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Vehicle workshop software development

For garage owners and workshop managers who want job cards, findings, estimates, customer authorisation, parts and the ramp diary designed around how their technicians actually work a car, rather than a generic invoicing tool with a calendar bolted on.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

An independent garage with four ramps books cars in by phone into a paper diary.

  • The customer drops the keys through the hatch with a note that says "noise from the front, also MOT".
  • The technician finds worn drop links, a split CV boot and a tyre on the limit.
  • The service adviser rings the customer, gets voicemail, rings again at eleven, reads out three prices from a scrap of paper, and the customer says yes to two of them.
  • Nobody writes down which two.
  • The parts are ordered by phone from the factor; one arrives wrong and the car stays on the ramp an extra day, blocking tomorrow's bookings.
  • At the end of the day the invoice is typed from the job card and the handwriting on the labour line is argued over at the counter.

Where it gets harder

Service history is in a filing cabinet, so when the car comes back a year later the adviser cannot see what was advised and declined last time.

  • Reminders are a box of postcards that the owner sends when he remembers.
  • The courtesy car is on the road but nobody can say who has it.
  • The owner knows the ramps are full and the bank balance is thin, and suspects that declined work, unbilled parts and ramp time lost to waiting on parts are where the money is going, but cannot prove any of it.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom workshop build normally covers:

  • A vehicle record keyed by registration with make Model, derivative, year, mileage and VIN, with an optional lookup from a vehicle-data provider the garage already uses, and a customer record linked to the vehicles they bring in
  • A service history per vehicle built from every job card
  • A job card holding the requested work The technician's findings and a status from booked in through inspected, estimated, authorised, in progress, complete and collected
  • A parts and labour estimate built line by line from the findings Sent to the customer to approve or decline per line on their phone, with the decisions recorded and timed
  • A workshop diary with ramps and technicians as capacity So a job is booked against a ramp and a person
  • Parts ordering and stock Including parts ordered for a specific job
  • Collection or courtesy car status So the front desk knows where the customer and the car are
  • Service reminders generated by date or mileage
  • An invoice produced from the authorised lines on completion

How discovery works

Discovery follows one car from booking in to the reminder a year later with you: how the fault is described, who inspects and how findings are written down, how estimates are priced and authorised, how parts are sourced and charged, how ramp time is allocated, what the customer is told and when, and how the invoice is built. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: book in, inspect, estimate, authorise, repair, invoice, collect, remind.

Deliberately out of scope

  • The official test systems and their own terminals, diagnostic equipment and its software, accounting and payroll, and the parts catalogues themselves, which stay with the factor

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A body shop with eight bays, insurance work alongside private jobs, a parts department, two courtesy cars and a paint shop queue needs a job card that holds both the insurer's authorisation and the customer's excess, bay capacity that includes the paint booth as a stage, parts allocated per job with back-order tracking and photographs at every stage for the insurer. That is a different build from a two-ramp service garage, and the scope document says so.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following one vehicle from booking in to its service reminder
  • A written scope document naming each job stage, the authorisation rules and what is out of scope
  • Design of the job card, the estimate the customer authorises on their phone, the ramp diary and the technician view on tablet, phone and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of customer and vehicle records, service history and future bookings from your current system or paper, where practical
  • Training for the service adviser, technicians and the owner, with a short written guide
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts, the current diary, job cards and invoice paperwork, and how parts are ordered and charged today.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the owner, the service adviser and a technician; the job stage model, authorisation rules and scope document are agreed with a milestone plan.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the job card, the customer authorisation page, the ramp diary and the technician's findings screen, checked on the tablets and phones used in the workshop.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: vehicles, customers and history first, then job cards and the diary, then estimates and authorisation, then parts, courtesy cars, invoicing and reminders.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    The workshop runs a week of real jobs alongside the paper system, including an estimate authorised by a customer on their phone, and tells us where it does not match the floor.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Job statuses, estimate layout, diary rules and invoice format are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Records and history migrated, reminder messages tested against numbers you control, invoice numbering agreed with your accountant, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The workshop runs on the new system; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Vehicle-data providers for registration lookup of make, model, derivative and service schedule
  • Official inspection or test systems where an interface is published, for recording outcomes against the vehicle
  • Parts factor ordering portals and price files the garage already uses
  • SMS and email providers for estimate authorisation links, ready-for-collection messages and reminders
  • Card payment providers for deposits on parts and payment on collection
  • Accounting software for invoices, parts purchases and payments
  • Tyre and parts suppliers' fitment data where the garage sells tyres

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A body shop with insurer authorisation, a paint queue and courtesy cars

The situation

A body shop with eight bays and a paint booth handled insurer-funded repairs alongside private work, and lost bay time because the paint queue and parts back-orders were tracked on a whiteboard.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because the job moves through several capacity stages and has two paying parties, which single-diary garage software does not model.

The scope we would propose

  • A job card carrying both the insurer's authorised lines and the customer's excess, with photographs at strip, repair and refinish stages attached for the insurer
  • A diary in which the paint booth is a capacity stage of its own, so a job occupies a bay, then the booth, then a bay again
  • Parts allocated per job with back-order status visible on the job card and the diary
  • Courtesy car status showing which customer has which car and when it is due back
  • An invoice split between insurer and customer from the authorised lines

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of ramps or bays, technicians and sites
  • Whether estimates are authorised online by the customer line by line
  • Parts stock managed in the system and supplier ordering connected
  • Courtesy cars and collection or delivery tracking
  • Insurer or fleet account work with split invoicing and photographs
  • Service reminders by date or mileage and the channels used
  • Vehicle-data lookup and any official test system interface
  • Volume of customer, vehicle and history records to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Workshop management package

Job cards with findings and status, line-by-line customer authorisation, ramp and technician diary, parts per job, courtesy car status, invoicing and service reminders for garages.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Would the package do, or do we need a custom build?

An independent garage with a straightforward book-in, inspect, estimate, authorise and invoice flow is usually well served by the workshop management package configured around your ramps and technicians. Custom work is the honest answer for body shops with paint queues and insurer work, fleet maintenance contracts with their own authorisation rules, several sites or a parts department of its own. Discovery settles it before anything is quoted.

How does customer authorisation work?

The adviser builds the estimate from the technician's findings and sends a link by text or email. The customer sees each line with its parts and labour, approves or declines line by line and confirms; the decisions are recorded with a timestamp on the job card, so there is no argument at the counter about what was agreed.

Can it record official test results?

Where the official system publishes an interface, results can be read in and recorded against the vehicle; where it does not, the adviser records the outcome and advisories by hand. The test itself is always carried out on the official system, which is outside the build.

Do technicians have to use a computer?

Technicians use a tablet or their phone for the findings screen: tap the job, record what was found with a photograph, and the adviser does the pricing. The job card is designed to be read on a workshop tablet with dirty hands in mind.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. Source code, customer and vehicle records, service history and invoices are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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