Your first repair order

A repair order is the record a car’s visit lives on — the estimate, the approved work, and eventually the invoice are all one record moving through statuses. Creating one takes two clicks plus whatever typing the customer and vehicle need, and everything on it stays editable until you generate an invoice.

Create the repair order

1. Click New repair order at the top of the sidebar. The button is on every screen, so you never have to navigate somewhere first.
2. Fill in the customer and the vehicle — both are covered step by step below.
3. Click Start repair order. The estimate builder opens with your new repair order in Estimate status.

That is the whole flow: two button clicks, with the form in between.

The New repair order screen. ① Pick an existing customer or type a new one. ② The vehicle, with VIN decode. ③ Start repair order.

Pick an existing customer

If the customer has been in before:

1. Type part of their name into Find customer and click Find.
2. Matches appear as buttons showing the name and phone number. Click the right one.
3. Their vehicles load as buttons in the Vehicle card. Click the car that is in the shop, or leave it unselected and enter a different vehicle by hand.

Picked the wrong person? Click Change next to the selected name and search again.

Or create a new customer

If there is no match, just type the details in — a new customer record is created along with the repair order:

• Customer name is the only required field on the whole screen. Everything else can be filled in later.
• Phone and Email are optional, but a phone number is what lets you text the customer their estimate for approval — see Text messaging.

Tip: do not worry about typos. The customer’s name, phone, and email stay editable on the repair order itself, and fixing them never means deleting anything.

Add the vehicle

For a new vehicle you have two paths:

• With a VIN: type or paste the VIN into VIN and click Decode VIN. Year, make, model, and engine fill in automatically when the VIN is recognized.
• Without one: type Year, Make, Model, Engine, and Mileage by hand. None of them are required.

The decode never blocks you. If the VIN is not recognized you see No VIN match — enter the vehicle details manually and every field stays open for typing. A partial decode is fine too — whatever came back is filled in, and you correct or complete the rest.

Note: the decode fills year, make, model, and engine only. Mileage is always entered by hand.

What a fresh repair order looks like

The moment you click Start repair order you land in the estimate builder. A brand-new repair order looks sparse on purpose — nothing is on it yet.

A fresh repair order: the vehicle as the title, the Estimate badge, an empty jobs area, and the summary card waiting for its first line.

From top to bottom:

• The header shows the vehicle as the title, an Estimate status badge, and a subtitle with the repair order number and the customer’s name. Every repair order gets a number like RO #42, counted per shop.
• A status dropdown sits in the header. You will not need it yet — a new repair order is an estimate until the customer approves it or you move it yourself. See Customer approvals.
• The jobs area says No jobs yet — add one with + New job, with + New job and + Canned job buttons underneath.
• The summary card on the right shows $0.00 and a short hint. Parts, labor, tax, and the total appear here as lines land — totals recompute automatically on every change, so you never do the math.
• The Customer card below it holds the name, phone, and email you just entered. Edits here save automatically when you leave a field.

Add the first job and line

Work on a repair order is grouped into jobs — “Front brakes”, “Oil change” — and each job holds its part and labor lines. Even a one-line estimate gets a job.

Creating a repair order and adding the first line — the total updates as soon as the line lands.

1. Click + New job. A job card named “New job” appears.
2. Click the job’s label, type a real name, and press Enter.
3. Click + Add line at the bottom of the job card. An entry row opens with a Kind dropdown set to Part.
4. For a part: type the name, an optional part number, the quantity (blank means 1), and the price, then click the ✓ button or press Enter.
5. For labor: switch Kind to Labor, then type the description, the hourly rate, and the hours. The price fills in as rate times hours — you can type over it if you quoted a flat figure.
6. Watch the summary card: subtotal, tax, and total update the moment the line is saved.

The ✓ button stays disabled until the line has a name, and the ✕ button next to it closes the row without saving. To change a saved line later, just click it — every line opens for inline editing. The full tour of jobs, lines, drag-to-move, discounts, and deposits is in Estimate builder.

Note: when your shop has a default labor rate set in Shop settings, the rate field starts pre-filled with it. The rate is always editable per line.

Tip: for work you quote every week, skip the typing — apply a template from your canned jobs library with the + Canned job button, and the whole job lands priced in two clicks.

Role note: creating repair orders is Owner and Advisor work. A Technician’s sidebar has no New repair order button, and the builder is read-only for them — their entry point is inspections. See Staff and roles.

Where to go next

• Build out the estimate — jobs, line editing, and the summary rail: Estimate builder
• Document the car’s condition with photos: Digital inspections
• Text the estimate to the customer for approval: Customer approvals
• Booked cars can skip this screen entirely — an appointment converts to a repair order in one click: Appointments

The customer and vehicle records you just created are now searchable from the Customers screen, and every future visit of this car stacks up in its service history — see Customers and vehicles.