How often should I check the margin per car?

Once a month is enough. Weekly is too noisy (single-day outages skew the picture). Every three months is too late (three months of loss is already four figures). With Fahrly it is one glance instead of an Excel project.

What counts as per-car cost?

Direct costs: leasing or depreciation, insurance, tax, Uber and Bolt commission, fuel, workshop, tyres, cleaning, Konzession share. Indirect costs: prorated office, bookkeeping, software. Only when everything is in do you see the real margin.

What do I do once I spot the bad car?

Three options in this order: 1. Try a different driver (often another driver makes 30 to 40 % more revenue on the same car). 2. Switch model (a smaller car in the same Uber class saves 200 to 400 € leasing). 3. Sell. Not: wait and hope.

380 € loss per month: the vehicle nobody sees

The silent drain in your fleet

Ask ten rental car bosses which of their cars makes the most money. You get ten quick answers. Ask them which car is running at a loss. You get either silence or a "None, I think."

The second question is the important one.

In almost every business with five or more cars, at least one is running at a loss. For months. Without anyone noticing. The Uber revenue looks solid. The car is almost always occupied. The driver is not complaining.

But when you add up leasing, insurance, fuel, workshop, tyres, and the Uber commission — and honestly count what the car really costs — the margin is negative. Not slightly negative. 200 to 400 € per month negative.

A customer of ours, Ahmet in Hamburg, was sure: his Mercedes Vito was making money. After two months with Fahrly, the number was on the screen in black and white: 380 € loss per month, after all costs.

The Vito was sold. A smaller car in the same Uber class replaced it. The margin was back in the plus right away. That single insight paid for the software for years.

Why nobody sees it

Because the data never comes together. Uber revenue is in Uber. Bolt revenue in Bolt. The lease is in a contract at the tax office. Workshop bills sit in a folder. Fuel receipts sit at Aral. And the Uber commission is not tracked separately — you only see what ends up on the account.

To see whether a car makes money, you have to combine:

Uber and Bolt revenue (gross, before commission)
Commission (25 to 30 % on average)
Fuel (from fuel cards or receipts, assignable per car)
Workshop (assignable per car if you book correctly)
Leasing or depreciation (fixed cost)
Insurance (fixed per car)
Tyres, cleaning, and other direct costs

That is an Excel project no one does every month. So it happens once a year, when the tax office asks for the balance sheet. And by then it is too late for the three to five months the car spent running at a loss.

What you see with Fahrly right away

Fahrly reads Uber and Bolt directly. Fahrly links fuel cards to cars. Fahrly collects workshop bills per car. Fahrly counts the fixed costs (leasing, insurance) in.

The result is one single table: revenue, cost, margin per car — per month. Sorted by margin. Ascending. The losers are at the top.

With five cars, you see in five seconds which one is under water. With twenty cars, just as fast. No Excel. No math. No "let me ask my accountant."

Three options once you see it

Change the driver. Often the car is not the problem. It is the driver × car combination. Another driver often pulls 30 to 40 % more revenue out of the same car. Just by better shift times or a target area that fits them. This test costs nothing. Only two to four weeks.

Change the model. If you can replace the car with a smaller model in the same Uber class (Vito → Passat estate, E-Class → C-Class), you save 150 to 300 € leasing per month. At almost the same revenue. The difference goes directly to margin.

Sell. If neither driver nor model change helps, the last step is a clean cut. Sell the car. Fill the slot with a good car. Painful. But much less painful than twelve more months of loss.

What you should stop doing

Guessing. The three sentences we hear most often:

"It makes money. I can see the revenue."
"It balances out across the fleet."
"The year-end balance will show."

All three are expensive.

Revenue is not profit. A car can drive a lot and still lose money if the costs are too high.

Cross-subsidy eats up your best cars. The good car pays for the bad one. You just do not see it.

The year-end balance is too late. Twelve months of loss is five thousand euros. For a five-car business, that is the difference between profit and loss.

How it should work

One glance per month. Three minutes. Sorted table. That is the difference between a boss who knows where the money comes from — and one who hopes.

Fahrly Business Intelligence (that is the reporting module) shows you the margin per car every Monday morning. As a push notification. When a car is in the minus for two months in a row, a warning comes. You see it before it gets expensive.