Completed towing fees must pay for standby and travel as well as the recovery itself. Fictional Southline Recovery assumes 100 completed calls per base month within 200 shared call slots for its two-truck daytime operation. Paid operator and owner-dispatch costs remain throughout its loss-making January 2027 to December 2029 forecast.
Validate time per completed call and the collected mix before committing fleet and payroll.
A completed call is the sale; truck occupation is the constraint
Southline Recovery serves vehicle owners, authorized agents and dealers in Chicago's south suburbs. Local towing, extended towing, winch recovery, dealer moves and roadside help use the same two trucks. The selected fees represent defined average calls; no extra mileage, fuel-surcharge, storage or impound receipts are added.
Travel to the vehicle, loading, waiting, delivery and return travel vary by task. A dealer move can tie up a truck when an urgent request arrives. The monthly slot assumption therefore needs a real dispatch calendar before it can support a sales commitment.
Divide the completed-call pool once
The base mix earns $21,000.00 at $210.00 per completed call on average, before opening ramp, seasonal weights and growth. A higher extended-tow fee still uses the shared truck calendar.
| Service | Base sold volume | Fee per call | Base revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local towing | 40 call | $205.00 | $8,200.00 |
| Extended tow | 15 call | $365.00 | $5,475.00 |
| Winch recovery | 10 call | $245.00 | $2,450.00 |
| Dealer transport | 20 call | $150.00 | $3,000.00 |
| Roadside help | 15 call | $125.00 | $1,875.00 |
| Total selected mix | 100 call | $210.00 weighted | $21,000.00 |
Keep standby pay and bought-in support visible
Two paid operators work the trucks. Half-time owner dispatch screens and coordinates requests, adding no third truck. Standby, dead travel and maintenance downtime occupy paid resources even when they create no completed-call fee.
Direct purchases are 23% of revenue: fuel and selected spares, repair services and purchased recovery assistance. Only goods enter inventory. Separate marketing and payment costs leave 66.8% of revenue for fixed salaries, insurance, parking and other overhead.
Truck investment and operating losses both use the reserve
The opening-year saved forecast has $229,250.00 revenue, EBITDA of -$60,561.19 and net income of -$89,461.19. EBITDA excludes depreciation, interest and income tax. Final-year EBITDA is still -$29,930.87.
The revised owner-only equity proposal is $310,000.00; it is uncommitted. Launch uses total $151,800.00. Collection is modeled at 9 days with no supplier credit. Parking deposits and extra used-truck condition work remain excluded, so actual quotes could change the cash requirement.
Select calls by collected contribution and occupied truck time
Record the interval from dispatch acceptance until the truck is available again. Keep cancellations separate from completed paid calls and identify difficult recoveries separately from routine tows.
Compare the accepted fee after purchases with the retained paid calendar. If that contribution cannot cover the fleet, revise trip scope, routing or fleet commitments before relying on more owner capital.
Make the next decision with your own evidence
Measure completed-call duration, dead travel, outside purchases and payment dates, then compare collected contribution with the paid fleet calendar.
Explore published business plan examples ↗Southline Recovery is a fictional prelaunch scenario prepared with AI assistance. Inputs are illustrative; forecast results come from the matching saved financial model. Funding is proposed. The diagrams explain the case and do not depict actual premises, established demand or promised earnings. Replace the assumptions with evidence before committing.
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