Whether you run a workshop alongside your sales operation or you're an independent garage, you'll know how quickly things get messy. Job cards scribbled on paper. Health check results that never make it to the customer. Invoices typed up in Word. Bookings managed through a shared diary or a WhatsApp group.
We've spent the last few months building something to fix all of that. Workshop Management is now available in the Vehiso DMS - and it covers the full workshop workflow from online booking through to customer payment.
Here's what it does and why we built it the way we did.
What's included
Workshop Management covers everything you need to run a workshop from within your Vehiso dealer management system. Your workshop data lives alongside your stock, enquiries, and customer records - no separate system, no separate login.
There are three sides to it:
- Back office - full workshop management for you and your admin staff
- Technician view - a simple, mobile-first interface for your technicians
- Customer-facing pages - online booking, health check reports, and invoice payment
Job cards that actually track the whole job
Job cards are the core of workshop management. Each one tracks a vehicle, customer, assigned technician, and all the line items - labour, parts, and sundries.
Every job card moves through clear statuses: Pending → In Progress → Awaiting Parts → Awaiting Approval → Completed → Invoiced. You can see at a glance where every job stands without walking into the workshop and asking.
When you create a job card, you can look up an existing customer and vehicle or add a new one. If the vehicle is new, enter the registration and we'll pull the details from the DVLA automatically. No typing out the make, model, year, and colour manually.
You can assign a technician, track time with clock-in/clock-out, add line items with pricing and VAT, and print a branded PDF of the job card. Once a customer has paid the invoice, the job card locks automatically - no accidental edits after the fact.
Digital vehicle health checks
This is the feature I'm most pleased with. Paper health checks are a pain for everyone involved - the technician filling them in, the service advisor interpreting the handwriting, and the customer who gets a phone call describing work they can't visualise.
Our digital vehicle health check (VHC) system replaces all of that.
How it works for technicians
Your technician opens the health check on their phone or tablet, works through a configurable checklist, and marks each item as green (good), amber (advisory), or red (requires attention). For items like tyres, there are specific fields for tread depth measurements - inner, middle, and outer.
The technician can attach photos and videos to any check item. If the brake discs are worn, they photograph them. If there's a fluid leak, they record a video. This evidence goes directly to the customer - no more "you'll have to take our word for it."
Each amber or red item includes a recommended action and an estimated cost, so the customer sees exactly what's being proposed and what it would cost.
Health checks auto-save as the technician works through them, so nothing gets lost if they put the phone down to answer a question or move to the next bay.
We ship three templates out of the box:
- Standard VHC - 27 items across 8 sections
- PDI checklist - 25 items across 7 sections
- MOT prep checklist - 26 items across 6 sections
You can also create custom templates with your own sections and items, and reorder everything with drag-and-drop.
How it works for customers
Once the technician completes a health check, you send it to the customer via a secure link. The customer enters a PIN (sent separately by SMS or email) and sees the full report - colour-coded, with photos, videos, and estimated costs.
Here's the part that saves the most back-and-forth: the customer can approve or decline each proposed work item individually, right there on the page. They see the total for approved work, sign digitally to authorise it, and the approved items are automatically added to the job card as line items.
No phone tag. No "I'll call you back." No handwritten notes about what the customer agreed to. It's all recorded, signed, and actioned.
Online service bookings
Your customers can now book services directly through your car dealer website. The booking widget walks them through three steps: select a service type, choose a date and time, and enter their details.
You set your operating hours, available days, and how many jobs you can take at once per branch. The system handles the rest - if a slot is full, it doesn't show up. No overbooking, no manual diary checks.
When a customer books, a job card is automatically created with the correct type (MOT, service, or repair) pre-filled. Confirmation emails and SMS messages go out through your customisable communication templates.
Invoicing and payments
You can generate an invoice directly from a job card's line items. It pulls in your VAT rate, currency, and payment terms, and produces a branded PDF.
From there, you send the customer a payment link by email or SMS. They review the invoice and pay online through Stripe, PayPal, or SumUp. If they pay in person, you record the payment manually - cash, bank transfer, card terminal, or cheque. Once paid, the invoice and its linked job card lock automatically.
A dedicated view for technicians
Your technicians get their own mobile-first interface. When they log in, they see only what they need:
- My Jobs - their assigned job cards with status and elapsed time
- Clock In/Out - one-tap time tracking with a live timer
- Health Checks - start and complete checks from their phone
- Mark Complete - finish a job when the work is done
They don't see your stock, enquiries, or sales dashboard. Just their jobs and their health checks. You can hand a technician a login without worrying about them accessing parts of the system they don't need.
Communication templates
Workshop management adds automatic email and SMS notifications for key moments - booking confirmations, health check reports sent to customers, customer approvals, payment links, and payment confirmations.
Each template uses dynamic placeholders (customer name, vehicle reg, job reference, etc.) so the messages are personalised automatically. We include default templates for everything, but you can customise the wording to match how your business communicates.
Configurable per branch
If you run multiple locations, each branch gets its own workshop settings - service types, labour rates, operating hours, booking availability, VAT rate, and payment terms. Your workshop in Manchester can run differently from your workshop in Birmingham, all within the same Vehiso dealer management system.
Who is this for?
- Car dealers with a workshop - manage your service department inside the same platform you use for stock, enquiries, and sales
- Independent garages - a full workshop management system without needing a separate DMS or cobbling together multiple tools
- MOT testing stations - digital health checks with customer approval workflows and online booking
- Multi-branch operations - per-location workshop configuration for hours, labour rates, and service types
Whether you're a dealership that services its own stock and customer cars, or a standalone garage looking for a modern way to run your workshop, this is built for you.
Get started
Workshop Management is available now in the Vehiso DMS. If you're already on Vehiso, you can enable it from your account settings. If you're not on Vehiso yet, start a 7-day free trial and explore the full platform including workshop management.
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