From what we see, there’s a lot that shop owners get right. They understand how to lead their teams, grow their shops, and bring trust and transparency to their customers. But as a former trainer and franchise performance specialist, I do notice a lot of little inefficiencies that add up.
Tekmetric touches every part of running your shop -- from managing customer information and measuring business metrics to facilitating digital vehicle inspections, repair order workflows, and even payment processing.
One common thing I see at repair shops is an overflowing parts return shelf. Often those parts have a thick layer of dust from sitting there for months or even years.
When I see those full shelves, I see dollars (think of a cartoon character with dollar signs for eyes—that's me when I see these overflowing return shelves). Don’t let those dollars sit on your shelves; put them back in your pocket!
Here’s how.
Set expectations with your team.
When I worked in the shop, we had a 24-hour rule for returns. Unless there’s a specific reason, no part should stay on the shelf for more than 24 hours. We were so tenacious about parts returns that the delivery team members started catching on and checking the shelves without us even asking.
Have a linear process for ensuring the returns are complete.
A critical component of Tekmetric is the built-in core/parts return function. From marking a part “needing to be returned” to “refund complete” and confirming the credit on your parts invoice, having a tool that helps manage this process will help protect your margins.
Set a reminder.
Put a reminder on your phone or computer for the last business day of the month to ensure that your parts shelf is clear. Tekmetric makes it easy to know which parts need to be picked up; just compare the Parts Purchased Report to the Parts Usage Report. If there are any parts, call those vendors and get them picked up!
2. Track Your Marketing Sources
What does your marketing strategy currently look like? Maybe you’re paying for signs on the local high school’s baseball field, or ads in grocery store brochures. Or maybe you’re paying for billboards on busy roads, or sending out bulk mailers.
No matter which marketing tactics you’re using, it’s vital that you track the return on investment for each campaign you roll out to maximize auto repair shop profitability. For instance, if you decide to spend $2,500 on a mass mailing campaign that features an oil change coupon, you should keep track of how many customers walk into your shop with that coupon.
After the coupon’s expiration date, you’ll know exactly how much revenue that mass mailing campaign generated for your shop. If the revenue wasn’t high enough, that’s a sign that you should try a different marketing tactic.
Tekmetric simplifies the process of tracking the ROI you’re getting from different marketing sources. Within Tekmetric, service advisors can select a custom marketing source for each and every customer. At the end of the month, or whenever you choose to end your campaign, you can look at the RO Marketing Source Report to see exactly where each customer came from.
After you figure out the best marketing tactics to get customers flowing through your garage, you can really rev up your auto repair shop profitability by having your team…
3. Leverage Digital Vehicle Inspections (Because Seeing Is Believing)
“Your coolant reservoir is trash!” the technician exclaimed.
The customer in the lobby had wanted more details on why the shop was telling him he needed to pay $1,100 for the repair, so a young service advisor had brought in the technician to explain.
That young service advisor was me.
Oftentimes, telling someone that something is wrong with their car just isn’t enough to close the deal. Everyone is tightening their belts these days, and seeing an estimate for a couple thousand dollars can be really tough for many people to swallow.
However, when customers can actually see what they’re about to spend their money on, there is a significantly higher chance of them approving the repair.
The Tekmetric Difference
We see it time and time again: when shops start using Tekmetric’s built-in digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) to show customers the issues with their vehicles using photos and videos instead of trying to just explain the repairs in words, it builds trust, increases approvals, and boosts your shop’s Average Repair Order (ARO).
You can try to explain a repair all day, but the truth is, seeing is believing.
With this latest update, we want to deep dive into one of the most beneficial features, buy now, pay later, so shop owners can see for themselves.
Tekmerchant was designed to help shop owners, like you, to build trust with customers, close out the day faster, and turbo charge shop’s payment processing by offering them a fully integrated payments solution, all managed by a trusted team. Building off your existing Tekmetric experience, Tekmerchant is another way to supercharge both your shop’s processes and your customer’s experience at the same time.
More specifically, we're really excited to tell you about our new buy now, pay later feature , making it easier for your guests to do business with your shop -- especially on those more expensive repair orders.
With just the inclusion of Tekmerchant alone, Silver Lake Auto’s shop performance continues to grow. At the organization’s flagship store, average repair order (ARO) has increased by more than $200a month!
And we’re excited to see how much those AROs grow with buy now, pay later.
Tekmetric standardizes how every auto repair shop operates
Running multiple shops should mean more revenue, more repair orders, and more momentum. For most MSOs, it also means more complexity, inconsistency, and time spent putting out fires instead of building the business.
The problem isn't growth. It's that most shop management systems weren't built for it. Separate logins for each location. No unified view of revenue or performance. Processes that drift from shop to shop until every location is running differently and nobody can figure out why the numbers don't match. Tekmetric fixes that at the root — one platform, every location, standardized from day one.
Tekmetric shops see measurable revenue growth as they adopt platform features. Shops average $612 per repair order (ARO), but that number climbs to $741 when they use Digital Vehicle Inspections and reaches around $800 when they add MotoVisuals videos. The lift isn't about charging customers more; it's about transparency, showing them what their vehicle needs so they can make confident, informed decisions. It also builds trust.
The operators running on Tekmetric show what that looks like in practice. Main Street Auto, a nationwide network of community-rooted shops, grew from six locations to more than 115 with Tekmetric at the core of every one. Rush Automotive, in Austin, Texas, saw $9,000 in new revenue in the first month across five locations. CarTech Auto Center, operating across multiple locations in Puerto Rico, grew monthly revenue 48% in nine months. The platform didn't change their ambition. It gave them the infrastructure to act on it.
Customer Experience
Customers Don't Know Which Location Is Your Best. Tekmetric Ensures They Can't Tell the Difference.
Inconsistencies across locations cost you. Skipped DVI photos, estimate delays, and declined jobs that nobody follows up on quickly add up, decreasing your revenue, and negatively affecting customer experience.
The shops that grow their ARO, earn repeat business, and generate the kind of reviews that actually drive traffic all share the same foundation: customers trust them. And trust isn't built in a single interaction — it's built through consistent, transparent communication every single time a vehicle comes in.
Tekmetric gives you the tools to make that consistency automatic. Inspections follow the same template at every location, with photos and video built into the estimate. Customers get their quote by text, approve the work from their phone, and can pay before pickup with Tekmetric Payments built in. Text-to-Pay, card-on-file, and Buy Now, Pay Later options make checkout faster and remove friction from bigger approvals. Their vehicle history travels with them, so when a customer visits a different one of your locations, whoever's at the desk already knows their vehicle history.
With Tekmetric Marketing running in the background, customers get automated appointment reminders, follow-ups on declined services, and service reminders based on real vehicle data. Online booking lets them schedule service 24/7 without picking up the phone. Google Review requests go out automatically after every completed service, turning great work into lasting reputation.
When shops share eight or more inspection photos with customers, ARO goes up because customers can see the repairs their vehicle needs. Euro Car Doctors, in Orange County, Calif., used that approach and grew their average ARO to more than $900. Garagisti, in Houston, Texas, built a practice around transparent, DVI-driven customer communication from day one and has averaged a $1,600 ARO since opening.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Standardized DVIs, streamlined customer communication, and shared vehicle history across every location so every customer gets the same experience regardless of which shop they walk into
Text-to-Pay and Buy Now, Pay Later built into checkout to speed up payments and boost approval on bigger repairs
Automated follow-up on declined services and service reminders that run from real vehicle data, not generic time intervals
Online booking available 24/7 so customers can schedule service without waiting for business hours
Google Review requests sent automatically after every completed service — no manual steps required
Permissions & Access Roles
Tekmetric Puts the Right Data in Front of the Right People Across Every Location
When you add a location, you're not just adding bays, you're adding staff, risk, and the need for accountability at a distance. The right access structure makes all three manageable.
Most MSOs hit a wall when they try to manage growing teams without the right controls in place. Too much access creates risk such as errors in repair orders, incorrect discounts, and sensitive financial data visible to people who don't need it. Too little creates friction, leaving advisors waiting on approvals, technicians without job visibility, and managers unable to make calls on their own.
Tekmetric gives you granular, role-based controls across every location. Technicians see their job queue, their assignments, and their hours. Managers have what they need to run their shop without touching another location's data. Advisors can build estimates, communicate with in-store customers, and process payments. Owners see the full portfolio in real time from a single login.
Before switching to Tekmetric, Will Rivera, owner of CarTech Auto Center in Puerto Rico, had to log into each of his five stores separately just to check sales or inventory. There was no unified view of the business, no way to enforce consistency, and no clean data to make decisions from. Within nine months of switching, CarTech had grown monthly revenue by 48%. Once CarTech had the structure to run five locations cleanly, expansion became the goal instead of survival.
Cross-location visibility for owners and ops leaders, with shop-level access for everyone else. Accountability is built into the platform and not enforced manually.
Controlled access to sensitive actions like unposting ROs, giving the right people the ability to correct errors without opening the door to bigger ones
Change Management
Switching Shop Software Doesn't Have to Disrupt Your Business. Here's How MSOs Make It Work.
Adopting new software across multiple locations is a real operational challenge. Tekmetric is built for it, from contract to live in a few days.
Christian Brothers Automotive migrated about 200 stores to Tekmetric in three months. Main Street Auto onboards 20 to 25 new locations a year and keeps growing. These aren't small transitions executed by large IT teams — they're operational rollouts managed by auto repair shop employees, built around Tekmetric's onboarding process.
Every new Tekmetric customer gets a dedicated onboarding manager who builds a rollout plan around your schedule, not a generic timeline. Data migrates. Workflows get configured. And most teams are fully operational within a week of going live, with results measurable within 30 days. That's not a promise. It's a framework Tekmetric has built and refined across thousands of shop launches.
The platform itself is designed to be learned fast. SJ Automotive cut estimate creation time from 40 minutes to about 10 minutes after switching. That's not a team that spent weeks in training. That's a team that picked up an intuitive tool and immediately got more done. When the platform is easy to use, adoption isn't a change management project. It's what happens when the tool earns buy-in on its own.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A dedicated onboarding manager, data migration support, and a go-live timeline built around your shops, not a one-size-fits-all playbook
An intuitive platform with a training hub, knowledge base, and U.S.-based support, so your team gets productive fast and stays that way
Access to the Tekmetric User Group, a community sharing what works, so you grow alongside operators who have already been where you are
Inventory & Parts Sharing
Stop Paying for Parts You Already Own. Tekmetric Gives Every Location Real-Time Visibility Into Stock.
When parts data is fragmented across locations, technicians wait, repairs get delayed, and margin slips through the cracks. Tekmetric centralizes inventory across every shop so your team always knows what's in stock, what's on order, and where to find it.
Multi-location inventory has a way of quietly breaking down. Parts get ordered twice because one location didn't know another had them. Technicians start jobs they can't finish. Reconciliation eats hours at the end of every month. The fix is straightforward: one centralized view of what's in stock across every location, updated in real time.
With Tekmetric, every authorized user sees real-time parts availability across every location. Orders happen directly inside the repair order — no supplier portal, no manual entry, no switching systems. When a technician picks up a job, they can see immediately whether parts are in stock or on order, so they're never starting work they can't complete. And when inventory hits a minimum threshold, reorder alerts surface automatically.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Real-time parts visibility across every location, connected directly to the repair order workflow so technicians, advisors, and managers always know what’s in stock
Parts ordering through PartsTech and others, directly from inside the RO. No portal toggling, no duplicate entries.
Automatic reorder alerts, purchase order tracking, and parts usage reports that give ops leaders a clean view of inventory performance across the portfolio
Profitability & Reporting
The Gap Between Your Best Auto Repair Shop and the Rest Isn't a Mystery. It's a Data Issue.
You know which locations perform. Tekmetric shows you exactly why, in real time, so you can act before the day is done.
Most MSOs are managing with last week's numbers at best. Reports get built manually. Data gets pulled from separate systems. By the time you know there's a problem at a location, the opportunity to act quickly and solve it is gone. That lag doesn't just slow down your decisions, it costs you money in real time.
Tekmetric's portfolio dashboard puts every location's data in one live view. ARO, car count, close ratio, gross profit, and technician efficiency are all filterable by shop, advisor, and date range, giving you a complete picture of what's working and where the gaps are. Seeing your top performer and your underperformer side by side makes it clear exactly what the best shop is doing that the others aren't.
The operators who use this visibility don't just track results — they act on them. Branch Automotive used Tekmetric's real-time data to build nine straight month-over-month increases in ARO, driven by stronger inspections, clearer recommendations, and the kind of customer trust that leads to consistently higher-value work. These aren't outliers; they're what happens when operators finally have the data to make better calls.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A portfoliowide dashboard showing ARO, car count, close ratio, and gross profit across every location in real time with shop-level filtering so you can see the full picture or drill into one location
Built-in reporting on technician productivity, DVI impact on ARO, end-of-day reconciliation, and discount and fee analysis — no exports, no spreadsheets, no five-hour Friday afternoon
Labor and parts matrices that lock in consistent pricing across locations, protecting margins and making every shop’s numbers comparable
In the automotive repair industry, efficiency and organization are key to keeping customers happy and maximizing productivity. While traditional tools have always been the foundation of a mechanic’s work, modern software solutions like parts inventory management software are revolutionizing the way shops operate. By integrating software with traditional tools, mechanics can streamline repairs, reduce downtime, and focus on delivering exceptional service.
One of the biggest challenges mechanics face is delays caused by missing or misplaced parts. With inventory management software, you can always have a clear view of your inventory, ensuring the parts you need are in stock and ready to use. This eliminates the frustration of searching for or reordering parts mid-repair, expediting the entire process.
Tekmetric’s inventory management software gives you real-time updates on stock levels, so your team can quickly locate and retrieve parts when needed. By integrating this system with traditional tools, you can keep your repairs moving faster, improving turnaround times and customer satisfaction.
2. Clear organization
A disorganized shop can lead to wasted time, miscommunication, and errors. With car parts inventory software, you can create a digital inventory catalog, ensuring every part is accounted for and can be easily located. This streamlined organization makes it simple to track high-use items and plan for reordering.
Traditional tools like diagnostic equipment and repair manuals can be paired seamlessly with software features like Tekmetric’s parts ordering system, which ensures your shop has the tools and parts needed to tackle every repair. Combining digital and physical resources helps mechanics stay organized, reduce clutter, and maintain a professional work environment.
3. Less administrative work
Manual inventory management takes valuable time away from what technicians do best: repairing vehicles. By adopting auto parts inventory management software, you can significantly reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. Tekmetric automates inventory tracking, reordering, and reporting, freeing up mechanics and shop owners to focus on delivering quality service.
Automation also reduces errors in inventory counts, minimizing costly mistakes and ensuring your team always has the parts they need. With less time spent on paperwork, your shop can prioritize what matters most: getting customers back on the road quickly and safely.
4. Better customer experience
Auto parts inventory management software is designed to make your shop more efficient, organized, and customer-focused. By providing real-time updates, automated tracking, and seamless integration with traditional tools, Tekmetric helps shops stay ahead of the competition.
Closing Thoughts
For mechanics and shop owners, integrating modern tools like car parts inventory software with traditional equipment isn’t just an upgrade—it’s essential for staying competitive. By streamlining repairs, improving organization, and reducing administrative work, inventory software enables your shop to operate more efficiently and deliver better service to your customers. Invest in the tools that make a difference and see the results for yourself.
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