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For independent repair shops

The shop
system built
by a shop.

Estimates, inspections, approvals and payments on one record per vehicle, from write-up to paid. Written inside a working repair shop, for the 1-to-5-bay shops that run like it.

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Printed estimate, the full page: a blue header band with the shop name Ricardo's Repair Shop in script lettering, a tagline line, a contact band with a Bozeman, Montana address, phone, email and website, vehicle and customer blocks for a 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT, the concern (front brake pulsation and a P0300 misfire), the diagnosis, the recommendations, an estimate table with quantity, type, item, comments, price and extended columns grouped into a brake job, a misfire job and a recommended cabin filter with a blank row between groups, a totals box with parts, labor, sublet, shop supply, tax and balance, and the customer signature, date and work-order block at the foot.
Customer approval page on a phone under the Ricardo's Repair Shop masthead: a green 'Estimate approved' banner signed by the customer, the estimate number and vehicle, then the vehicle inspection summary with counts of 4 needs attention now, 6 soon and 26 checked OK, the technician's note, and the first findings: front brake pads at 2 mm with a photo, and front rotors.

Customer’s phone

  • Flat monthly rate
  • Up to 3 users included
  • Month-to-month
  • Card payments built in

Product tour

One job, start to finish.

Every screen below is the product as it runs in our own shop today, shown on a demo ticket, not a mock-up. The steps are in the order a job actually happens: write it up, print it, get it approved, do the work, pull parts, close the books, get paid.

01Write it up

Start from the VIN, end with a priced ticket.

Enter the VIN and the decoder fills year, make, model, trim and engine. The customer and their vehicles are already on file with every prior job. Then add lines the way you would write them on paper: parts, labor, sublet, shop supply. Flip a fresh line to labor after a part and it starts as “Remove & Replace” that part.

  • Pick parts from your catalog; the price follows your markup and rebate bands.
  • Works with the industry-standard labor guides you already use (ALLDATA, Mitchell): one click opens the guide with the VIN from the ticket, and our free browser helper takes ALLDATA straight to the vehicle.
  • Assign a tech per line with their pay percentage; commissions land in the ledger.
  • Estimate, work order and invoice are one document that changes type as the job moves.
Work order editor, dark UI: customer and vehicle panels with a decoded VIN reading 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT, then line items for front brake rotors, front brake pads and hardware, and a labor line prefilled 'Remove & Replace Front Brake Pads & Rotors' with a dated comment, hours, tech, R&R operation, cost, mode and gross-profit percentage.
Work order editor on a phone, dark UI: a labor line 'Remove & Replace Front Brake Pads & Rotors' with a dated comment, hours, price, extended amount, labor type, tech and operation fields, then a four-wheel alignment sublet line, and a sticky bar at the bottom showing the running total and a Save button.

What the customer sees

02Print it

The form your customers already know.

Print or PDF straight from the work order. The page is matched to the paper form our shop used for eighteen years: the header band, the columns, the terms, the totals block. Switching systems should not mean retraining customers on a new piece of paper.

  • Your shop name, contact line and legal terms print in the header and footer.
  • Vehicle, customer, issue, diagnosis and recommendations above the lines.
  • Estimate and invoice share the form; the title changes, the layout does not.
The same printed estimate for a different shop, Melinda's Auto Care in Bangor, Maine, showing that the shop name (here in a warm italic serif), tagline and contact band in the header are the shop's own: header band, contact band, vehicle and customer blocks, concern, diagnosis, recommendations, the grouped estimate table, the totals box and the signature and work-order block.

Also for body and dent shops

Works for body and dent shops too.

A hail job on a dent-repair ticket prints on the same form. The payer strip carries the insurer, the claim number and the deductible above the concern; the diagnosis counts dents per panel; the lines sit in the groups the adjuster expects, the hail work on the roof, hood and trunk in one block and the door ding in its own.

  • Mark the payer as insurance and the sheet gains a payer strip: insurer, claim number, deductible.
  • Body, paint, frame and glass labor types per line, with the R&I, R&R, blend, refinish or repair operation.
  • Blank rows group the lines the way the adjuster reads them; a recommended add-on rides along at no charge until it is approved.
Printed estimate for a paintless dent repair shop, Derek's Dent Repair in Boise, Idaho, with a mobile PDR tagline: vehicle and customer blocks for a 2021 Subaru Outback Premium, a payer strip naming the insurer, the claim number and the deductible, the hail-damage concern, the diagnosis counting dents per panel, the recommendations, then an estimate table grouped into the hail job (roof, hood and trunk lid PDR plus roof-rail and headliner removal) and a separate door-ding crease, with a recommended paint protection film sublet at the end, the totals box and the signature and work-order block.
Line items on a dent-repair work order, dark UI: three labor lines for paintless dent repair on the roof, hood and trunk lid, each with a hail comment, hours, price and extended amount, body labor type, an assigned tech field and the Repair operation.

03Get it approved

Approve by line, from a link.

Send the customer a link. They see each line with its price, authorize or decline the recommended work, sign with their typed name, and the total follows their choices. When an inspection was done, it rides along with the estimate: what needs attention now, what can wait, the tech’s note, the photos.

  • Per-line authorize or decline; the total updates as they choose.
  • Typed-name signature, with the terms they agreed to kept on the work order.
  • Declines are recorded per line and feed the close-rate report.
  • Inspection findings and photos on the same page as the estimate.
Customer approval page on a phone: the work on the estimate listed line by line with a date or note under each and prices, then 'Recommended by your technician' showing a cabin air filter with Authorize and Decline buttons, Decline selected and its price struck through, and the customer's total below.
Customer approval page on a phone under the Ricardo's Repair Shop masthead: a green 'Estimate approved' banner signed by the customer, the estimate number and vehicle, then the vehicle inspection summary with counts of 4 needs attention now, 6 soon and 26 checked OK, the technician's note, and the first findings: front brake pads at 2 mm with a photo, and front rotors.

04Do the work

Bay tools that fit in a pocket.

It runs on the phone already in your pocket, installed from the browser, no app store. Inspections are built for a thumb in a glove: big targets, one tap per item, camera right there. The full work order editor works on the phone too, sticky total and all.

  • Good, Watch, Urgent or N/A per item, plus a measurement, a photo and a note.
  • Photos from the phone camera go on the work order with captions.
  • Photos taken without signal are kept and sent when you are back in range.
  • Work board and worklist for what is in the shop today.
Technician inspection screen on a phone, dark UI: courtesy check on a 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, 36 of 36 items checked, category chips for tires, brakes, under hood and lights, and the brakes section with Good, Watch, Urgent and N/A buttons per item, a 2 mm measurement, a note and a photo on the front pads.
Photos panel on a work order, dark UI: four captioned photos of a scored front rotor, carbon in an intake port, a cleaned throttle body and worn front pads, with an Add photos button.
Install prompt: 'Install Auto ShopWorks: full-screen on your phone, opens from the home screen, and keeps photos you add without signal', with Not now and Install buttons.

05Pull parts

A parts ledger, not a guess.

Every part you sell lives in a catalog with cost and price. Stock moves through a ledger (received, committed to open work orders, available) so the number on the screen is the number on the shelf.

  • On hand, committed and available per part, with low-stock flags.
  • Receipts and reconciliation in the ledger, so counts get corrected with a paper trail.
  • Transfers between locations if you run more than one.
  • Seed the catalog from your invoice history; that is how ours started.
Parts catalog, dark UI: a searchable table of part numbers, descriptions, category, on hand, committed, available, cost and price columns, with low-stock flags.

06Close the books

The P&L your accountant asks for.

Month by month: revenue by bucket, margin after parts cost, tech labor, commissions and card fees, and what was collected in tax. Expenses go in the same place, rent to shop rags, and net against the jobs.

  • Sales, accounts receivable, revenue by tech, close rate, commissions and inventory reports.
  • Expense ledger with categories, vendors, how it was paid, recurring bills and a snapped receipt.
  • Sales tax on its own card, built for Arizona TPT.
  • Export CSV and print from the reports.
Monthly P&L report, dark UI, headed 'Hometown Tire & Auto, Reports': tiles for total revenue, net after costs, operating expenses, net profit, invoice count, average ticket and tax collected, a revenue-by-bucket bar list for parts, labor, sublet and shop supply, and a trailing-twelve-month revenue line chart.
Expenses ledger, dark UI, headed 'Northside Automotive, Ledger': a month's spending bar by category, a log-an-expense form with category chips (rent, utilities, insurance, shop supplies, tools, software, payroll and more), amount, date, vendor, paid-with and receipt fields, and beside it the ledger with rent, utilities, insurance, tools and supplies entries.

What the customer sees

07Get paid

Card at the counter, or a link.

Send a pay link or take the card in person. The processing fee shows as its own line before the customer pays, and cash, check or Zelle at pickup pays the flat balance. Checkout runs on Stripe.

  • Card fee passed through as a visible line, not folded into the price.
  • Card, cash, check, Zelle and deposits all recorded on the invoice.
  • The Stripe account is yours; payouts go to the shop's bank.
Customer pay page on a phone under the Roberts Auto Care masthead with a Winter Park, Florida address: the invoice marked ready to pay, the balance, the card processing fee shown as its own line, the total by card, then a card with the shop's phone number to pay over the phone or at pickup, and a note that cash, check or Zelle at pickup pays the flat balance.

Where it comes from

Built by a shop owner,
not a software company.

Auto ShopWorks started eighteen years ago with a spreadsheet inside a working independent repair shop. Then we added features steadily as the years passed: markup bands, tech pay, profit tables, the legal terms across the bottom, and we grew through four successively larger locations with the system growing alongside.

When it was time for real software we did not want to trade our numbers for someone else’s template. So we built the system around what already worked, then kept going: approvals, inspections, photos, inventory, the P&L, payments. Every job adds to the vehicle’s record, so the system is worth more in year three than on day one. It runs the shop every day, and every screen on this page was taken from it.

It is built for independent shops of every kind — general repair, performance, collision, dent and detail — by people who have run one. Not a template someone guessed at from the outside: the way a shop actually works, on a screen.

18years
of steady building, from a spreadsheet to a complete shop system
4locations
each one larger than the last, and the system grew with every move
Thousandsof lines
of the shop's own invoice history seeded the customer list, vehicle history and parts catalog
3users included
on the flat monthly rate, so the crew logs in without a per-seat line

Pricing

Founding shop pricing.

We are bringing on a small number of founding shops and setting the rate with them. It is one flat monthly number for the whole shop; ask and we will tell you what it is.

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Founding shop planMonth-to-month
Flat monthly rate
One number for the whole shop.
Up to 3 users included
Owner, writer and a tech log in on the same rate.
Month-to-month
No contract. Stop when you want to stop.
Or pay yearly, get two months free
Founding shops keep their rate locked for 3 years.
One record per vehicle
Every inspection, photo and approval stays on the vehicle's record.
Declined work, kept
Declined work is tracked with the reason and the photo, ready for follow-up.
Print-ready paperwork
Print-ready estimates in your shop's own layout.
Payments built in
Card payments and pay links built in.

Card processing runs through a Stripe account you own, with every fee laid out on the payments page before you turn it on. Anything that costs us money per use, we pass through and say so.

Questions

Straight answers.

We run on spreadsheets (or another system). How do we move over?

The same way we did. Our own shop’s history came in from a spreadsheet, 8,617 invoice lines, and became the customer list, vehicle history and parts catalog. From then on every job adds to the same record. Send us what you have, a workbook or an export, and we load customers, vehicles and history before you write your first ticket.

How many people can use it?

Up to 3 users are included on the flat rate: typically the owner, a service writer and a tech. Each line on a work order can be assigned to a tech with their pay percentage, and the commission ledger and revenue-by-tech report follow from that.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. It installs from the browser on iPhone and Android with no app store, opens full-screen from the home screen, and uses the phone camera for photos. Inspections are laid out for a thumb. Photos taken without signal, in the middle of a metal building, are kept on the phone and sent when you are back in range.

How do payments work?

Card payments run on Stripe through a Stripe account the shop owns, either from a pay link the customer opens on their phone or in person at the counter. The card processing fee appears as its own line the customer sees before paying. Cash, check, Zelle and deposits are recorded on the invoice alongside card payments.

Can I text or email the estimate from inside the app?

Not yet. Today you copy the approval link (or the pay link) and send it the way you already talk to your customers. Sending from inside the app is on our list; we would rather tell you that plainly than promise it early.

Can I get my data out?

Yes. Settings has a one-click export of everything — customers, vehicles, work orders, line items, payments, parts, inspections — as CSV files in a zip.

Is there a contract?

No. It is month-to-month. Ask us anything else at hello@autoshopworks.com.

Next ticket

Write the next one in it.

Sign up, decode a VIN, add a few lines, print it. If it does not feel like your shop by the end of the first ticket, tell us why.

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