Parts leak money in two directions at once
Every workshop feels the first leak: a car sits in the bay because the part was not on the shelf and nobody ordered it. The second leak is quieter and bigger — cash frozen in parts bought for a job that never came, sitting on a shelf so long everyone forgot it is there. Both come from the same blind spot: the stock lives in someone's head, not in a system that can be looked at.
What good parts management actually tracks
- Minimum and reorder levelsThe fast-moving parts — filters, pads, common bulbs — should never hit zero. A min level flags the reorder before a job stalls.
- Fast movers vs slow moversThe parts that turn weekly earn their shelf space. The ones that have not moved in months are cash you can free up — but only if you can see them.
- Parts tied to the job cardEvery part fitted is deducted from stock and added to the bill in the same action, so nothing is fitted-but-not-billed or billed-but-not-deducted.
- True cost per jobWhen parts attach to the job, you know the real cost of the work — not an estimate, the actual parts that went into that car.
The register-and-memory method vs a live stock view
- In someone's headStock levels are whatever the parts person remembers. A busy week and a filter runs out with no warning; a slow quarter and the shelf fills with parts nobody will buy. Nobody notices until the money is already stuck.
- A live stock viewEvery part has a count, a reorder level and a movement history. Stockouts get flagged before they bite, dead stock surfaces before it grows, and each part fitted updates the count and the bill at once.
Where Kenro fits
In Kenro Workshop, parts sit on the job card: fit a part and it comes off stock and onto the GST invoice in one step, so the count and the bill can never disagree. The point is not a warehouse system — it is that your money stops leaking out of both ends of the parts shelf.