Your Sales by Service Category report groups your work by service category — things like Brakes, Oil Changes, Diagnostics, or any categories you've set up — so you can see which types of jobs are making money and which aren't. At the top of the page you'll see four summary cards (Order Total, Total Profit, Total Retail, Total Cost), a bar chart showing profit by service category, and a table with a full breakdown including separate columns for parts, tires, labor, and subcontract work. Use it to spot your most and least profitable service types, compare categories side by side, and export to Excel for further analysis.
Filters
| Filter | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Countries | Your location's country | (HQ only) Picks which country's shops show up in the Locations list. |
| Locations | All your shops in the selected country | (HQ only) Pick which shops to include. |
| Order Status | Invoice | Chooses which orders contribute. By default only Invoiced orders are counted — Estimates and Repair Orders are hidden unless you turn them on. |
| Invoice Date | Not applied (until you pick one) | Narrows the report to orders invoiced within a date range. Heads up: the filter shows a "last month" chip at first, but it doesn't actually narrow the data until you click into it and apply a range. If your numbers look like they cover way more history than you meant, this is usually why. |
| Fully Paid Date | Not applied | Narrows to orders that were fully paid off within a date range. Using Invoice Date and Fully Paid Date together means "orders invoiced in X and paid in Y" — results shrink a lot because both have to match. Usually you only want one of these at a time. |
| Paid Status | All | Include only Paid / Unpaid / Partially Paid / Overdue orders. |
| Type | All | Which types of line items count: Parts, Labor, Tires, Subcontracts, Fees. |
| Archived Status | Both | Include or exclude archived orders. |
| Categories | All | Pick specific service categories to zoom in on. Selecting a parent category also pulls in its sub-categories. |
| Service Writers / Technicians | All | Filter by the staff assigned to the work. |
| Inventory Source | All | Items added from your catalog vs. items typed in on the fly. |
| Tags / Customer Type / Customers / Vendors / Workflow | All | Various ways to narrow down. |
Date Filters
- Invoice Date = "I want data about jobs I finished and billed in this period." Use this when the question is "what did we invoice this month?"
- Fully Paid Date = "I want data about money that came in when jobs were fully paid off, regardless of when they were done." Use this when the question is "which jobs got paid off this period?"
- Both date filters active at once = the report only shows orders that satisfy both — usually a narrow reconciliation view, not something you'd use for everyday reporting.
Neither mode is more "correct" — they answer different questions.
Understanding Each Number
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 | Sum of the full order totals for every order in your filtered range, counting each order once. | Orders outside the filters (e.g. Estimates by default). | When you want a quick single number for "how much did these orders total?" — not affected by categories, just orders. | — |
| Total Profit | Your revenue minus your cost across parts, tires, labor, and subcontracts. | Fees don't add to profit (they're pass-through in the math). | Top-line profitability. | The column footer in the table matches this card. |
| Total Retail | The list price of everything sold, before any discounts. | Discounts you gave — those come off separately. | Seeing the "sticker price" total before discounts. | For labor, this is the pre-discount labor bill. |
| Total Cost | What you paid for everything — wholesale on parts/tires, tech rate × hours on labor, subcontractor invoices on subs. | Overhead, payroll taxes, or other indirect costs. | Understanding your cost base. | Labor cost here is the rate × hours billed on the labor line — not what the tech actually clocked. If those differ, this will differ from your payroll. |
View the total profit for the service category based on the filters selected.
View sales and profitability data grouped by service category.
| Column | What it means | What it doesn't include | When it's useful | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service Category | The category assigned to the parent service on the order. | Categories on individual line items — only the parent service's category is used. | Seeing which types of work drive your business. | "Uncategorized" means the parent service has no category set. |
| Total Profit % | Profit as a percentage. | — | Comparing categories to each other — which ones earn more per dollar of work? | If a category has a lot of fee revenue, its % may look lower than you expect. That's because fees count against the denominator but not the numerator. |
| Total Fees | Fee line items (shop supplies, EPA, etc.) for this category. | — | Seeing which categories carry heavy fees. | — |
| Total Discount | Sum of line-item discounts given. | — | Auditing discount usage by category. | Already applied to subtotals elsewhere — this is for visibility. |
| Order Total (table column) | Sum of order totals for orders in this category row. | — | Seeing which orders had revenue in this service category. | Important: if an order covers multiple service categories (e.g. brakes AND oil change), it shows up on every one of those rows. So adding up the Order Total column across rows will be higher than the actual total of orders. Use the Order Total card for the true total. |
| Parts / Tires / Labor / Subcontract Profit / Retail / Cost | Breakdown by line-item type within each category. | — | Drilling into what kind of work within a category is most profitable. | Labor Retail is pre-discount. |
Select a service type from the table to view the associated Service Detail report.
Common Questions
Q: I added up the Order Total column in the table and it's way more than my actual sales — what's going on? A: That column intentionally shows an order's full value on every service category row it touches. So an order with work in three different service categories shows up three times. That's useful when you're asking "which categories did this big job hit?" but it means the column doesn't sum to your actual revenue. Use the Order Total card at the top of the page — that one counts each order only once.
Q: Why doesn't this match my Sales by Line Item Category report? A: Different grouping. Sales by Service Category groups by the parent service's category (e.g. Oil Change). Sales by Line Item Category groups by each individual line item's inventory category (e.g. Filters, Oil). A can of oil used in an Oil Change service appears under "Oil Change" here and under "Oil" in the other report. Both are correct — they just answer different questions.
Q: Why doesn't the labor cost match my payroll report? A: This report uses the labor rate and hours billed on the labor line of the order (what the customer was charged). Your payroll report uses what the tech actually clocked in and out. If a tech clocked more or fewer hours than were billed, the two will differ. Use payroll for compensation, and this report for job profitability.
Q: Why is a whole category showing as "Uncategorized"? A: "Uncategorized" means the parent service on those orders doesn't have a category set. To fix: open the orders, open the service, and assign a category. Changes will show up in the report after the next warehouse refresh (usually a few minutes, shown in the "Last updated" note at the top).
Q: I set a date range but my numbers didn't change — why? A: The date filter shows a default range chip but doesn't actually start filtering until you click in and apply a range. If you see the chip but the numbers look like all-time totals, click into the date filter and apply it explicitly.
Q: Why are my Estimates missing? A: The report defaults to Invoice-only. If you want to include Estimates (or Repair Orders), open the Filters panel and check those boxes under Order Status.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of This Report
- Use the bar chart at the top to spot your top-profit categories at a glance — then drill into the table rows for details.
- Filter by Invoice Date for a specific month to run a monthly profit-by-category review.
- Export to Excel when you want to analyze trends over time or share with your accountant.
- Don't trust the Order Total column to sum correctly across rows — use the card at the top of the page for true revenue.
- If you want to know how a technician or service writer is performing, use the Technicians or Service Writers filter to drill in.
Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the chat icon. Thanks for reading!
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