Free Excel template · Excel for auto repair

Free technician efficiency and productivity template

Q: How do you calculate technician efficiency?

Hours flagged (billed) divided by hours actually clocked on repair orders. A tech who flags 45 hours in 40 clocked hours is 112.5% efficient. In Excel: =IF(C8>0,D8/C8,0).

For shop owners and foremen who want to see where the paid hours go each week. Enter each tech's hours paid, hours clocked on repair orders and hours flagged, and the template works out efficiency, productivity and overall proficiency, labor sold, and how many techs are under your targets. It also shows the effective labor rate per paid hour and the extra labor sales you would get if the techs below target reached it.

cellwise-technician-efficiency.xlsxExcel workbook · 4.7 KB · works in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice · no signup

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This is the template's sheet, calculated by the same engine as the Cellwise app. Change any number to see the formulas react before you download.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I
1	Technician efficiency and productivity
2	Week starting	Nov 2, 2026
3	Labor rate	145
4	Target efficiency	1
5	Target productivity	0.85
6
7	Tech	Hours paid	Hours on ROs	Hours flagged	Efficiency	Productivity	Overall	Labor sold	Comebacks
8	Marco	44	41.5	48.6	1.1710843373	0.94318181818	1.1045454545	7047	0
9	Dee	42	37.2	35.9	0.96505376344	0.88571428571	0.85476190476	5205.5	1
10	Sam (apprentice)	40	31	19.4	0.62580645161	0.775	0.485	2813	0
11	Priya	45	42.8	51.3	1.1985981308	0.95111111111	1.14	7438.5	1
12	Luis	40	34.5	33	0.95652173913	0.8625	0.825	4785	0
13	Kim (lube tech)	38	33.6	26.9	0.8005952381	0.88421052632	0.70789473684	3900.5	0
14	Shop total	249	220.6	215.1	0.97506799637	0.8859437751	0.86385542169	31189.5	2
15
16	Techs below target efficiency	4
17	Techs below target productivity	1
18	Paid hours not flagged	33.9
19	Effective labor rate (labor sold / hours paid)	125.26
20	Extra labor sales if techs below target reached it	3059.5

How the formulas work

Efficiency: flagged hours over hours on ROs

E8=IF(C8>0,D8/C8,0)

How fast the tech works compared with the book. Marco flagged 48.6 hours in 41.5 hours on the clock, 117.1%. Below 100% means jobs are taking longer than they bill for.

Productivity: hours on ROs over hours paid

F8=IF(B8>0,C8/B8,0)

How much of the paid time was spent on customer work. The rest is waiting for cars, parts, or approvals, cleaning up and meetings. Low productivity is usually a front-office or scheduling problem, not a tech problem.

Overall: flagged hours over hours paid

G8=IF(B8>0,D8/B8,0)

Efficiency times productivity in one number: billed hours for every paid hour. It is what the shop actually sells from each tech's week. Some shops call it proficiency.

Shop totals divide the totals

E14=IF(C14>0,D14/C14,0)

The shop's efficiency is total flagged over total clocked, not the average of six percentages. That way a tech who worked 45 hours counts for more than one who worked 38.

Labor sales you are leaving on the table

B20=ROUND(SUMPRODUCT((E8:E13<B4)*(C8:C13*B4-D8:D13))*B3,2)

For each tech below target efficiency, the flagged hours they would have at target (hours on ROs times the target) minus what they flagged, times the labor rate. Techs already over target add nothing. Here it comes to $3,059.50 this week, most of it from the apprentice and the lube tech.

Make it yours

Take hours paid from payroll, hours on ROs from your shop system's clock-ins, and hours flagged from the closed repair orders for the same week.
Compare techs doing similar work. An apprentice or lube tech will run lower than an A tech on diagnostics, and that is expected.
Log comebacks against the tech who did the original work, and count the repair orders written in B21 for the comeback rate.
Save a copy each week. A tech's trend over a month says more than any single week.

FAQ

How do you calculate technician efficiency?

Hours flagged (billed) divided by hours actually clocked on repair orders. A tech who flags 45 hours in 40 clocked hours is 112.5% efficient. In Excel: =IF(C8>0,D8/C8,0).

What is the difference between efficiency and productivity?

Efficiency compares billed hours with time spent on the jobs: is the tech fast? Productivity compares time on jobs with time paid: is there enough work, and are cars and parts ready? Multiplying the two gives billed hours per paid hour.

What is a good technician efficiency?

Many shops treat 100% as the baseline for experienced flat-rate techs, with strong techs well above it. Set the target in B4 from your own shop's mix of work and compare each tech with their own past weeks.

Functions used

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Updated November 2, 2026