The solid bones underneath.
Every car in the shop on one board, paperwork that holds up, and a clean set of numbers at the end of the day. The agent drives this; you can too.
Drag a car across the board, flag what's urgent, assign a tech, and search anything from one box. There's a fullscreen mode for a TV on the shop floor.
The everyday machinery.
The parts you touch a hundred times a day, built to be quick rather than clever.
Repair orders, start to finish.
Estimate, authorization, invoice, paid. Each step carries forward what the last one knew, so nothing gets retyped and nothing gets lost between the counter and the bay.
- Line items from your own catalog: parts, labor, fees, discounts, sublet
- Canned services for the jobs you do every week
- Verbal authorization captured on the record when a customer approves by phone
- Windshield service-reminder stickers when you want them
Paperwork that holds up.
Estimates and invoices are built to New York's rules, the strictest in the game, so they stand up anywhere. Every document prints a proper record copy as a PDF, kept with the order.
- Compliant estimate and invoice documents
- Printable PDF record copies filed automatically
- The estimate cap enforced, so the final bill can't drift past what was approved
- Parts-return and storage notices printed where the law wants them, and a superseded estimate is kept, never overwritten
Customers and cars, found fast.
Search by plate first, because that's what's in front of you. New vehicle? Decode the VIN free and the details fill themselves in.
- Plate-first lookup and one search box across customers, cars, and orders
- Free VIN decoding
- Mileage that can never go backwards by accident
- People, businesses, and organizations, with tags and store credit
Keep the card machine you already have.
CarLifeOS records payments; it doesn't process them. Your rates stay your rates, your processor stays your processor, and nobody can hold your money hostage to keep you subscribed.
Cash, card, check, or store credit, each recorded against the invoice it paid. Partial payments and credits included.
Totals by method in your shop's own timezone, store credit kept separate, printable for whoever does the books.
Customer credit balances tracked properly, so the goodwill you extend in March is still there in September.
What a customer defers is saved against their car, printed on the invoice as declined work, and waiting on the counter list the next time they come in.
Most shop software makes its real money on payment processing, which is why the software looks cheap and the statement doesn't. We'd rather charge you honestly for software and leave your merchant account alone.
Your records are yours.
Shop software is where your history lives. You should be able to read it, keep it, and take it.
Customers, vehicles, orders, and payments written out as plain spreadsheet files on a schedule, each one read back and verified after it lands so a silent truncation can't pass. Need a fresh set right now? Run it on demand.
Every change is appended to a permanent log with who made it and when. Corrections are made by voiding and re-issuing, the way accounting is supposed to work, not by quietly editing history.
Removing a customer or a vehicle hides it rather than destroying it, so an accidental click on a busy afternoon isn't permanent.
The OS and Shop Manager share a single sign-in. Adding a tablet or a back-office machine takes a QR code and an approval from a device you're already on.