A car flipping spreadsheet that does not round the bad ones off.
One row per car. Every fee and part in its own column. Real profit, margin, profit per day and a summary by auction source, with the formulas already in. Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers. No email.
Most car flipping spreadsheets have four columns: car, paid, sold, profit. They are pleasant to look at and they are wrong on every row, because the number in the paid column is the hammer price, and the hammer price is where the spending starts, not where it ends.
This one has a column for every place the money actually goes, a running day count, and a summary sheet that groups the sold cars by where you bought them. It is the same set of columns the Deelary app keeps on every car, laid out for people who are not ready to leave the spreadsheet yet.
What is in it
Flips sheet
| Column | You fill in | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Car, VIN, Source | Yes | |
| Bought, Sold | Yes (leave Sold empty until it is) | |
| Days held | Sold − Bought, or today − Bought while on hand | |
| Purchase, Buyer fee, Transport, Parts, Labour, Detail, Listing, Title & other | Yes | |
| Total cost | Sum of the eight cost columns | |
| Sale price | Yes | |
| Real profit | Sale price − Total cost | |
| Margin | Real profit ÷ Sale price | |
| Profit / day | Real profit ÷ Days held | |
| Status | On hand or Sold, from the Sold date |
Two hundred rows are pre-filled with formulas, so you type into the white cells and the blue ones answer. Three example cars are in the first rows to show what a filled row looks like. Delete them when you add your own.
Summary sheet
- Cars on hand and cars sold
- Cash tied up in the cars you still own
- Total real profit on sold cars, and the average per car
- Average days held and average profit per day of capital
- Oldest car on hand, in days, so the one that needs a price cut is a number and not a feeling
- Profit by source: cars sold, real profit and average days for Copart, IAAI, Manheim, private and other
Everything on the Summary sheet is a formula over the Flips sheet. You never type into it.
How to use it without lying to yourself
The spreadsheet only works if the receipts go in the day they happen. The gap between the headline profit and the real profit on any flip is made entirely of receipts entered late or never: the $35 listing, the $85 title fee, the $120 of small parts bought on three different trips. Each one is too small to matter and together they are the margin.
A habit that works: photograph every receipt at the counter, and enter them from the photos that evening. If that sounds like what an app should be doing, it is, and that is what the app does. But the spreadsheet with the habit beats the app without it.
Opening it
- Excel. Open the file. If it opens in Protected View, click Enable Editing.
- Google Sheets. File, Import, Upload, choose the file, then Import data. All formulas are supported.
- Apple Numbers. Open the file directly.
Download the spreadsheet (.xlsx)
One car at a time, in the browser
If you want to see the arithmetic on a single flip before you download anything, the flip profit calculator runs the same columns in the browser and can be embedded on your own site.
Questions
Is it really free, with no email?
Yes. The link downloads the file directly. There is no form, no newsletter and no watermark. Keep it, copy it, change it, give it to someone else.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. In Google Sheets go to File, Import, Upload, and pick the file. Every formula used is supported, including the summary and the profit-by-source table. It also opens directly in Apple Numbers.
Which cells do I fill in?
The white ones: car, VIN, source, dates, each cost, and the sale price. The blue-tinted columns are formulas and fill themselves: days held, total cost, real profit, margin, profit per day and status. Leave the Sold date empty while you still own the car and the days count to today.
What is "profit per day of capital"?
Real profit divided by the days the money was in the car. It is the best single number for comparing two flips, because the same cash can only be in one car at a time. A $1,400 profit in 24 days beats a $2,200 profit in 96 days, and this column is where that shows.
Why is there a profit-by-source table?
Because after ten or fifteen cars it tells you which auction actually pays. The lane that feels cheap often needs an extra $300 of reconditioning every time, and that only becomes visible when the cars are grouped by where they came from.
When does the spreadsheet stop being enough?
When you stop filling it in. Receipts get entered late, then never, and the gap between the headline profit and the real one grows quietly. The Deelary app does the same columns per car with the receipt photographed at the counter, the VIN scanned in the lane and the days counted automatically. Free for two cars on iPhone and iPad.