This report helps you understand which categories of work — by line item, like brake parts, diagnostic labor, or specific tire brands — are driving your sales and profit. At the top you'll see four summary numbers (Order Total, Total Profit, Total Retail, Total Cost), a bar chart of your most profitable categories, and a detailed table that breaks each category down by Parts, Tires, Labor, and Subcontract. Use it to spot what you're making money on, what you're barely breaking even on, and where to focus your pricing or sourcing.
Filters
| Filter | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Order Status | Invoice | By default, only invoiced orders are included. If you want Estimates or Repair Orders in the totals, add them here. |
| Invoice Date | Off | Until you turn this on, the report includes every invoice in your history. Turn it on to limit the report to a specific invoice date range. |
| Fully Paid Date | Off | Until you turn this on, no "fully paid" filtering is applied. Turn it on to limit to orders that were fully paid in a specific range. |
| Both date filters at once | — | If you turn on both Invoice Date and Fully Paid Date, only orders that match both ranges will appear — a narrow reconciliation view, not a routine one. Neither mode is more "correct" — they answer different questions. Invoice Date answers "what work did we finish and bill?"; Fully Paid Date answers "what cash did we collect?". |
| Paid Status | All | Narrow to Paid, Unpaid, Partially Paid, or Overdue orders. |
| Type | All | Lets you focus the numbers on specific line item types (Parts, Labor, Tires, Subcontract, Fee). |
| Categories | All | Filter to specific inventory categories — the categories you set on your parts, labor, tires, subcontracts, and fees in Inventory. |
| Inventory Source | All | "From Inventory" = lines added from your Inventory list. "Not From Inventory" = typed directly onto the order. |
| Service Writers / Technicians / Customers / Vendors / Customer Type / Tags / Workflow / Archived Status | All | Standard filters to narrow your view. |
| Locations (HQ only) | All locations | Pick specific shops. Leaving the checkbox empty still includes every location in the selected country. |
The snapshot shows the order total, total profit, total retail, and total cost based on the filters selected.
| Card | What it means | What it doesn't include | When it's useful | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order Total | The total invoiced value of every order that has at least one line item matching your filters | — | Quick check of how much business flowed through the categories you're looking at | Each order is counted once in full — so if you filter to a single category and an order has line items in other categories too, you'll still see that order's full invoice total here. |
| Total Profit | Retail minus cost on the line items you're looking at | Fees (the fee amount is already inside another line's price, so it isn't counted twice) | Spotting which categories actually put money in your pocket | — |
| Total Retail | What you billed the customer for the matching line items (before discount and tax) | Discounts and tax | Seeing your top-line sales by category | For labor lines, this is the labor charge itself, not an hourly rate times hours. |
| Total Cost | What you paid for the matching line items | — | Evaluating what your parts and labor are actually costing you | Labor Cost is the quoted labor cost on the service — not your technician's clocked hours from Time Log. If your techs consistently take more or less time than quoted, those won't match. |
View the total profit for each line item category based on the filters selected.
View sales and profitability data grouped by line item category.
| Column | What it means | What it doesn't include | When it's useful | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Line Item Category | The category assigned to the line item in Inventory | — | Grouping your work by inventory category | "Uncategorized" means the line item either wasn't pulled from Inventory, or its inventory record has no category. Set categories in Inventory → record → Category to tidy this up. |
| Total Profit % | Profit as a percentage of your subtotals | Fees are excluded from profit but included in the denominator | Comparing categories apples-to-apples | — |
| Total Fees | Fee amounts on the filtered line items | — | Checking how much fee revenue ran through a category | Already counted inside the line item's retail — shown here separately for visibility. |
| Total Discount | Discounts given on the filtered line items | — | Seeing where you're discounting the most | Already reflected in the Retail values; not subtracted again from profit. |
| Parts / Tires / Labor / Subcontract columns | Same Profit / Retail / Cost metrics restricted to that type | — | Seeing which type within a category is driving the numbers | Zero when the Type filter excludes that type. |
Select a line item type from the table to view the associated Line Item Detail report.
Common Questions
Q: Why is Order Total bigger than the sum of the row profits? A: Order Total counts each matching order's full invoice value, including the parts of the order that fall into other categories. The row profits only count the line items in that specific category. If you want to see just the line items counted, click a row — it opens the line item detail view for that category.
Q: Why didn't my Total Profit change when I added Fees to the Type filter? A: Fee amounts are already inside the price of the service line they belong to. Counting them again in profit would double-up. Fees show up in their own column (Total Fees) for visibility, but they don't change the Profit number.
Q: Why do I have so many "Uncategorized" rows? A: Those are line items that either weren't pulled from your Inventory list, or whose inventory records don't have a category set. Go to Inventory → [Part / Labor / Tire / Subcontract / Fee] and add categories to the ones you care about. They'll start showing up under their correct category next time the report refreshes.
Q: Why doesn't this match my Sales by Line Item Type report? A: For Parts, Tires, and Labor, the totals should match on the same filters. Subcontract can differ — this report uses the subcontract-specific cost value, while Sales by Line Item Type uses a broader cost source for every type.
Q: Why doesn't this match my Sales Summary report? A: Sales Summary groups by order and uses a default date filter; this report groups by line item category and has no default date filter. Even with identical dates, a single order can appear in multiple category rows here, so the per-row totals won't line up with your order-level totals.
Q: Why doesn't Labor Cost match what I see in my Time Log report? A: Labor Cost here is the quoted ("matrix") labor cost on the service — it's what you priced the job at. Time Log uses actual hours your technicians clocked on their timesheets, multiplied by their rate. If your techs take more or less time than what was quoted, the two reports will not agree.
Q: Why is my Estimate data missing? A: The Order Status filter defaults to Invoice only. Open the Filters panel, add Estimate (and Repair Order if you use them), and they'll be included.
Q: Why is nothing showing up for the date range I picked? A: Make sure you actually turned on the date filter — it's off by default. Also check: your Order Status filter is set to Invoice only by default, so Estimates and Repair Orders won't appear even if their dates match.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of This Report
- Assign categories in Inventory first. The report is only as useful as your inventory categorization — if most lines are "Uncategorized", spend 30 minutes sorting your top parts, labor, and tires into categories before using this report to make decisions.
- Turn on Invoice Date for routine reporting. Almost every useful question ("how did we do this month?", "which categories are growing?") needs a date range. Set Invoice Date on and bookmark a preset like "This Month" or "Last Quarter".
- Use the chart to spot your profit leaders. The bar chart on top shows your most profitable categories at a glance. If a category you expect to see isn't there, it means its total profit is zero or negative under your current filters — worth investigating.
- Click a row to see the line items behind it. Each row drills through to Line Item Detail, pre-filtered to that category, so you can verify exactly which line items are rolling up.
Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the chat icon. Thanks for reading!
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