How much inventory should I keep on the truck or in the shop?
Short answer
Enough for the top 10 jobs you do, not one more. Inventory is cash sitting in a corner.
Pareto your parts
20 percent of parts cover 80 percent of jobs. Stock those deep. Everything else, source on demand. Most owners stock for the rare job and run out on the common one.
Count it monthly
If you don't count, it walks. Not always theft, often just lost on jobs and never billed back. A 15-minute monthly count saves real money.
Ask your version of this question
This is one business owner-tested take. Your shop size, trade, and team change the answer. Ask the exact version inside Ask a Shop Owner and get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.
Now run it against your numbers.
This answer is written for shops in general. Inside Ask a Shop Owner it becomes your answer: your revenue, your crew, your market, your history. Ask "How much inventory should I keep on the truck or in the shop" and get the version that accounts for what you already told us.
Was this helpful?
One click. It tells us which answers to deepen and which questions we still owe you.
Not ready for a trial? Take the scripts with you.
Leave your email and we send three short notes over the next week showing how owners used answers like this one on a real decision. No newsletter, no drip forever.
Three emails, then it stops. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your email address.