Work order software for auto repair that keeps each visit together

Why a status board beats a whiteboard

A status-based work order gives you a shared record of where a visit stands, while a whiteboard leaves much of the explanation elsewhere. A car might be on site but waiting for a decision, waiting for a part or ready for collection. Those are different situations for your service adviser and mechanic. If you record only a registration number and a short job description, your team still needs conversations, messages or memory to understand what should happen next.

Work orders have seven statuses: checked in, in progress, waiting for approval, waiting for parts, ready, delivered and cancelled; every change is logged as an event. Orders show as a board by status or as a list. Use the board when you need to see work grouped by its current stage, and the list when that presentation suits your review. The event log gives you a record of changes instead of a board that loses its previous state whenever someone wipes it clean.

How a visit becomes a work order

A visit becomes a useful work order when your staff records the car’s arrival and sets out the work clearly. Junto connects bookings and the calendar with car check-in, including photos and a signature, and work orders with labour and part lines. At the desk, use check-in to establish the starting point rather than relying on a hurried handover. For an imported used car with an uncertain background, distinguish the customer’s complaint from anything your shop has actually inspected or confirmed.

Order lines are labour or part lines; part lines carry a cost price as well as a sale price, which the profit report uses. Inventory and stock tracking are not part of Junto yet; parts are free-text lines. Write descriptions that your customer and team can understand without guessing. A clear part description helps explain the proposed work, but it is not proof that a part is available. Confirm availability separately before treating a waiting-for-parts job as ready to continue.

• Start with the customer’s stated concern and the agreed scope.
• Use check-in photos to support the handover.
• Separate labour from parts so the proposal is easy to review.
• Check part identification and availability with your supplier.

How estimates and customer approval work

Estimates and approval work at line level, so your team can distinguish proposed work from work the customer has accepted. Each labour line has a mechanic and every line has an approval state (pending or approved); estimates are the pending lines and invoices use approved lines only. This distinction matters when an inspection reveals something beyond the original request. Finding a problem, describing it and receiving permission to proceed are separate steps; your order should make that separation understandable to everyone handling the visit.

Your shop can send suggested extra work to the customer for approval through an SMS link. The customer sees each line with its price before work starts and can follow the repair’s status on their phone. Explain what you found in plain language before asking for a decision, especially if the customer cannot come back to the workshop. Keep the order’s visit status and its line approvals conceptually separate: one describes where the visit stands, while the other records whether individual work is pending or approved.

• Describe the newly found problem without unexplained workshop shorthand.
• Set out the proposed labour and parts as clear lines.
• Send the suggested extra work through the SMS approval link.
• Check line approval states before proceeding with the extra work.
• Use waiting for approval when that describes the visit’s current position.

Who uses the order in your shop

Your front desk, mechanics and management use the same visit record for different parts of the job, with staff roles supporting access. The desk needs to explain progress and coordinate customer decisions; the mechanic needs to know the work assigned to them. Managers need a clear picture of work across the shop rather than another round of verbal updates. Agree who maintains visit statuses and who communicates with the customer, so responsibility does not become unclear when several people handle the same car.

Mechanics see only their own jobs on their phone (the Junto mechanic app or the web), run job timers based on server time, tick off tasks, add photos and report "found another problem"; they never see prices. This gives the workshop a practical way to report findings without making the mechanic responsible for the commercial conversation. Your desk can use the finding to explain the next proposal to the customer. Make that handover explicit: a reported problem is a reason to review the order, not permission to perform extra work.

How work orders connect to the rest of Junto

Work orders connect the workshop’s activity to bookings, check-in, customer communication, invoices and reporting in Junto. A booking sets up the visit, check-in records arrival, and the order carries the work through its stages. Approved lines feed the invoice rather than mixing accepted work with proposals that remain pending. Junto also supports payments by cash, card, bank transfer and online. Keep the distinction between work progress and payment clear in your shop’s routine; a visit’s status should not substitute for reviewing its invoice and payment information.

The record also helps you explain a visit later instead of reconstructing it from scattered messages. Junto offers a free car owner account that keeps each car’s service history, bookings and reminders, and can be shared with family. Your customer’s view of the visit matters as well as your internal view: clear lines and understandable progress make conversations easier. Junto also includes SMS reminders, reports, reviews and a portal for corporate fleet clients, so work orders sit within a wider service-management workflow rather than standing alone.

How to set up a practical daily routine

A practical setup starts with consistent descriptions, clear responsibility and status updates when the situation changes. Walk your team through an ordinary visit and one that pauses for customer approval or parts. Decide how your staff will describe findings and hand them back to the desk. In Georgia, a car may arrive with an LPG or CNG conversion, concerns after mountain-road driving or questions before periodic technical inspection. Record the relevant concern plainly, and ask the shop’s qualified staff to determine the technical work rather than assuming it from the visit description.

Some features are modules; the pricing page shows which plan includes them, and an owner can request a module that is not in the plan from inside the app. Check that page against the workflow you want rather than assuming a particular plan contains every capability discussed here. Junto works in Georgian and English, on a computer and on a phone. Use the 14-day free trial with 100 free SMS to test a visit from check-in through approval and invoicing, including how your desk and mechanic hand work back to one another.

Questions and answers