Let’s face it, tracking inventory is tricky. It takes keen attention to detail, an ability to anticipate your shop’s needs, great timing, and some serious research skills—not to mention a lot of time on the phone or computer, away from the action of the shop.
Bottom line? Keeping track of inventory is a job that most service advisors and shop owners didn’t sign up for. While some shops have a shop foreman to help with inventory, even the best foreman still needs a solid tracking system.
But when a shop runs low on the right tools and parts, it can mean turning away customers when you could be building loyalty instead. Simply put, without up-to-date inventory records, your shop may have to pump the brakes and turn away customers or delay jobs.
If your team wants to stay ahead in the industry, you probably see inventory upkeep as a frequent task. And without a shop inventory software, you might also spend hours calculating purchases, tracking orders, checking wear and tear to tools, and rotating stock.
Everyone has their own way of conducting the inventory process, but in general, inventory methods fall into three major categories:
Pen and paper
Excel/spreadsheet/template
Shop inventory software
If you’re still using pen and paper or a spreadsheet, it may be time to upgrade or at least supplement your inventory process.
Why Traditional Inventory Process Holds You Back
Inventory covers everything from equipment and shop tools to stock items like air filters, engine oil, oil filters, additives, wipers, and tire repair kits. And anyone who has gone through the inventory management process shelf-by-shelf knows that it can be a time consuming and draining chore.
Accurate tracking records for inventory are essential to keeping chaos at bay and ensuring the right tools and stock are always available. So long as your process works for you, there’s technically no wrong way to conduct inventory. Does that mean that all systems are equally convenient? No.
Tracking Inventory with Pen & Paper
Pen and paper inventory tracking may have its own charm, and the physicality of the process can be reassuring. It’s a tried and true method that has worked for shop owners since the dawn of the automotive industry.
But paper records also require significant physical storage space, are easy to lose or accidentally destroy, can only be accessed from a single location without duplication, and cost additional paper and ink to duplicate.
It is also easy to transpose numbers, misspell part names, or make any number of other simple human errors on paper.
But the biggest downside of pen and paper tracking is lost time. Written record keeping is an enormous chore to add to the already time consuming tasks of checking inventory, ordering new inventory, reviewing records, finding a number, and reconciling purchases.
Every minute wasted by a process that can be automated is money lost.
Tracking Inventory from a Spreadsheet
Conducting inventory with Excel or another spreadsheet is a good step up from pen and paper.
Spreadsheets provide room for complex tracking—a must for larger shops, shops that move a lot of inventory, and shops that service a wide variety of vehicles.
Though certainly not the fastest method of record keeping, spreadsheets are reliably faster than writing records by hand.
Duplication is also cost free, you can send the records to anyone as needed, and inventory calculations are made simple with spreadsheet formulas.
But as powerful as Excel may be, it offers limited automation, is restricted to one user at a time, saves files natively to a single computer unless deliberate backups are made, doesn’t come with a service support team that knows cars, and isn’t built for auto repair shops.
Human error is also still very much a risk with spreadsheets. A simple typo can impact an entire sheet.
While spreadsheets and pen and paper tracking might work for some shops, if your system is slowing you down, it could be slowing down everyone else in the shop, too.
An inventory system that lags behind can cost the shop money and mean turning away customers if parts or tools are continuously unavailable.
Leveling Up with Shop Inventory Software
Think of shop inventory software as a full-time inventory assistant. This assistant can’t count items on your shelves by hand, but once you input data for the first time, the software will automate most aspects of the inventory process for your team and radically simplify the rest.
Most shop inventory software can integrate with point of sales software to independently update your inventory records.
One of the greatest advantages of shop inventory software is that it lets you see what you have and what you need at a glance. Usually shop inventory software will offer a variety of views for the data it has collected. For instance, you can sort inventory movement by date and then switch to a view that shows only certain categories of stock.
Imagine that the same set of brake pads have been in inventory for over a year. At this point, you’re losing money on the item, and it is taking up space that a more profitable stock item might need. With traditional inventory methods, this detail might fall through the cracks. Shop inventory software makes it much easier to analyze data at any scale, even down to specific units.
With shop inventory software you can easily analyze what you need and don’t need. Your team can:
See what sells
Determine which brands customers prefer
Track your margins
See when you’re not getting your money’s worth
Make decisions as to whether you are undercharging or overcharging for different stock
Grow your margins
Place stock orders directly from the inventory screen
Why Cloud-Based Shop Inventory Software is a Game Changer for Auto Repair Shops
Cloud-based shop inventory software stores your data online through a portal accessible to your team from any computer, tablet, and even your phone! Cloud-based systems are just as secure, if not more secure, as hard drive storage and make collaboration possible as more than one team member can typically use the program at a time.
1. Reimagining Shop Management with Remote Access
The last couple of years has shown everyone that remote work tools are critical to adapting to ever-changing market conditions and consumer expectations. And for shop managers that may be on the road, or need the ability to access their shop's when they're away, remote access from cloud software is huge.
To this end, it is of paramount importance that software rises to meet users’ need for flexibility. While not everyone in the automotive repair industry can work from home, keeping managers, service writers, and the rest of your team connected no matter where they are makes your crew even stronger. Cloud-based shop inventory software does just that.
2. Taking Your Work on the Road
Imagine being able to check up on your inventory with the same software from anywhere in the world. Going to a conference sometime soon and want to talk shop with your colleagues? Cloud-based shop inventory software lets you show off how your shop is performing just by logging in online.
Whether you want to brag about your latest success, take a deep-dive into your shop’s numbers, or ask for a mentor’s help, cloud-based shop inventory software is a great tool for hammering out the details without sitting behind a desk at one of your brick and mortar locations.
Take your inventory tools home or on the road and see how your shop is performing in real time. With cloud-based shop inventory software, you can achieve a better work/life balance while never being too far from your shop.
3. Keeping Data Safe
Another great advantage of cloud-based software is data preservation. While some amount of data loss is to be expected regardless of where you store your data, cloud-based shop inventory software means that you're not reliant on a single hard-drive or a single shop server, which may go down or cease to work at any point.
Just like paper records, digital records that are not backed up to or stored natively on the cloud can be easily corrupted, deleted, or otherwise destroyed. Though some steps may be taken to increase a hard-drive’s lifespan, cloud storage is ultimately safer and your best bet for long-term storage.
Tekmetric: A Better Way to Inventory
You may be asking yourself which shop inventory software you should try out at this point.
We’ve got you covered.
Tekmetric’s shop inventory software seamlessly integrates with our overall digital shop management system to create a user experience unmatched in the industry.
Tekmetric lets you and your team automate as much of the inventory process as you want so that you can enjoy more free time or make room for shop growth projects.
Tekmetric’s inventory tracking offers flexible categorization and filtering to make sure your service advisors, foreman, and other team members are never locked in to just one view of the shop’s data.
For instance, Tekmetric’s shop inventory software lets you organize parts as:
Below stock
Above stock
Out-of-stock
These views can be powerful additions when scheduling jobs and estimating service completion times.
Want to sort inventory still further? Filter parts by:
Brand
Part name
Part number
Retail price
Primary vendor
Part type
Now your shop can directly quote, order, and receive parts right from the inventory screen. You can also create parts markup matrices from Tekmetric, too. Never bounce back and forth between tabs or windows again. Tekmetric integrates with all your favorite parts ordering services:
NexPart
WorldPac
PartsTech
MyPlace4Parts
OEC Repair Link
AAP Direct Pro Catalog
Perhaps most importantly, Tekmetric makes it easy to grow your business and zero in on what your customers are demanding.
Most of us know the 80/20 rule. 80% of profits come from 20% of your product.
But if you’ve ever asked yourself what products are in that 20%, Tekmetric takes out the guesswork and helps you track stock item sales from a 30,000 foot view down to the most granular detail.
When customers walk into your auto repair shop, they’re trusting you and your team with the health of their vehicle, one of their most expensive assets.
They’re coming in with a problem or set of problems and expect your team to effectively fix those problems in a reasonable time frame.
And modern expectations for customer service have shifted as our technology has evolved. Customers don't want to have to find time for a phone call when they can just get texted updates about their repairs, and digital tools make it easier for shops to build transparency in their process.
Modern auto repair shop software not only makes it easy but lays the foundation for a modern customer experience at every step.
Offering a Modern Auto Repair Shop Customer Experience Starts with a Modern Shop Management System
We're big advocates of modernizing your auto repair shop, and we don't necessarily mean replacing all your racks, updating all your compressors, and swapping out your alignment rack. Sure those might help, but we get those can be really big investments.
That's why we're focused on the behind-the-scenes operations of your shop, the overall management and flow of repair orders. Modern shop management software enables owners, managers, service advisors, and technicians to gain visibility into, and control over, their individual part of the process with specific functions:
Cloud-based shop management
Real-time control
Digital Vehicle Inspections
Built-In Payment Processing
Digital Shop Communications
Efficient Parts and Inventory Management
While all of these directly work to modernize your shop operations, they also work to modernize your shop experience for customers.
When your shop is using Digital Vehicle Inspections instead of paper printouts, you're not only making it easier for your technicians and service advisors to communicate and collaborate, but you're also modernizing how your shop interacts with customers, by emailing or texting results and approval requests.
Over the years, I’ve had thousands of conversations with shop owners, advisors, and technicians across the country. No matter the size of the shop or how long you’ve been using Tekmetric, I keep hearing the same two things:
You want a place to learn from each other. And you want deeper, hands-on Tekmetric training.
If you’ve already found this page, you probably know the basics: three days in Houston, April 9-11, built for owners, advisors, and technicians from every kind of shop and every kind of system. Tektonic is about one thing — helping you get better results, faster, with practical education, shop-tested playbooks, and product training you can actually use.
Here’s a sneak peek at what we have in store, at what that really means for you and your team.
For Owners: Stop Profit from Slipping Through the Cracks
You already work hard. The question is whether every hour and every RO is actually paying you back.
Breakout: Unlock Hidden Profits Without Blowing Up What Already Works — Alex Saladna, CEO, WickedFile
Even well-run shops leak profit in the back office: unclaimed credits, fees that never get billed, vendor mistakes that never get caught. This session is about tightening all of that up without burning everything down and starting over.
You’ll walk away with:
Simple audits you can run regularly to spot hidden losses
A clear view of where profit usually disappears — and how to plug those holes
Ways to automate repetitive tasks so more dollars stay in the business
If you’ve ever felt like your top line looks good but the bottom line doesn’t match the grind, this one’s worth circling.
Breakout: ADAS & Required Calibrations: Protect Your Shop and Your Customers — Joel Adcock, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Revv
Late-model vehicles roll in, ADAS is everywhere, and the liability is real. Missed calibrations aren’t just a line item you forgot to bill — they’re a safety issue and a trust issue.
You’ll walk away with:
Clarity on when calibrations are required and how to identify them
How to bake calibrations into your SOPs and ROs so they don’t get missed
Practical ways to educate your team and your customers on why this matters
The goal: fix vehicles right the first time, protect your reputation, and make sure you’re charging appropriately for the work you’re already responsible for.
Breakout: Scale on Purpose, Not by Accident — Jesse Jackson & Brian Walden, Mango Automotive
If you’ve ever wondered how some shops jump to eight figures while you’re fighting for steady month-over-month growth, Jesse and Brian are going to walk you through the playbook they actually used.
For managers: Master the Maelstrom — Aaron Blair, Director of Operations, Alloy Automotive Partners
In the fast lane of auto service, chaos is inevitable—but profit isn’t. Aaron Blair, systems architect behind Blair and Alloy Automotive, shows how to turn daily disorder into precision workflow with tactical frameworks to control every moving part, from dispatching ROs to winning buy-in from techs and advisors.
You’ll learn how to:
Use systems to get ahead: Build smarter workflows with dispatch boards, SOPs, and tech scoreboards to spot bottlenecks early.
Maximize your day: Treat your calendar as a tool with time blocks for RO triage, tech coaching, and margin reviews.
Create team consistency: Rely on huddles, checklists, and incentives so every team member stays aligned and executes to standard.
Also in the owner-focused track at Tektonic:
Reporting Deep Dive: Making Sense of Tekmetric’s Dashboards
From Invoice to Insights: Using Tekmetric to Master Shop Financials
Love the Shop Again: Mindset Shifts to Lead, Inspire, and Grow
Build It and They Will Come: How to Open a Shop That Stands Out, Attracts Talent, and Builds Loyalty Fast
Powering Growth with Tekmetric Payments: From Faster Cash Flow to Customer Financing
Running MSOs: Tools and Best Practices
For Service Advisors: Turn Conversations into Trust and Revenue
Advisors are the heartbeat of the shop. When they’re trained, supported, and set up well in the system, everything feels smoother…for you and your customers.
Breakout: Is Your Advisor Making You 100K or Losing You 100K? — Greg Bunch, Chief Officer, Transformers Institute
Owners and advisors will both get a lot out of this one. Greg walks through how a single advisor can swing six figures either way — and what to do about it.
You’ll walk away with:
A ready-to-use hiring funnel with a job ad, screening script, and one-hour audition plan
A 90-day onboarding and training plan with daily drills and talk tracks
A simple scorecard to track call conversion, ARO, and appointment close ratio
If you’ve ever hired an advisor on “gut feel” and hoped for the best, this session will give you a better way.
Breakout: High Impact Sales: The Words That Build Long-Term Customers — Sabrina Wilkerson, Business Performance Analyst, Elite Worldwide
Advisors, this one is built for you. Customers don’t just buy the work — they buy the way you explain it. Sabrina breaks down what to say, how to say it, and how to stay ethical and honest while still driving approvals.
You’ll walk away with:
Practical ways to generate higher profits through better conversations at the counter
Tools to build long-term trust so people come back and send their friends
Confidence to show up as the credible expert instead of “just another shop”
These are skills you can practice in the room and use on your very next phone call.
Breakout Bundle: Tekmetric Tools That Make Every Day at the Counter Less Chaotic
On top of the coaching and hiring sessions, we’re going deep on the actual tools advisors live in all day. The focus is simple: fewer dropped balls, clearer priorities, better follow-up, and a system that supports your advisors instead of slowing them down.
You’ll walk away with:
Cleaner workflows from first call to follow-up
Better visibility into which jobs to prioritize and when
Fewer “I thought you had it” moments between the front counter and the bay
Advisor-focused Tekmetric sessions include:
Tekmetric Service Workflow Deep Dive
Advisor Dashboard Training: Prioritizing the Right Jobs, Every Time
Shaping the Future of Service Advisor Tools in Tekmetric
For Technicians: Build Skills, Confidence, and a Real Path Forward
Great techs want two things: the right tools and a future.
Breakout: How to Run Monster Hours — Ryan Blair, CEO and Co-Founder, Alloy Automotive Partners
As a dealer technician turned one man band shop owner, Ryan Blair averaged 500 hours a month in production. In this session, you will get a breakdown of the mindset, systems, tips, and tricks to increase your production no matter what kind of shop you are working in.
Takeaways:
How to play the game: maximizing the relationship with the front of house
The surprising math behind the things you didn't realize are holding your production back
Master the mindsets and beliefs to become the number one producer in your shop
Owners: this is a great session to send your high-potential techs to if you want them thinking bigger.
Breakout: Profit in the Bay: How Techs Win with DVIs and Efficiency Tracking
Being a great technician isn’t just about fixing cars. It’s about seeing the payoff from the work you do. In this Tekmetric training session, we’ll connect the dots between the work in the bay and the numbers on the screen.
You’ll walk away with:
How solid DVIs drive higher approval rates
How photos, notes, and videos make it easy for customers to say “yes”
How efficiency tracking shows your impact — on the shop and on your paycheck
The goal is to give techs a clear line of sight from “I turned this wrench” to “I made this much difference.”
Breakout: ON-TRACK with DIN Diagrams + VCDS 101 — Travis Ruiz, Technical Support Consultant, German Car Support
If VW/Audi work feels like it takes twice as long as it should, these sessions are for you.
You’ll walk away with:
Practice finding the correct wiring diagrams and navigating service info
A walkthrough of the VCDS interface: scans, fault codes, live data, and basic functions
Real-world tips for using VCDS to diagnose and fix problems faster
For techs who want to sharpen their skills on European cars, this is time well spent.
For techs who want even more time in the tools:
Tekmetric Mobile App Deep Dive: Workflow at Your Fingertips
DVI + Mobile App End-to-End Training: Photos, Video, Notes & Approvals
Unlocking Smarter Repairs in Tekmetric
Big-Room Moments That Shift How You Lead
On top of 50+ breakout sessions, Tektonic’s general sessions are built to stretch how you think about your business and your role in it:
Keynote: From Mainstreet to Millionaire — Codie Sanchez, Contrarian Thinking Why “boring” businesses like auto repair can be the foundation of serious wealth if you build them right — and what that means for how you think about profit, risk, and opportunity in your own shop.
Keynote: Entrepreneurship Simplified — Mike Michalowicz, Profit First Practical, straight-talking frameworks for building a healthier business: profit baked in from the start, cleaner cash flow, and systems that don’t fall apart every time you step away from the shop.
Keynote: Effort Matters, Character Counts — General Robert Neller, USMC (Ret.) What effort and character look like on high-trust teams — and how those same principles apply when you’re leading a crew through nonstop cars, parts delays, and the pressure to deliver every day.
Coaching Power Hour Panel: The Great Shop Coaching Showdown Leaders from top coaching groups tackling real shop challenges, side by side, so you can hear different approaches in one fast-paced session.
Shop Owner Panel: What It Really Takes to Win From hiring and training to navigating daily chaos, this panel pulls back the curtain on what different types of high-performing shops are doing to scale, stay profitable, and keep both teams and customers thriving. You’ll hear real talk and real strategies from leaders who are living it every day, not just talking theory from a stage.
Three days in those rooms can change how you lead for the rest of the year.
Bring Your Whole Shop to Houston
Tektonic is built for your whole team:
Owners getting clear on growth, profit, and where the business is really headed
Advisors sharpening the conversations that build trust and drive revenue
Technicians building skills, confidence, and a real path forward in their careers
It’s every shop, every role, under one roof, with zero gatekeeping. Wherever your shop is today — overwhelmed, growing, rebuilding, thriving — Tektonic delivers clarity, community, and practical tools to get to your next result.
Learn more about Tektonic 2026 and register your team HERE.
Navigating the estimate and repair process starts with an automotive repair order form. And a manual process may create more work for your team. Your service advisors are trying to move everything along quickly and accurately, but they're human and mistakes do happen.
With a manual automotive repair order form process, it can be easy for service advisors to get lost in the hustle due to typos, illegible handwriting, or estimates saved in the wrong place.
You might also find that it’s difficult to guide your business with a manual estimate and repair order process because data collection can become an enormous challenge.
Using traditional automotive repair order forms is kind of like trying to navigate a road trip with a paper map: it can be easy to get lost in the process, and once you’re lost, it can be difficult to get back on track. Nowadays, paper maps are just one of our endless choices for navigation tools, and how many drivers still use them?
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