Workshop OS: a complete management system for car-service workshops
A mobile app and a web dashboard that run the workshop from booking to hand-over: check-in, inspection, customer-approved estimates, parts and stock, payments, suppliers, staff payroll and owner reports. In Arabic and English, with screens shaped around each staff member's role.
Paymentery delivered the whole project for an automotive-service client who is not named, from requirements and design to development and release. The app is available on Google Play and the App Store, and the names and figures in the screenshots are sample data.
The need
The workshop ran on paper, WhatsApp and memory: no record of a car's condition at check-in, verbal quotes that ended in disputes, spare parts with unknown stock, scattered supplier invoices, salaries worked out by hand, and no clear view of the month's income.
It needed one system that is easy for whoever stands next to the car and precise for whoever handles the money, one that does not burden staff with mandatory fields and keeps everything recorded with its time and author.
Appointment and check-in
The home screen shows the cars in the workshop, the late ones, today's appointments and today's revenue. The appointment book knows the workshop's capacity so it never overbooks, and when the customer arrives check-in starts with one tap.
Check-in happens on a phone next to the car: search by plate or phone, then odometer, fuel, photos, damage marked on a car diagram and the customer's complaint. Most fields are optional so the customer is not kept waiting, and whatever is recorded is time-stamped.
Inspection, estimate and customer approval
The work order gathers everything about the car: its stage, the customer with call and WhatsApp buttons, the total and the balance. A standard inspection checklist with three states (good, attention, urgent) feeds anything that needs fixing straight into the estimate.
Estimates are built from parts and labour lines, each required or recommended, with VAT calculated. They are sent on WhatsApp or shown in person, the customer approves all or some lines, and the approval is recorded. A sent estimate never changes; any change becomes a new version.
Repair and parts
Approved lines become jobs for each technician with estimated and actual time. Parts are requested from stock, reserved for the car and then issued, and the workshop board shows every car at its stage: check-in, awaiting approval, awaiting parts, repair, quality check, ready.
Payment and hand-over
The statement is built from the approved work itself, and payment can be by mada, cash, card or transfer, in instalments, with a receipt for each. A payment is never deleted or edited; a mistake is reversed with a reason. At hand-over the odometer and next service are recorded, and the customer is told on WhatsApp that the car is ready.
Running the workshop and reports
Stock shows on-hand, reserved and available quantities for every part, with low-stock alerts. Reports cover today, the week or the month: revenue, cars delivered, collections by payment method, technician productivity, purchases and expenses, and payroll. Alongside them are VAT, branch and opening-hours settings, data export and customer import, and an audit log of who did what and when.
Suppliers and purchases
Every supplier has a page with their invoices and the balance owed. Supplier invoices come in two kinds: goods and parts, which enter stock automatically at cost, and expenses and services such as outsourced work, rent and electricity. Invoices are paid in full or in instalments, and overdue ones stand out.
Payroll and advances
Each employee has a basic salary, allowances and advances. Every month a payroll run gathers everyone, with overtime, deductions and advance repayments added, then it is approved and paid and appears in the reports as a workshop expense.
Every role sees its own work
The app changes with the role: the owner sees everything, the service advisor handles appointments, check-in, estimates and hand-over, the technician sees their jobs, inspection and parts without prices or payments, the accountant sees payments, suppliers, payroll and reports, and the storekeeper sees parts and goods invoices.
Decisions that protect the workshop
Easy for staff, precise for accounts
Most fields are optional so work never stalls, and the system fills gaps with clear defaults. Everything recorded keeps its date, time and staff member.
Money that never changes
Payments, sent estimates and the audit log are never deleted or edited; corrections are visible reversing entries. A double-tapped save or a dropped connection mid-payment never records anything twice.
Explicit stages
A work order moves through defined stages that cannot be skipped: no hand-over before the quality check, no estimate changing after it is sent.
Two languages, multiple branches
Right-to-left Arabic by design with an instant switch to English, support for multiple branches, and each workshop's data isolated from every other.
The result
The system was delivered in full: a mobile app available on Google Play and the App Store, and a web dashboard for the office and management, with daily backups whose restore has been tested. A car's whole journey from appointment to hand-over was exercised end to end, together with suppliers, payroll and every role's screens.
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