Parts management is a critical function of any auto repair shop business. The only way to guarantee that you’re making a profit on the parts you sell on repair orders is by having an air-tight system for managing and tracking those parts from purchase to sale to reconciliation. The final step of making sure that each and every parts transaction is accounted for is probably the most important step—and the most misunderstood.
Some of the issues your auto repair shop will run into if you don’t carefully manage parts include:
Un-billed parts (forgetting to collect payment on parts)
Inconsistencies between your cost of goods sold and accounts payable
Inability to track and receive return credits
Inability to detect theft before it gets out of hand
Many of these issues can be avoided by using purchase orders to reconcile the parts you sell on repair orders.
But many auto repair shop business owners still wonder what some of the best practices are when it comes to parts management. How often should you be reconciling parts payments? Who should take on this task: you, your service advisors, or a dedicated parts manager? How do you make sure you’re getting the best value for the parts you buy and sell? How do you ensure that each and every part is being billed?
Let’s answer some of these questions, and unpack the best practices for parts management.
1. Should You Have a Dedicated Parts Manager?
Many smaller auto repair shops do not necessarily need a parts manager, especially if the service advisors and business owner have a solid process for shopping for parts, placing orders, applying markups, and reconciling parts bills with purchase orders.
But as your shop grows to service more than a dozen vehicles a day, you should definitely consider hiring a dedicated parts manager.
Having a specific person in charge of ordering parts, keeping track of inventory, receiving parts, and reconciling purchase orders will not only free up time for your service advisors to focus on providing excellent customer service, but also ensure that your part’s process stays consistent as your business grows.
A dedicated parts manager can focus solely on all things parts, building out a process that is efficient and replicable, giving your shop more room to scale.
2. How Often Should Your Shop Reconcile Parts Orders?
Taking the time to fill out a purchase order whenever you order a part for repairs should become a daily habit.
It’s true that filling out a purchase order adds a little bit of time to the process when you’re trying to get a customer’s vehicle repaired, but it’s better to take the time then and there, or at least at the end of each day, then letting it pile up for the end of the month.
If you wait until the end of the month to make sure each parts order and payment is accounted for, you could easily miss orders from weeks prior and find yourself stuck with an all-day task, which can really take a toll on your workflow for that day.
Additionally, if you wait too long to focus on managing your finances when it comes to parts, you could find yourself losing money on credits for parts that should have been returned.
3. How Can You Identify if a Part Did Not Have a Purchase Order?
Sometimes when you’re going through your accounting software at the end of the day, week, or month, you may notice a discrepancy between what you think you're making on parts, and what you’re actually making.
This is usually because there is a missing purchase order, or several missing purchase orders, in your accounting system.
By using a shop management system with a parts report, such as Tekmetric’s Parts Purchase Report, you can compare what’s reported in there with what’s reported in your financial software.
If you try to verify by vendor on each system, you’ll most likely find the discrepancy, and then you can work backwards, looking at the parts report for that vendor within your shop management system to find out what purchase orders may be missing in your accounting system.
4. How Do You Ensure that You're Getting the Best Value for the Parts You Buy?
Like anything you buy, it’s wise to shop around.
At the same time, your shop has to order parts in a timely manner so that you can get the car back to the customer as soon as possible.
With the Tekmetric Shop Management System, parts managers and service advisors can quickly look up and compare parts from multiple suppliers directly within the Tekmetric dashboard, without having to open up multiple tabs.
By using a shop management system like Tekmetric, your shop can save both time and money while finding the best deals for you and your customers.
5. How Do You Ensure That Each and Every Part is Being Billed?
The best way to ensure that no parts go un-billed is by having solid processes for both inventory management and adding parts to repair orders.
Doing a full inventory check at least once a week will help your shop identify any parts that are missing and have gone unbilled.
Of course, you want to be proactive and make sure those parts are getting billed before you notice they’re missing.
For this, it helps to train your service advisors to all be on the same page when it comes to how parts are included on repair orders, and that they have clear communication with the customers, the parts vendors, and the parts manager.
Tekmetric: Designed With Best Practices in Mind
Using a shop management system like Tekmetric that has a job dashboard with built-in reminders can go a long way towards ensuring that customers are being billed for parts before they leave with their vehicles.
Because the Tekmetric system integrates with leading parts suppliers, it’s easier than ever to find the best deals on parts for your customers.
Tekmetric’s Parts Purchase Reports are another safeguard for auto repair shops to have visibility into the parts moving through their shop.
This article was written with the guidance of automotive repair industry CPA Hunt Demarest of Paar, Melis, & Associates, P.C.
Every auto repair shop spends money before it gets paid. Parts come in and the invoice follows. Technicians log hours and expect a check Friday. Meanwhile, the customer who approved an $1,800 repair might not pick up the car, or pay for it, until next week. The shop carries all of those costs in the gap. Working capital is what covers it.
Put simply, working capital is the cash you have on hand after subtracting what you owe in the short term. If you have $40,000 in the bank and $30,000 in bills due this month, you are running the shop on $10,000. That number decides whether a slow week is an inconvenience or a crisis.
Most shops do not run short because business is bad. They run short because of timing. Payroll, parts invoices, rent, and tax payments have a way of landing in the same week. This article covers why shops need working capital, the financing options owners search for most, and the operational changes that shrink the gap before a loan is ever needed.
Common reasons auto repair shops need working capital
1. Parts are paid for before the job is
A repair order starts costing you money the moment a part is ordered. Whether you pay the supplier on delivery or on 30-day terms, the bill comes due on the supplier's schedule, not the customer's.
Before borrowing to cover it, look at how long parts sit between arrival and invoice. Faster returns and tighter ordering free up cash you already have. If you don’t already have a way to track your inventory, Tekmetric’s inventory features can help you.
2. Payroll does not wait for approvals
Payroll is a constant while customer payments come in waves. Technicians and service advisers get paid every week or two whether or not the jobs they worked on have been approved, completed, and collected. This can create a gap where you need to pay your employees, but the customer hasn’t paid yet.
By the time a customer hears a $2,400 estimate, your shop has already invested a diagnostic hour, a lift, and often a parts order. If the answer is "let me think about it," that work is unpaid and the bay is tied up. If the answer is no, you absorb the cost and the car leaves with the problem still in it.
The issue is rarely that customers do not trust the recommendation. It is that they cannot pay for it all at once. Shops that offer pay-over-time options at the estimate stage, rather than at checkout, give customers more reasons to say yes to the repair.
4. Equipment breaks, or the market moves past it
A lift, an alignment rack, or a scan tool rarely fails on a convenient day. And even when nothing breaks, the vehicles coming through the door change. ADAS calibration, EV service, and newer diagnostic platforms all require equipment that costs five figures and does not generate revenue until it is installed and your team is trained on it.
This is why auto repair equipment financing is one of the most-searched funding terms in the industry. Equipment is the clearest case where borrowing can make sense: the asset produces revenue over years, and spreading the cost over that same period keeps your working capital available for parts and payroll.
5. Seasonal swings and slow weeks
Car count moves. Weather, holidays, local layoffs, and tax refund season all change how many vehicles roll in. Your fixed costs do not move with them. Rent, insurance, software, utilities, and salaried staff cost the same in a 60-car week as in a 90-car week.
A shop with healthy cash flow treats a slow stretch as a chance to train, clean up the parts shelf, and run a marketing campaign. A shop without it treats a slow stretch as an emergency.
6. Growth costs money before it earns money
Hiring a technician means a signing bonus, tools, training, and several weeks of lower productivity before that bay is profitable. Adding a location means a lease deposit, build-out, and a second set of everything. Even a successful marketing push brings in customers whose first visits often start with inspections and lower-ticket work.
Growth is the best reason to need working capital. It is also the easiest one to underestimate.
How to improve your cash flow
The best financing is the kind you never have to apply for. Most of the reasons above are timing problems, and timing problems are operational. Here is where the all-in-one auto repair platform earns its keep.
Get paid the same day the work is done
Text-to-Pay lets customers pay from their phone before they arrive, so the invoice is settled when the keys change hands, not after a conversation at the counter. Tekmetric Payments offers next-day funding, with Instant Payouts available for shops that need faster access.
Increase approval rates on the jobs that strain cash
A digital vehicle inspection with photos and video shows the customer what the technician sees. Digital authorization lets them approve from anywhere. Buy Now, Pay Later through Affirm, Klarna, and Sunbit, offered directly on the estimate, turns "not today" into a "yes."
Keep parts moving
Integrated parts ordering ties every part to a repair order, so nothing gets ordered twice and nothing sits unbilled. Inventory tracking shows what is on hand, in use, and waiting on a return, which is the fastest way to find cash hiding on a shelf.
Price every job to protect margin
A parts and labor matrix applies consistent markups automatically, so a rushed service adviser never undercharges on a Friday afternoon. Small margin leaks add up to real working capital over a quarter.
See the numbers before they become a problem
Real-time reports on ARO, car count, close ratio, and declined jobs show where cash is leaking while there is still time to act. The end-of-day report closes the books without a spreadsheet.
When you do borrow, do it from inside the platform
Capital Financing through Tekmetric Payments, offered in partnership with Stripe Capital, lets qualifying shops see offers, apply, and manage repayment from the Capital tab in Tekmetric. Repayment comes out automatically as a percentage of daily transactions, so it flexes with your volume, and there is no penalty for paying it off early.
The bottom line
Auto repair industry funding needs are real, but most of them trace back to timing: cash goes out for parts, people, and equipment before it comes back from approved, collected jobs. Fix the timing and you need less capital. Give customers a way to say yes, get paid the same day, keep parts moving, and watch the numbers daily. When you do decide to finance growth, do it through the same platform you run your shop on.
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.
When researching digital vehicle inspection software solutions, you should look for these seven core features that benefit your team and your customers:
A searchable DVI history
The ability for technicians to attach photos and videos to inspections
A color-coded system that indicates the severity of inspection findings
A direct tie-in to parts and labor data when building estimates
The ability to add canned jobs when building estimates
Digital authorization
Automatic saving and tracking of declined jobs
1. Searchable DVI History
When shopping for digital vehicle inspection software, make sure that you can easily look back on past inspection findings. When service advisors are able to quickly find out what was uncovered during previous inspections, they’re less likely to miss a repair opportunity and leave money on the table. They can simply pick up where they left off, helping your shop sell more repair work.
2. The ability for technicians to attach photos and videos to inspections
It’s one thing to tell a customer, “Hey, your car has really bad engine corrosion.” It’s another thing to show the customer a photo of the orange, brittle-looking rust all over their engine. When customers can see what’s really going on with their vehicles, they’re more likely to trust your team’s word and authorize repairs right then and there. They’ll be less inclined to shop around for a second opinion or tell you, “Oh, I’ll sleep on it and come back tomorrow.”
A digital vehicle inspection software that enables technicians to quickly attach photos and videos will help your team keep repairs moving along and build customer trust.
3. A color-coded system that indicates the severity of inspection findings
When explaining repairs to customers, the best route is often the simplest one. Instead of spending time speaking or writing about the intricacies of each inspection finding, service advisors can leverage digital vehicle inspection software that uses a simple, color-coded system to instantly give customers an idea of how urgent each inspection finding is. For instance, an inspection finding marked in green would indicate that everything is good to go, one marked in yellow would indicate something that might need attention down the line, and red would indicate the need for immediate action.
4. A direct tie-in to parts and labor data when building estimates
It’s vital for service advisors to weave in the right parts and labor data when building estimates. But doing so manually is a tedious process. With everything going on, service advisors might accidentally scribble down the wrong piece of information, resulting in the customer getting the wrong parts and labor pricing, or inaccurate parts availability.
Digital vehicle inspection software with a direct tie-in to parts and labor data helps service advisors create accurate estimates from the get-go, so there are no unpleasant surprises for anyone at the shop come estimate-review time.
5. The ability to add canned jobs when building estimates
On a daily basis, service advisors may find themselves writing the same types of findings on estimates over and over.
Digital vehicle inspection software with a canned jobs feature will eliminate a lot of this repetition by enabling service advisors to add pre-saved jobs to estimates in a matter of seconds. That way they can complete inspections faster and get estimates in customers’ hands as soon as possible.
6. Digital authorization
The easier you make it for your customers to authorize repair work, the more likely they’ll quickly do so. That’s where digital vehicle inspection software with digital job authorization steps in. Service advisors won’t have to track down customers to get their verbal or written approval to start repair work. Instead, customers can approve or decline individual jobs from the moment they get their estimate.
7. Automatic saving and tracking of declined jobs
Some repair work is going to get declined for various reasons. But don’t worry. Declined jobs show that your shop is thorough with inspections and estimates; your team caught every budding and existing issue with each vehicle. Think of declined jobs as future business opportunities for your shop.
However, remembering and keeping track of declined jobs can get tricky with a pen and paper method. Service advisors might totally forget about these opportunities, or if they remember, they’ll have to dig through stacks of paper or navigate folder after folder on a computer just to find the right estimate.
Digital vehicle inspection software that has a “declined jobs” feature enables your service advisors to pick up right where they left off the next time a particular customer walks into your shop. They’ll be able to search which jobs the customer declined last time, and recommend taking care of those issues. The results? You’ll get more business and impress your customers with your great customer service.
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