Parts makers sit on PLN 310 million of arrears. Workshop quotes go stale on the shelf
On 27 August 2026 BIG InfoMonitor reported that overdue debts of Polish automotive parts manufacturers had passed PLN 310 million. Trade and independent workshops are recovering liquidity in the same data. On the shop floor the problem is stock, the price on the quote, and a bay waiting for a carton.
On 27 August 2026 Bankier.pl, citing PAP, reported BIG InfoMonitor figures: overdue liabilities of Polish manufacturers of automotive parts and components had passed PLN 310 million. In two years that group’s share of motor-industry production debt had risen to 90 per cent. In the same report, parts trade and workshops are recovering their balance — arrears among parts-trading firms fell 2.9 per cent year on year.
For an independent garage the announcement is about the shelf, the figure on the slip the customer was given on Monday, and a bay that is still occupied on Tuesday because the carton never arrived. Workshop parts stock is priced differently from the quote, and the mechanic does not know whether the part is reserved or merely “ordered from someone”.
What the BIG InfoMonitor and BIK figures show
The report matches the BIG InfoMonitor Debtors Register with BIK data on late credit obligations. The cut-off is the end of June 2026. Arrears of manufacturers of vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers — a category that also includes parts production — rose from PLN 62.7 million in June 2023 to PLN 344.5 million. That is more than a fivefold increase.
Until 2024, manufacturers of parts and accessories generated less than 40 per cent of the arrears of automotive production firms, or PLN 23.7 million. In 2025 the figure was already PLN 269.2 million; in 2026 it was PLN 310.7 million. The share exceeded 90 per cent. The proportion of unreliable debtors has returned to the level of four years ago and fallen to 4 per cent, but the total amount outstanding has grown several times over in that period.
BIG InfoMonitor president Paweł Szarkowski says in the PAP piece that the trouble is not spreading to an ever larger number of firms. It is concentrated in a group of businesses that have been in difficulty for some time. Further growth in debt — on that reading — no longer looks like isolated events, but like persistent pressure in this part of the sector.
The macro backdrop is in the same text. In 2025 the sold production of vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers — with parts inside that category — rose 2.9 per cent, to PLN 226.7 billion. Industry exports last year fell 3.73 per cent, to EUR 43.8 billion. The authors link manufacturers’ arrears to weaker demand in the European automotive industry and to competition from Chinese producers. That is a description of the cycle, not a verdict on the particular supplier from which a workshop buys pads.
Trade and service catch their breath. Production does not
Payment arrears of trade and vehicle repair as a whole stood at PLN 1.22 billion at the end of June 2026. Over 2023–2026 they rose 7.22 per cent, but the pace is slowing: 5.11 per cent in 2023–2024, 1.45 per cent in 2024–2025 and 0.55 per cent in the latest year. In vehicle sales the growth of arrears fell from 7.68 per cent to 1.27 per cent. In parts sales the total outstanding is now 16.7 per cent lower than four years ago.
The gap between factory and garage also shows per firm. The average arrears of an unreliable debtor in vehicle production reach PLN 1.49 million. In trade and vehicle repair they are PLN 90,000. Parts manufacturers increased their arrears by 15.4 per cent in a year. Firms trading in parts reduced theirs by 2.9 per cent.
Waldemar Rogowski, chief analyst at BIG InfoMonitor and BIK, puts it plainly in the report: local trade and car workshops are less exposed to global shocks and are, at the same time, recovering market and liquidity balance. Production stands on the front line of those shifts. A workshop that has not fallen into arrears of its own feels the effect elsewhere: in availability, in price and in the promised date, not in a plant’s million-zloty debt.
On the same day, 27 August 2026, PAP Biznes published an interview with Inter Cars chief executive Maciej Oleksowicz. Poland’s largest parts distributor talks about deferred demand from last year and about inflation in automotive parts prices. In 2025 there was deflation. In 2026 prices — on that view — are catching up with the macro indicators, and manufacturers are raising lists. Group revenue in the first half grew by about 12 per cent year on year. Oleksowicz adds that electromobility has not proved the threat that was advertised: electric vehicles also need service, and their share of the Central European park is still small.
What this means on the shop floor, not in the factory
A workshop does not repay a manufacturer’s debts. It orders from a distributor, sometimes from two or three, and promises the customer a date. When someone at the source of the chain has not been paying for months, and someone else is raising prices after a year of falls, three effects show on the floor. A part that the catalogue marked “today” slips to tomorrow or to “enquire”. Last week’s quote does not match the purchase invoice. A bay that was supposed to free up in the afternoon is still occupied because nothing arrived.
The steps have been the same for years: diagnosis, parts list, labour, customer approval, order, goods-in, fitting, invoice. They now drift apart. The wholesaler’s catalogue lives its own life. The slip at the till, or last week’s spreadsheet, lives another. The mechanic on a messenger channel lives a third. The customer rings a fourth number because nobody replies on a status that nobody wrote down.
The autumn tyre and geometry season has not yet begun. In August the hall is full anyway: air-conditioning, brakes after the holidays, inspections before a trip. If delivery uncertainty and a moving purchase price are added to that calendar, the workshop does not lose on “the automotive crisis”. It loses on hours already promised, with no part on the shelf.
Example: four bays and a clutch that never arrived
Picture an independent workshop with four bays. A handful of mechanics, passenger cars and light vans, a regular group of customers from the estate and a few company cars billed on invoice. This is not a description of a named firm. That scale is common in Poland.
A customer leaves a car for a clutch. Diagnosis on Monday, a handwritten quote: kit, dual-mass flywheel, labour. The customer nods. The office orders parts from two suppliers, because one has the disc and the other the bearing. On Tuesday morning one line arrives, at a different price from the quote. The second does not arrive. The catalogue status jumps. The car sits on the lift because it is “already stripped”. The bay cannot take the next job. The customer rings in the afternoon to ask whether it will be ready on Wednesday. Nobody has a single answer, because the order sits in an email, the price in a notebook, and the car on the floor.
Another parts catalogue on a second screen does not help in this story. A job card does: which lines are in stock, which are reserved, which are in transit and at what purchase price. If the delivery slips, the workshop knows at once whether to push the car onto the yard and let someone with oil and filters onto the ramp. An SMS to the customer with a new date leaves from that same card, not from the memory of whoever picked up the phone.
On the shelf, in transit, reserved for a job
Stock in a small garage rarely looks like a warehouse. It is a shelf of filters, pads, oils, bulbs and leftovers from earlier jobs. The rest arrives by courier the same day or the next. While prices were falling and deliveries landed before noon, that model turned over. When a distributor talks about parts inflation, and someone at the start of the chain carries arrears counted in hundreds of millions, “tomorrow” stops being certain.
The usual jam is not that the workshop cannot place an order. It is that the same part number lives in three places. In the supplier’s catalogue it is available. On the floor someone took the last unit for another car and did not write it down. On the customer’s quote it still says “in stock”. A reservation against the job — if it exists at all — is a sticky note or a message. The second repair that day eats the first job’s part.
A shared stock list with a reservation against the job number removes that argument. The part leaves free stock when the quote is accepted, not when the mechanic has already dropped the gearbox. An “in transit” line has a date and a supplier. If the courier does not come, the card does not pretend the goods are on the shelf. Workshop software has one job here: one part number, one quantity, one job. It does not replace the Inter Cars catalogue or any other distributor. It must not lie to the mechanic when the catalogue and the shelf diverge.
With a larger run of fast movers — oils, filters, pads — it is also worth counting the value of the shelf and the age of stock. A part that has sat since winter has frozen cash. A part that runs out every week should have a reorder point, not return as “we’ll buy it when someone turns up”. That can still be a spreadsheet if there are a few dozen lines and one person watches them. With several mechanics taking parts off the shelf with no record, the sheet stays in the office and the floor lives its own life.
A quote that stops being true after a few days
A repair quote is a promise of two numbers: the parts price and the labour. The workshop sets the labour itself. It takes the parts price from the supplier’s list on the day someone clicked. In the 27 August interview Oleksowicz talks about manufacturer increases and about parts inflation after a year of deflation. A workshop that leaves the customer an open quote “sometime this week” is selling at a price that may no longer exist when the order is placed.
When the car is on site and the customer is still thinking, the pressure runs both ways. Either the workshop swallows the difference from its margin so as not to reopen the conversation. Or it rings with a new figure and looks as if it is padding the bill. A third route — a quote with an expiry date and a note that the parts price comes from the list on day X — is dull and honest. It works if the office actually knows which day that figure belongs to.
A quote card with a date, a price source and a status of “accepted / expired / repriced” removes the guesswork. After acceptance the system can reserve stock or raise an order on the supplier. If the customer stays silent for three days, the quote drops off the schedule by itself and does not block a bay. The amount, the date and the job simply have to sit in one place, not on a slip at the till and in a messenger thread.
With fleets and firms billed on invoice there is also email approval. The person who drops the car off often does not sign the figure. Accounts reply in the afternoon. If availability or price moves in the meantime, the workshop should have a trace of which version of the quote took effect. Otherwise a dispute over a couple of hundred zloty on pads eats an hour of a mechanic’s time and two hours of phone calls.
The bay waits for a carton
An hour on the lift costs money whether or not the part arrived. A car stripped “because the bearing will be here tomorrow” occupies a ramp just as a car in repair does. In the four-bay workshop from the example, one blocked space is a quarter of the hall. Oil, pads and geometry — jobs that could have been squeezed in — sit on the car park or never come in, because “there is no room”.
A schedule on the wall, or in a calendar, does not see parts status. It sees a name and a time. That is why the hall strips first, then waits, then apologises to the next customer. The order should be the reverse: parts in stock or a firm delivery slot, then the bay. There are exceptions — diagnosis, a car that cannot be left outside, a customer off a recovery truck. An exception stops being an exception when someone “has already dropped the box” every other day.
A calendar slot tied to parts status on the job changes the morning briefing. The mechanic sees which cars have a complete kit on the shelf and which are waiting for the courier. The office does not promise Wednesday if the bearing is still “enquire”. If the workshop also visits fleets on site, the same status should travel with the mechanic. A field-service app will not replace the hall, but a “replace at the customer’s” job without confirmation that the part is in the van ends in a second visit.
The tyre season in Poland usually picks up in September and October. Diaries then split on changes that take less time than a clutch but still eat bays. If through August the hall has learnt to hold cars “just in case”, October will deepen the habit. Parts status and a short tyre slot in the same calendar are not a luxury. They are a way to stop the season eating the repairs on which the workshop makes its margin.
The customer, the phone and an empty slot
When the part does not arrive, the customer still rings. Not because they are difficult. Because they left a car and do not know whether to take a hire car or wait. In a small workshop the phone is answered by whoever is not looking at the order. The reply is “I’ll check and call back”. The call-back dies in the queue. The next day the customer does not come for collection because nobody said the car was ready. Or they arrive and the car is not there, because the part only came in that morning.
An empty slot after a collection that nobody made is the same cost as a no-show in a salon. The difference is that the workshop often caused that no-show itself, by not informing anyone. An SMS reminder of the collection time and a short status — received, parts ordered, in repair, ready — leave from the job card. Not from a good memory. The customer does not need to log into a portal. A link in a message is enough. A portal makes sense for fleets that want to see several cars at once, not for every oil service.
It is also worth recording who approved the quote and by which channel. A conversation at the till, an SMS, an email from accounts. In a dispute about scope — “it was only supposed to be the clutch, and a dual-mass came out of it” — a trace of acceptance is cheaper than a discount “to keep the peace”. This is still not a law firm. It is order on a job that the workshop will not escape when the customer returns with a complaint.
A second repair on the same car
The BIG InfoMonitor report does not talk about parts quality. It talks about money at manufacturers and about parts trade in Poland currently paying its way better than production. On the floor the old question still returns: original, premium pattern, cheapest line in the catalogue. The customer often picks the lowest figure. The workshop fits it. A few weeks later the car is back. The second labour charge is rarely paid in full. The part goes back to the supplier as a claim, if anyone recorded the purchase invoice number and the part from the first job.
Without a history on the VIN the workshop guesses. Same axle? Were the pads from that delivery? Did the customer drive between repairs? A paper file goes missing. A messenger thread goes missing faster. A vehicle card with a list of jobs, parts and the supplier does not settle an argument about quality. It gives the workshop a case when it goes to the wholesaler for a claim, and some quiet when the customer says “you did this only recently”.
On oils, filters and pads, VIN history is also a way to sell the next service, not only a shield. The workshop sees what was done a year ago and can propose a scope before the car comes in. That works if someone records the data at all. Many garages record it on the invoice and stop there. The invoice goes to the bookkeeper. The hall goes back to a blank slip.
Waste after a repair is a separate matter: oil, filters, pads, a battery, packaging. Parts stock will not handle that. The records that BDO requires will, described separately in the piece on waste consignment notes and a panel that survives an inspection. An “oil change” job with no waste event leaves a gap: there is turnover, and “no waste”. When a part comes back under claim, it is worth knowing whether the unit that came off the car has already gone for disposal or is still in a carton on the returns shelf.
A spreadsheet, a wholesaler catalogue and workshop software
A one-person workshop with one shelf and a regular supplier can live on a spreadsheet and an account in the distributor’s shop. A quote on a slip, stock in someone’s head, a date in a notebook. That works for as long as the owner is at the till. It breaks in the first week the owner is ill and a mechanic sells the last set of pads “because the catalogue said we had them”.
Off-the-shelf workshop software — there is plenty of it — is enough when the process is textbook: booking-in, quote, parts, labour, invoice. Take it before anyone commissions a bespoke application. The problem starts when the workshop has several price lists (retail, fleet, family), orders from three suppliers, does field service, runs a used-car lot or wants a fleet customer to see status without ringing. Then the SaaS product either cuts the process or adds manual work around itself.
An integration with the supplier’s catalogue is worth it if it really stops retyping part numbers. Not every wholesaler opens an API to a small garage. Sometimes it is enough that the workshop types the part number by hand, so long as stock and purchase price land on the job. A dedicated panel pays when the package does not handle stock reservation, quote validity and bay scheduling together, and the firm is already losing hours stitching that together in email. A ready-made programme or software to order is a question about the process, not about prestige.
The workshop does not abandon a working account with the distributor it orders from every day. It does not replace KSeF, the till or the bookkeeping package. Workshop software should watch the job, the shelf and the hall. The invoice leaves from there or from an integrator. Official channels stay official.
Where these threads meet in one panel
The 27 August report does not tell a workshop to “go digital because of parts inflation”. It shows a split: production against the wall, service and parts trade in better shape, and on the floor a workshop can still lose margin on last week’s quote and on a bay that is waiting. GESOFT builds panels for that flow when a package stops joining stock, the quote and the schedule on a single job card.
In practice this is a handful of things from this story, not a feature catalogue. A job card with VIN, scope and quote acceptance. Parts status: free, reserved, in transit, return. A bay slot that does not promise Wednesday on an empty shelf. An SMS when the date changes and when the car is ready. A repair history on the vehicle when the same fault comes back. For work at the customer’s site — a list of parts in the mechanic’s van before they leave. That can be mapped on paper. Then it is clear whether an integration with what the workshop already has will do, or whether a separate panel is needed.
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