On busy days, it can feel like there are a million things happening at your shop. Technicians are hard at work getting repairs knocked out and service advisors are helping customers. Even on slow days, there’s work to be done. You might decide to tackle that new marketing plan or personally call customers to remind them of service work they’d previously put off.
No matter the circumstances, it’s important to have a way of juggling and managing it all. However, keeping track of everything with pen and paper, a whiteboard, or just by playing it by ear can quickly turn into a headache. After all, those methods are unreliable and complicated. Information can easily get lost in the mix, and all it takes is for one misunderstanding to knock things off track.
Repairs management software can keep you and your team on track and free up your time as a shop owner so you can focus on the high-level aspects of growing your business. Service advisors can use Tekmetric’s Job Board to see the status of repairs, appropriately delegate tasks to technicians, and give customers updates every step of the way.
Get a Bird’s Eye View of Different Stages in the Repair Process
When you access Tekmetric’s Job Board, you and your team can decide if you want to view jobs that are “Active,” “Saved for Later,” in “Accounts Receivable,” “Paid,” or even “Deleted.” On a day-to-day basis, your service advisors will likely manage repair work from the “Active” view.
Tekmetric’s Job Board categorizes “Active” repairs into three buckets: “Estimates,” “Work-in-Progress,” and “Completed.”
Column 1: Estimates
Every new repair order that a service advisor creates will first appear as a card in the “Estimates” column. The repair order will stay in that column as the technician conducts an initial digital vehicle inspection (DVI) and the service advisor prepares a repair estimate for the customer.
Service advisors can see the status of each repair order on the top left corner of each individual card. Statuses will indicate where in the estimate process a repair is: “Not Started,” “Requires Authorization,” “Pending Authorization,” or “Declined All.” In the “Estimates,” column, these statuses automatically change as each repair moves through the estimate process.
On the bottom right-hand corner, service advisors will see either a paper airplane icon that indicates when an estimate was sent to a customer, or an eye icon that indicates when a customer viewed the estimate.
On each card, the service advisor will see three dots on the upper right corner. When they click on the dots, they’ll see three options: “Authorize,” “Save for Later,” and “Delete.” When a customer declines all jobs in a repair order, the service advisor will see an additional option after clicking on those three dots: “Post as Declined.”
If you want to get the most accurate close-ratio metrics possible, you can go into the user permissions settings and remove the “Delete” option. By doing so, the service advisor must mark repair orders with all declined jobs as “Post as Declined.”
Column 2: Work-in-Progress
If a customer declines all jobs in a repair order, then that card will remain in the “Estimates” column with the status “Declined All.” However, if the customer approves at least one job in the repair order, that repair order card will then automatically move to the “Work-in-Progress” column and automatically get tagged as “Not Started.”
Note: the service advisor will still be able to view the declined jobs by clicking into the repair order.
When a card is moved to the “Work-in-Progress” column, the options under the three dots in the upper right-hand corner will change to: “Complete Work,” “Set Status,” and “Delete.” However, as the shop owner, you can take away the “Delete” option by configuring the user permissions.
The service advisor can manually add status updates by selecting “Set Status.” From there, they can choose the right status from the dropdown menu that will show up on their screen. For example, they can mark that a repair order is “In Progress,” “Waiting on Parts,” or “Waiting on Sublet.” The resulting designation will show up on the top left corner of each repair order card.
The service advisor will also see a timeline on the bottom of each repair order card indicating how far along a technician is in their repair. Service writers, shop owners, and shop foremen don’t have to go into individual repair orders to get this information. With one glance at the Job Board, they can know exactly where a repair is (for instance, 3 hours out of 4 completed, so 75% of the way there), and update the customer by sending them a message via true two-way texting.
Note: technicians will also see the work-in-progress line in their workspace, the Tekmetric Tech Board.
Column 3: Completed
Once the technician has finished a job, the service advisor can return to the three dots on the top right-hand corner of a repair order and select “Complete Work.” Doing so will move the repair order into the “Completed” column.
Note: repair orders will automatically hit Tekmetric’s Tech Board once the customer has given approval. You can configure user permissions to enable your technicians to mark repair orders as complete. However, to minimize confusion, we recommend keeping this capability of marking repair orders as complete to service advisors.
Once a job is complete, the service advisor can jump into the repair order and select the payment tab on the top bar. In the payment tab, the service advisor can collect payment in a number of ways, including cash, check, and credit or debit card. The service advisor can click the green “View & Share Invoice” button to send the customer an invoice. If your shop has Tekmerchant text-to-pay set up, the service advisor can send the invoice directly to the customer’s phone.
When the service advisor clicks on the three dots on the upper right corner of the repair order card after the customer pays in full, they’ll see the option: “Post as Paid.” We recommend that the service advisor doesn’t click this option until after the customer has picked up their vehicle, because clicking “Post as Paid” results in the card getting categorized as “Paid” in the Job Board. If a service advisor needs to move the repair order back to the Job Board, they can click on the dropdown menu right next to where it says “Job Board” in the top bar, and click on “Paid.” Then, they can find the repair order they want to move back, click the three dots in the right-hand column, and click “Unpost.”
If a customer hasn’t paid yet, the service advisor will see these options after they click on the three dots on the upper right corner of the card: “Post to A/R” and “Reopen RO.” Selecting “Post to A/R” is for sending a repair order to the accounts receivable department. This option is for charge accounts, or for customers who want to pay in installments rather than in full.
The “Reopen RO” option is for situations where something needs to be updated in the repair order at the last minute, like adding a charge for a missing part.
Once a ticket has been paid in full, the service advisor can view it later by clicking on the dropdown menu right next to where it says “Job Board” in the top bar, and clicking “Paid.” If the ticket gets sent to the accounts receivable department, the service advisor can click on that same drop-down menu and select “Accounts Receivable” to view it.
Customize Views for Maximum Speed
Sometimes, service advisors will want to change up their view of the Job Board to access different types of information faster. With Tekmetric’s Job Board, they can quickly sort and organize current jobs.
Service advisors can navigate to the top bar of the Job Board and select whether they want to populate the information on the Job Board by:
RO Status, whichwill give the service advisor a snapshot of which stage each repair order is in. For instance, they can choose to see every repair order that’s labeled “In-Progress.”
Employee, which will give the service advisor a precise picture of exactly what each technician is working on at any given time, so they can appropriately assign new repair orders.
Appointment Type, which will enable the service advisor to see which customers are waiting at the shop, and which have opted to drop off their vehicles and return later.
Service advisors can also use the Job Board’s search bar to their advantage and immediately find specific jobs. For example, they can search for a vehicle year or customer name, and the relevant repair order will appear on their screen. With the search bar, the service advisor will spend even less time hunting down a specific repair order!
Repairs Management Software: Manage Your Shop Without Micromanaging
With Tekmetric, you’ll have access to the same information as your service advisors and technicians. You can use the Job Board to keep an eye on repairs without disrupting your team.
As your team becomes more and more confident using Tekmetric’s Job Board, they’ll be able to self-manage. In turn, you’ll have more time to focus on the high-level aspects of building your business, such as using Tekmetric’s realtime reports to forecast sales. Or, you might decide to use your newfound time and flexibility to take a much-needed vacation—all while still being able to see what’s going on at your shop. As long as you have a device and an internet connection, it’ll be like you never left!
Tekmetric just revealed two new tools to help shops win more customers and run a more efficient front desk. Get the full story. Watch the on-demand webinar now.
Generating new business in auto repair is hard. The industry is projected to grow just 2% over inflation annually over the next five years. The average American has 15 auto repair shops within 10 miles of their home, according to Tekmetric's internal data, meaning competition for every new customer is fierce. And across multiple industry surveys, roughly two-thirds of drivers say they don't fully trust their local repair shop — making it that much harder to win them over. The result: only one in 10 shops both grows and hits profit margins of 20% or higher.
"We know the competition to win new customers is fierce,” said Lauren Langston, president and COO, Tekmetric. “That means we need the right strategies and the right tools in order to do it."
Tekmetric's data shows that winning shops consistently focus on four outcomes: car count, average repair order (ARO), driver experience, and cycle time. Two new Tekmetric products — Tekmetric Digital Ads and Tekmetric Phones — are built to move the needle on all four.
Tekmetric Digital Ads
Winning new customers starts with being found. Tekmetric Digital Ads is an AI-powered add on that helps your shop show up where high-intent drivers are already searching for auto repair on Google Maps and Apple Maps. Because it connects directly to Tekmetric, you can see exactly how your ad spend translates into real revenue, not just clicks.
"It's really hard to see what's working. One of the superpowers of this product is that it's connected directly with Tekmetric," said Jared Haleck, chief product officer, Tekmetric.
Tekmetric Digital Ads is in early access now and rolling out to selected customers.
Tekmetric Phones
Every missed moment at the front desk has a cost. Tekmetric Phones gives your service advisors the customer context they need — instantly, the moment the phone rings — so they can spend less time looking things up and more time taking care of customers.
"Service advisors especially are loving it,” Haleck said. “It just saves them so much time. It creates so much convenience for them.”
Tekmetric Phones is in beta, available for customers on RingCentral.
Watch the On-Demand Webinar
Langston and Haleck walked through all of it — the industry data, live product demos, and what's coming next — in their webinar, "Building for the Results-Driven Repair Shop."
Almost 1,000 shop owners, service advisors, and technicians gathered in Houston for Tektonic 2026, Tekmetric's first industry conference. Over two days at the Marriott Marquis, attendees packed breakout rooms, traded hard-earned lessons, and heard from operators, coaches, and industry leaders who have built and scaled shops of their own.
The Question That Started It All
Tekmetric CEO and Founder Sunil Patel opened Tektonic 2026 with a question he has been asking since he was writing service tickets and mopping floors at his former Houston shop, Motorwerks of Houston: "Why does it have to be so hard? Why does it have to feel like we're fighting a war on 12 fronts?"
That question, he told the room, is the reason Tekmetric exists.
Standing in front of shop owners, service advisors, and technicians who understand that question on a cellular level, Patel walked through how much harder running a repair shop has become. Vehicles are packed with software, sensors, and calibration systems that require entirely new toolsets. Customer expectations have been shaped by on-demand everything. Technician shortages continue to press on shops across the country. And OEM data restrictions are making it harder for independent shops to do the work they were built to do.
But Patel didn't stop at the challenge. He laid out four pillars he believes the industry needs to move forward: stop celebrating burnout as a badge of honor, build genuine trust with customers and teams, invest in an ecosystem of great partners and vendors, and embrace technology that serves shops rather than extracts from them.
He closed with a simple ask for everyone in the room: be curious, be open, be generous with what you know, and be present.
"I want you to take something away from here," he said. "Something that will get you to be 1% better than you were."
That set the tone for everything that followed.
Top Takeaways
Process Consistency Wins on the Hard Days
Busy days don't create problems. They expose them. The best shops build their standard operating process before the chaos starts.
Call the day before. A preappointment call to review service history and flag overdue maintenance turns intake from reactive to planned and primes customers to say yes before they walk in the door.
Speed is your biggest sales tool. Every hour between drop-off and delivering an estimate costs roughly 10% in approval rates. Get findings to customers fast.
Set the next promise, not the finish line. Never promise a completion time you can't guarantee. Promise the next specific update and deliver it on time, every time.
The in-store customer is the highest-priority repair order in the building. Every other car can wait. The person sitting in your lobby cannot.
Improve one thing at a time. Pick one process to fix, measure it, and build accountability before moving to the next. Trying to fix everything at once fixes nothing.
Speed Closes More Jobs Than Salesmanship
Closing rates drop sharply with every hour that passes between drop-off and the customer call. A customer who has been waiting since 8 a.m. has had time to read every one-star review and talk themselves out of approving the work.
Get inspection results to customers within 30 minutes of dispatch. That's the speed zone. Everything else in the shop is secondary until that call is made.
In-store customers get findings in 15 minutes or less. The customer is sitting right there. Use it.
Relative priority is your daily compass. At any moment, the most important thing is moving the car that's furthest behind in the process. Not the loudest customer. Not the most expensive ticket. The earliest step.
Two daily goals. Full stop. Every technician runs at least eight billable hours. The shop hits its gross profit target. Nail both and everything else follows.
You Don't Have a Technician Shortage. You Have a Culture Problem.
The technician pipeline isn't as broken as it seems. What's broken is how many shops make it hard to stay.
Rethink flat rate. Hybrid pay models that combine a solid base with performance incentives align your team's goals with the shop's goals and they're far more attractive to the next generation coming into the trade.
Answer two questions before you do anything else. Why would a technician work here? Why would a customer come back? If you hesitate on either, start there.
Recognition is the highest-ROI leadership move you have. Research cited at the conference found that team members become disengaged because they don't feel seen. Fix that before you invest in anything else.
AI won't replace hospitality. Technology can handle administrative weight, but the trust a service advisor builds with a customer at the counter is irreplaceable. Invest in that skill set.
P.J. Leslie, Tekmetric's head of mid-market and enterprise sales, moderates a panel during Tektonic 2026 in which multishop owners break down the real strategies behind expansion: buying shops, building shops, systemizing operations, integrating teams, protecting culture, and planning for eventual exit or partnership.
Growing to Multiple Locations Takes More Than Money
Every multishop operator on the stage agreed: you're never fully ready, and that's fine. What matters is being profitable, having the right people, and expecting the unexpected.
Profitable and cash-positive before you move. When you make a mistake at location two—and you will—you need a healthy location to cover it.
You're ready when your shop doesn't need you. Build your bench before you open the next door. The manager for location two should already be in your building today.
Start your exit plan on day one. Almost no one in the room at one of Tektonic’s breakout sessions had a clear exit strategy. Don't leave money on the table because you never thought through how the story ends—whether that means selling, transitioning, or building for long-term cash flow.
Leadership Is the Ceiling on Everything Else
Your shop will never outperform your leadership. What you tolerate becomes your standard. How you show up on Monday morning sets the emotional temperature for everyone around you.
Know your triggers before they know you. Name what sets you off. Once you can spot it, you can stop it before it damages a relationship.
Pause for three seconds. Before you respond to anything that's gotten under your skin, stop. Three seconds is the difference between a reaction and a response.
Hear less. Listen more. After someone finishes speaking, let the silence sit. People almost always have more to say and the second thing is usually the real thing.
Walk into hard conversations knowing how you want them to end. Start with the outcome in mind, not the grievance.
Tekmetric Chief Product Officer Jared Haleck breaks down Tekmetric's new products at Tektonic 2026. The new products include Tekmetric digital ads, Smart DVI, and Tekmetric phones.
Product Announcements at Tektonic 2026
The closing session belonged to the Tekmetric product team. Drawing on data from more than 15,000 shops on the platform, Tekmetric President and COO Lauren Langston and Chief Product Officer Jared Haleck built the roadmap around key areas where winning shops consistently outperform the rest: car count, average repair order (ARO), driver experience, and cycle time.
Here's a look at what’s coming:
Tekmetric Digital Ads: AI-powered advertising on Google Maps and Search, built for the moment a driver has a problem and is ready to act. It connects directly to Tekmetric so you can see the gross profit behind every dollar of ad spend, not just clicks.
Smart DVI: Technicians walk the vehicle, narrate what they see, and Smart DVI builds the customer-ready inspection report automatically—findings organized, images annotated, and jobs pre-suggested for the estimate. Less time typing. More time turning wrenches.
Tekmetric Phones: Customer details, open repair orders, and communication history surface the moment an inbound call rings. No more looking it up while someone's waiting. A future capability in development will transcribe calls in real time and auto-populate appointment notes.
See You in 2027
Tektonic 2026 was Tekmetric's first industry conference, and it delivered on the promise Sunil Patel made from the stage: a room full of shop owners, service advisors, and technicians who showed up to get better.
The through-line across every session was the same. The shops that win are the ones that build systems, invest in their people, and keep getting 1% better. Not all at once. One thing at a time.
The Tekmetric Mobile App now does more than fast digital vehicle inspections.
The newest update introduces Mobile Check-In, giving you or your service advisors the ability to greet customers in the parking lot, scan a VIN or license plate, and instantly start or pull up a repair order, all from a phone. It’s a faster, easier way to begin every job and keep things moving.
Speed Starts at the Curb
Check-in is one of the most visible — and often most frustrating — parts of a shop’s day. Whether it’s a walk-in with a flat tire or a scheduled customer with missing info, time is lost bouncing between the lot and the desk, retyping data, and waiting to begin.
Mobile Check-In simplifies all of that. Now, you can confirm arrivals, start new ROs, and begin helping customers the second they pull into the lot — without delays or extra steps.
A Mobile App That Does More Than You Might Think
The Tekmetric Mobile App isn’t just a tool for inspections — and it’s not just for technicians.
Technicians can use the app to:
Find their assigned repair orders
Complete DVIs with photos, videos, and markups
Track time and stay on top of work in progress
Service advisors can use it to:
Greet customers in the parking lot
Scan VINs or plates
Start repair orders right from their phone
All without logging into a desktop.
A Real Mobile App — Not Just a Website Shrunk Down
Tekmetric Mobile is a fully native app, designed from the ground up for iOS and Android. It’s fast, reliable, and optimized for real-world use in the shop — whether you’re in the bay or out in the lot.
While it doesn’t include every desktop feature, it makes the most important ones faster and easier when you’re on the go — like:
Starting repair orders
Performing inspections
Reducing back-and-forth between workstations and customers
And this is just the beginning. Future updates will continue to bring more mobile workflows into the palm of your hand.
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