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You’re Paying the Tariff. Your Customer Isn’t.
The last Tuesday of the month, nine fifteen at night. Ray Kessler has two screens open: the profit and loss his bookkeeper sent at five, and his bank account. The profit and loss says he had a good month. Car count up, average repair order up, five bays full every single day. The bank account says something else entirely. He scrolls hunting for the one big ugly number, and there is never one, because Kessler Automotive, a composite shop built from real 2025 and 2026 industry data, is losing about nine thousand dollars a month spread across four hundred lines in a pricing file nobody has opened since 2024. A 25 percent Section 232 tariff moved his real parts basket up 14 percent, and his own tiered matrix has been quietly demoting his markup every time a part inflates into a higher cost band. In this teardown I price the basket, re band the matrix instead of raising it, and move the labor rate with a thirty day posted notice. Then I hand you the Creep Sheet, three columns and twenty one rows, forty five minutes on a Friday, run four times a year because the tariff inclusions list runs four times a year.
The Creep Sheet.
Somebody else already decided what you pay this year. Nobody decided what you charge. The Creep Sheet closes that gap on one page: twenty of the items you buy most often, three columns, and the eight percent rule. Forty five minutes on a Friday morning, four times a year, because the tariff inclusions list moves four times a year.
Price the Basket
Twenty of the items you buy most often, three columns: what it cost you twelve months ago, what it costs you today, and what you still charge. Anything that moved more than eight percent and has not been repriced is creep. Kessler’s real basket was up 14 percent while the pricing file sat untouched since 2024, which is how parts gross profit slid from 58 percent to 52 without one line looking wrong.
Re Band, Do Not Re Multiply
When a part inflates into a higher cost band, your own tiered matrix hands it a smaller multiplier, so your markup falls at the exact moment your cost rises. A 92 dollar part at 2.2 sold for 202.40. At 112 dollars it drops a band to 1.8 and sells for 201.60, less money on a more expensive part. Give those parts back the multiplier they had in the band below. You are restoring the markup you already chose, not raising it. Worth about 35,000 dollars a year here.
Move the Rate, Post It Thirty Days Out
His cost per billed hour went from 52 dollars to 62 while the door rate never moved, and labor gross profit fell from 61.5 percent to 54.1. Across 6,656 billed hours a year that is 99,840 dollars. People do not object to a price. They object to a surprise, so the increase goes up on the wall and in the confirmation text thirty days before it takes effect.
The Creep Sheet is already built and waiting for you inside The Small Business MBA.
Fillable, auto-saving, and it carries last quarter’s numbers forward into the next one so the second run takes ten minutes instead of forty five. Prefer paper? The printable one pager is in there too, alongside the Owner Tax Ledger, the Missed Call Money Map, and the full operator course library.
Open The Creep Sheet →Free forever • All pillars and bonus courses included • No card required