £10, and then the whole hour is expended rectifying a come-back job for which you can make no charge, you have lost £10. Less obvious is that you have lost the opportunity to sell two hours (in our example), and thus lost the opportunity to make a profit of £70.

So the reason for measuring time in a workshop, and then calculating the labour efficiencies, is very clear. It’s all about profit. And if you don’t measure time and calculate the labour efficiencies, it is absolutely certain you will not maximise profitability because you will not know:

How fast your productives are working as a team and individually, and whether they could work faster if they were better trained or had better equipment

How long your productives are working as a team and individually, and how much time they are wasting on work that customers aren’t paying for.

How time is measured

The most basic way of measuring time in a workshop is by using a ‘clock’ which stamps time on a ‘clock card’ for attended time and on the job card for work time. The times are then correlated manually on a ‘daily operating control’ sheet, and the labour efficiencies calculated.

However, computers have largely superseded this basic method, with the ‘clocking’ carried out using barcodes or magnetic swipe cards. The computer then completes all the correlations and calculations instantly.

Typical labour efficiencies for the Top 25%

In recent years, the labour efficiencies achieved by bodyshops and service workshops have fallen from what would have been considered the ‘norm’ a decade ago. The reasons for this are complex. However the top 25% of franchised dealer bodyshops and service workshops are still achieving reasonable levels of performance, typically:

For a bodyshop, productive efficiency averages 106%, utilisation 88% and therefore overall efficiency is 93.3% (106% x 88%)

For a service workshop, productive efficiency averages 115%, utilisation 92% and therefore overall efficiency is 105.8% (115% x 92%)

For 40-hour attended by a productive in a week, these translate as:

For a bodyshop – 40 hours attended, 35.2 hours working on paying jobs, and 37.3 hours sold or invoiced to customers

For a service workshop – 40 hours attended, 36.8 hours working on paying jobs, and 42.3 hours sold or invoiced to customers.

Why service workshops are usually more labour-efficient than bodyshops

bodyshops are clearly less efficient, but why? Firstly, jobs move between productives in a bodyshop – starting with strip, then panel, then preparation, paint, refit and valeting. Usually this means moving the vehicle physically around the bodyshop, which is far less efficient than the straight in a bay, job done and straight out situation of a service workshop. The result for bodyshops is a lower labour utilisation than for a service workshop.

Productive efficiency in bodyshops used to be higher than for service workshops, because sold hours were negotiated with insurance assessors – so-called ‘opinion times’. A bodyshop might get 20 hours for a job and the productives would finish it in 15 work hours, achieving a productive efficiency of 133%. Nowadays, the times in a bodyshop are set by computerised estimating systems with virtually no room for negotiation or ‘opinion times’.

service workshops, like bodyshops, have seen standard times fall, too. But their customer base is millions of motorists rather than a dozen insurance companies, so service managers can set whatever times they want – within reason, and of course, subject to competition.

Lost time

Obviously it would be great if you could get away with just paying technicians when they are working on paying jobs, but you can’t. What you actually pay them for is attendance, or ‘attended time’, and they don’t ‘work’ on paying jobs all the time they are attending.

The difference between attended time and work time is ‘lost time’, which is also called non-productive time – the few hours every week that technicians are paid for when they are not working on paying jobs. Three common things that make up lost time are rectification of faulty work (‘come-backs’), collection and delivery of cars, and cleaning and maintenance.

In addition to paying for lost time, you might pay bonus and overtime, and you pay for technicians’ holidays, sick leave and training. Then there is the employer’s contribution to National Insurance, and the cost of any perks technicians receive such as pension or health insurance contributions.

It’s tempting to throw all of these payments into the cost of buying the technician’s time in our example and calculate what you might see as the ‘real’ profit. If you did, the cost of buying the hour would probably be around £13, and therefore the profit falls to £27.

Accounting for time

The facts presented so far would seem to make calculating the profit when buying and selling technicians’ time quite simple. Apparently all you have to do for any period – a day, a week, a month or a year – is add up all your labour sales and subtract all your technicians’ costs (including basic, bonus, overtime, holidays, sick, training, perks and National Insurance) to arrive at your profit on labour.

You can, but it is far better to identify all your technicians’ costs separately in your management accounts, because you can then see how much you are paying them for not working. And by separating these payments to technicians, you can look more closely at the effects of labour efficiency on your operation, whether it is mechanical servicing and repair or body repairs.

The following example shows the traditional format for the management accounts of a service workshop or bodyshop. Here we have taken the results for one technician over 12 months, assuming basic pay of £12 per hour and hours sold out at an average of £60 per hour. Additionally, we have assumed that the technician attends 44 weeks per annum and 40 hours per week, working 37 of those hours with lost time of 3 hours. As a result of the technician’s efforts, the workshop sells 42 hours per week (or 1,848 sold hours per annum from 44 weeks x 42 hours), and this is achieved without any overtime or bonus pay.

Management accounts

Labour sales 1,848 hours sold @ £60 = £110,880

Less Technician’s pay for 1,628 work hours @ £12 = £19,536

Technician’s bonus pay (all bonus pay entered if earned) = NIL

Technician’s overtime pay (all overtime entered if earned) = NIL

Gross profit on labour sales (Labour gross profit) = £91,344

Direct expenses

Technician’s pay for 132 hours of lost time @ £12 = £1,584

Technician’s pay for hols, sick & training (40 days of 8 hours) @ £12 = £3,840

Technician’s National Insurance and perks = £3,744

Direct profit on labour sales = £82,176

Labour gross profit

In this traditional form of management accounts, then, the cost of the technician is divided up into no less than six lines. The first three lines appear straight after labour sales, and consist of all pay made to the technician for actually producing work that is then sold to a customer. This includes pay for ‘work time’, and all bonus and overtime pay. Accountants call these the ‘cost of sales’.

By subtracting these three lines from sales, you end up with the gross profit made from buying and selling the technician’s time – usually called the ‘labour gross profit’. The labour gross profit is often expressed as a percentage of labour sales, which in this example comes to 82% (£91,344 divided by £110,880 expressed as a percentage).

The remaining three lines appear in the direct expenses section of management accounts along with the cost of non-productive salaries, apprentices, consumables, courtesy cars, advertising, etc. The idea, as we have said, is to identify what you pay technicians for not working. In this example, the total cost of the technician is £28,704 per annum, and £9,168 is for not working. That is nearly one-third, and a far from unusual proportion!

Dividing up the technician’s pay

The way some of the technician’s pay is divided up is self-evident – bonus, overtime, holidays etc, and National Insurance and perks. That just leaves the technician’s basic pay, which is divided up according to ‘work time’ and ‘lost time’:

In our example we know the technician attends 40 hours each week and works 37 of these hours, which means that the technician works for 1,628 hours in a year (37 hours x 44 weeks), which at £12 per hour is £19,536.

That leaves three hours of lost time each week, or 132 hours per annum (3 hours x 44 weeks), or £1,584 at £12 per hour.

In fact, this split corresponds to one of the measures of efficiency we discussed earlier – labour utilisation. Labour utilisation is ‘work hours’ divided by ‘attended hours’ expressed as a percentage, or 92.5% in this case (37 hours divided by 40 hours). The split in the management accounts allocates 92.5% of basic pay as the cost of doing the work. The remainder (7.5% of basic pay) – corresponding to the technician’s pay for lost time – is allocated as an expense.

It should now be clear that labour utilisation has a direct bearing on how much gross profit is effectively produced from selling the technician’s time, and what is paid to the technician for not working.

Calculating labour sales

In our example, the workshop sells 42 hours per week as a result of the 37 hours the technician actually works out of the 40 hours attended. We have already seen that the labour utilisation here is 92.5% (37 hours divided by 40 hours). The productive efficiency can also be calculated as 113.5% (42 sold hours divided by 37 work hours), and the overall efficiency is 105% (42 sold hours divided by 40 attended hours). All these formulae were covered earlier.

The labour sales in our example are calculated by multiplying the sold hours in a year (1,848 hours) by the labour rate of £60 per hour. In full, this calculation is as follows:

Annual labour sales = 1 technician x 40 attended hours per week x 44 weeks attended per year x 105% overall efficiency x £60 per hour labour rate = £110,880

Increased productive efficiency

Now we can have a look at what happens to the profit on labour sales if labour efficiency increases. Let’s say our technician still works 37 hours out of 40 hours attended, but works faster (i.e. is more productive) and achieves 43 sold hours. The utilisation is still 92.5% (37 work hours divided by 40 attended hours), but the productive efficiency has increased to 116.2% (43 sold hours divided by 37 work hours) and the overall efficiency has also increased to 107.5% (43 sold hours divided by 40 attended hours). The effect is as follows (and we have assumed again that bonus and overtime are ‘nil’):

Labour sales

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 107.5% overall efficiency x £60 per hour = £113,520

Less

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 92.5% utilisation x £12 per hour = £19,536

Gross profit on labour sales (Labour gross profit) £93,984

Direct expenses

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 7.5% lost time x £12 per hour = £1,584

Technician’s pay for hols, sick & training (40 days of 8 hours) @ £12 = £3,840

Technician’s National Insurance and perks = £3,744

Direct profit on labour sales £84,816

A small increase in productive efficiency – just about three percentage points – has resulted in an extra annual profit on labour of £2,640.

Improving labour utilisation and productive efficiency

So far, we have explained how to measure time in a service or body repair workshop, how labour efficiency is calculated, and how management accounts are designed to highlight the sources of labour profit. We have shown how productive efficiency affects profitability. Next, we look at the effects on profit of improving labour utilisation, and then both productive efficiency and labour utilisation at the same time.

Increased labour utilisation

Taking the same example discussed earlier, let’s improve labour utilisation by assuming that our technician manages to work 38 hours out of 40 hours attended instead of 37, while leaving the productive efficiency the same (113.5%) as in the original example. This means that utilisation goes up to 95% (38 work hours divided by 40 attended hours), and even if the productive efficiency is the same at 113.5%, then our technician will produce 43.1 sold hours (38 hours worked x 113.5%). That is, the technician’s overall efficiency has increased to 107.8% (43.1 sold hours divided by 40 attended hours).

The effect on labour profits is then:

Labour sales

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 107.8% overall efficiency x £60 per hour = £113,520

Less

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 95% utilisation x £12 per hour = £20,064 Gross profit on labour sales (Labour gross profit) = £93,456

Direct expenses

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 5% lost time x £12 per hour = £1,056

Technician’s pay for hols, sick & training (40 days of 8 hours) @ £12 = £3,840

Technician’s National Insurance and perks = £3,744

Direct profit on labour sales = £84,816

The improvement, from one extra hour worked per week, is £2,640 in a year.

Do both!

But what would happen if both utilisation and productive efficiency improved at the same time? That is, the technician still attends 40 hours, but works 38 hours at the improved productive efficiency of 116.2% (from Part 2) thereby producing 44.2 sold hours (38 work hours x 116.2%) and hence an overall efficiency of 110.5% (44.2 sold hours divided by 40 attended hours). The calculation looks like this:

Labour sales

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 110.5% overall efficiency x £60 per hour = £116,688

Less

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 95% utilisation x £12 per hour = £20,064

Gross profit on labour sales (Labour gross profit) = £96,624

Direct expenses

1 tech x 40 att. hours x 44 weeks x 5% lost time x £12 per hour = £1,056

Technician’s pay for hols, sick & training (40 days of 8 hours) @ £12 = £3,840

Technician’s National Insurance and perks = £3,744

Direct profit on labour sales = £87,984

The improvement is £5,808, multiplied by (say) seven technicians is a sizeable £40,656 extra profit per annum.

This shows how significant for profitability only relatively small increases in labour efficiency can be. However, labour profits can also fall just as significantly if labour efficiency falls by an equally small amount.

Hidden lost time

If small improvements in labour efficiency translate into big improvements in labour profits, but any slight reduction means big falls in profit, then you need to know what levers to pull to make sure you are on the side of big profits. So what’s the secret? Or is it about managing the minutiae?

There’s no secret. The trick is managing every aspect of a workshop. Managers have to do everything they can to make sure technicians, panel beaters or painters are working as fast as possible for as long as possible. In other words, you must do everything to minimise lost time, and provide your productive staff with every means to support faster working like training, power tools… and even placing certain jobs with productives who are the most experienced. If you have a clutch job, then give it to the clutch expert.

But there is one secret worth knowing, and that’s ‘hidden lost time’.

As we have shown, lost time is a killer. But then lost time, if it’s measured at all, is usually about the most obvious elements such as rectification of faulty work, collection and delivery of cars, and cleaning and maintenance. However, there is a lot more lost time hidden away within jobs. Technicians may seem to be working hard, but too often they may be waiting for spare parts at the back counter of the stores. Or a technician may be waiting in line to use a piece of equipment like a wheel alignment rig.

The outcome of ‘hidden lost time’ is a fall in productive efficiency, but labour utilisation is unaffected because you haven’t measured the losses. But, as you have seen, the effect on profits can be huge. So apart from attending to the obvious and direct influences on labour efficiency, which affect how fast technicians work (productive efficiency) and how long (utilisation), workshop managers must also attend to anything that can slow them down when they are supposed to be working.

Controlling the Pour Levels of Bartenders

Let’s face it, if there was never a spill, a broken bottle, server impropriety with reusing the same check for multiple customers, mis-rang orders on the POS and all pours were at the perfect level, then we would have nothing to worry about. Two techniques I have seen are requiring all liquors to be poured into a “jigger” or shot glass before being mixed into a drink and also measured pourer caps that are designed to deliver the perfect amount of alcohol into a mixed drink. Both of ideas have merit and can work but many times frustrate bartenders and interrupt service flow.

Another idea is to build a requisition system that unifies the counting of product, which typically already takes place for inventory reasons, with the time proven calculation of beginning product – sales + purchases = ending inventory. Well when product is counted at the end it should = the previous calculation without variation. The variance in this method or how much extra or missing product is calculated will identify the degree of the problem. Let’s take a look at Wine poured by the glass.

Each bottle of wine has a measure, a 750 ml is roughly 25.4 ounces. So depending on your pour level you can determine how many glasses you can serve out of that bottle of wine. Lets say your pour level is 7 ounces per glass. (25.4 / 7 = 3.63) which says you will serve 3.63 glasses of wine per bottle purchased.

Next comes your sales from your Point of Sale (Aloha, Digital Dining, Micros, Restaurant Manager or Revention to name a few). For the time period of counting, pull the number of glasses sold for each wine poured by the glass. If you sold 50 glasses of House Cabernet at a predetermined 7 ounce pour than you sold (50 x 7 = 350) ounces of Cabernet. Well 350 ounces sold divided by 25.4 ounces per bottle yields = 13.78 bottles of Cabernet that were sold. So you can now calculate your beginning # of bottles – 13.78 (# sold) + purchases = ending inventory. Since you count the ending inventory simple compare what you should have on hand to what you actually have on hand. I have personally implemented this into a restaurant with high volume wine sales and they typically have a variance of +/- 1 bottle of wine out of 950 glasses of wine poured and sold.

When you pay attention to alcohol, the bartenders will follow suit. This also provides an ample opportunity to create a game for your bartenders. Depending on an acceptable variance you as a manager or owner determines you can reward or discipline your bartenders based on their performance and adherence to your controls.

Did you know that a vintage metal lunch box once sold for $13,225?

If the answer is no then you are probably relatively new to the world of collectible lunch boxes. By the way, the Isolina box in question was sold at auction in 2003 in absolute mint condition. It has to be said that this price – which included the buyer’s premium – is very much an exception to the rule as most vintage pieces sell for between $30-$300. However, depending on condition and the exact piece in question prices can far exceed this amount.

Probably the earliest collectible is the Mickey Mouse box from 1935. This was an oval shaped design with a pull out draw and was brought to market long before the mass rise in popularity in metal designs that occurred during the 1950s. This period saw massive success for the largest manufacturers which were American Thermos, Aladdin Industries and Ohio Art. Aladdin was responsible for the Hopalong Cassidy box (a collectors’ gem from 1951) and American Thermos followed up on this cowboy theme with a series of Roy Rogers based designs starting in 1953.

In terms of value the 1950s are often the most interesting to collectors. For example, an original and mint condition Superman box from 1954 sold for $5,000 in 2005. However, it is important to note that several versions of the same basic designs were often released. For example, 9 versions of Roy were released in the years leading up to 1957. For this reason it is critical to verify the exact year of manufacture before you buy or sell.

Finally, it is interesting to note that World events have occasionally increased the value of boxes. An example is the 1977 King Kong collectors’ item which tripled in value after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Why? Because the design shows King Kong perching not on the Empire State Building but on the World Trade Center.

If you are thinking of launching up your own apparel retail shop, you can either sell women’s clothes or men’s clothes. However, the wisest decision would be to market clothing for the females. If you want to make more sales, you must cater to the needs of top customers which are the latter. The ladies are considered as shopaholics when it comes to fashionable garments. They love to browse the long parts of clothing shops, hoping to find the perfect outfit. There are some women who don’t mind the high prices of chic garments. Alternatively, a greater portion of the female population is always on the lookout for inexpensive clothing.

You can make a huge profit when you provide these ladies with inexpensive choices. There is one way for you not to expend too much if you want to replenish the apparel supplies of your retail shop. This is possible through shopping for wholesale trend clothing. There are numerous clothing providers which sell inexpensive ladies wholesale apparel. One of these is CausewayMall, which is a trend wholesale business operating in Hong Kong. This Hong Kong clothing supplier sells its clothes internationally. It exports wholesale ladies’ clothing to countries such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Thailand. Since it is an apparel exporter, you’ll be able to shop for its garments anywhere you are in the globe.

To make your shopping experience more convenient, some of the wholesale clothing suppliers allow you to purchase clothing supplies wholesale over their online sites. These wholesale apparel providers offer you with pictures of its vast selection of wholesale women apparel. All you have to do is browse through the choices and click on your preferred products. Compared to buying garments the traditional way, internet shopping does not give you a headache like the latter does. The women clothing wholesale of legitimate suppliers are sold at affordable rates. You can avail discounts from these providers when you purchase garments in bulk order. Despite the fact that the clothing products of these fashion wholesale manufacturers are cheap, the quality of the garments can still be depended on. When purchasing wholesale clothes in bulk, one of the most important things to consider is the designs of the garments which must be stylish and fashionable.

So what are you waiting for, start making your business plan now, and use the above tips as your guide so you can make an excellent marketing plan as what other sellers did.