How to know which van is losing money, month by month.

Why you cannot tell which van loses money

Amazon's vehicle payment is not tied to a particular van. With lease, insurance and repair bills in different places, nobody can say which van makes money. Four gaps cause it:

• Lease, insurance and repair bills sit in different places.
• Amazon's vehicle payment is never tied to a van.
• Nobody knows which van made money and which lost it.
• Vans sit in the yard and nobody counts the days.

What good looks like

• No grounded or in-shop van is offered for a route.
• Every repair is logged when the bill arrives, with who paid it.
• Every idle van gets a decision each week: back on routes, or returned.
• No registration, inspection or permit lapses.
• Every van's net is reviewed every month.
• Vans that keep failing get a keep-or-replace decision, not another repair by default.

The procedure

Six steps: one every morning, one on every repair, one weekly, one on warning and two monthly. The Fleet pages share one record per van, so a repair logged once counts everywhere it should.

1. 1

   Keep grounded and in-shop vans off the day sheet

   Every morning

   Where Fleet · Fleet DashboardWho Manager or Dispatcher

   Every morning before load-out, read the Fleet Dashboard's status tiles and the Needs Attention list, red rows first. Set any van that cannot roll to In shop or Grounded, with a reason. Load Out then never offers it, and a van already on the sheet shows a warning.

   Done when: Every van that cannot roll reads In shop or Grounded, and every red row in Needs Attention has been dealt with.

2. 2

   Log every repair with who paid for it

   Every repair

   Where Fleet · VehiclesWho Owner or Manager

   When a repair or fee is done, add a service record on the van: category, vendor, description, odometer, cost and who paid, with the invoice attached. The record feeds the van's totals, the Fleet Dashboard spend and Fleet Financials, with no second entry.

   Done when: The repair shows on the van's Service Records with its cost, its payer and the invoice.

3. 3

   Put idle vans back on routes or return them

   Weekly

   Where Fleet · Fleet DashboardWho Owner or Manager

   Once a week, read the Idle Vans card: in-service vans that ran no route in the last 7 days, with how long each has sat. Put each one back on routes, or set it Off fleet and return it.

   Done when: Every van on Idle Vans has a decision: back on routes, or Off fleet with a reason.

4. 4

   Renew registration, inspection and permits before they lapse

   On warning

   Where Fleet · VehiclesWho Owner or Manager

   Add each van's registration, inspection, permits and lease as renewals once, with a notice date. When a renewal turns amber at 30 days out, do the renewal, then record the new expiration with Renew so the warning clock resets.

   Done when: The renewal's status chip is green again, with the new expiration and Last renewed updated.

5. 5

   Review net per van and the losing vans

   Monthly

   Where Fleet · Fleet FinancialsWho Owner or Finance

   Once a month, bring in the month's insurance, lease and Amazon vehicle payment figures on Fleet Financials, then read the Dashboard. Each van's net is the Amazon money given to it, minus its lease, insurance and out-of-pocket service. Vans Losing Money lists every on-fleet van below zero, worst first.

   Done when: The month's figures are in, no van is flagged incomplete, and every van on Vans Losing Money has a cause you understand.

6. 6

   Decide on vans at twice the median repair cost

   Monthly

   Where Fleet · Fleet DashboardWho Owner or Manager

   Once a month, read Lemon Watch on the Fleet Dashboard: on-fleet vans whose out-of-pocket service spend over the last 90 days is more than twice the median serviced van's. Open each van's service records and decide: one big fix usually means keep it, a run of failures means replace it or escalate.

   Done when: Every van on Lemon Watch has a keep-or-replace decision, and replaced vans read Off fleet with a reason.

The three numbers to watch

Common mistakes

• Letting a van with a known defect roll.
• Paying repair bills without logging them.
• Marking a reimbursed repair as out of pocket.
• Leaving idle vans in the yard.
• Tracking renewals in a spreadsheet.
• Judging vans by Amazon's statements.