As part of our latest ARI software update, we’ve introduced a highly requested option that gives shops more control over online payment costs: the ability to pass payment processing fees to the client. As more customers choose to pay invoices online, processing fees can quietly eat into margins. This new setting helps protect your revenue while keeping the checkout experience transparent and easy to understand. The feature is OFF by default, so nothing changes unless you decide to enable it.

How the feature works

When the “Pass Fee to Client” option is turned on, ARI (Auto Repair Software) adds a clear disclosure step during online invoice payment. Customers see this disclosure before completing the payment, so they understand that a processing fee will be applied. This approach follows common best practices for payment transparency—showing relevant details at the right moment without overwhelming the user.

The fee is only presented when a client attempts to pay an invoice online. There are no changes to in-person payments or invoices that are not paid through the online payment flow.

How to enable the feature

Because this setting directly affects your customers’ checkout experience, it’s intentionally disabled by default. To turn it on:

1. Go to Settings → Online Payments Setup

2. Make sure a payment processor is connected to ARI

3. Toggle “Pass Fee to Client” to ON

Once enabled, your clients will see a disclosure pop-up when paying invoices online, clearly explaining the added processing fee before payment is finalized. This keeps expectations clear and helps prevent confusion or disputes.

Track your savings

We made a table and an interactive calculator with an estimation of the savings you get after turning this setting on.

Easier Two-Way Texting (US, CA, Australia)

You’re busy, and so are your customers. Now, you can easily manage your text communication without switching apps.

• When a client texts back to the SMS you sent from ARI, their reply shows up right on their Client Page under a new Messages Tab.
• What this means: You now have a complete, documented conversation history for every job and client, all in one place. No more wondering where that one text went.

Groping section overhaul

We heard the call for a better way to handle those complex jobs. That’s why we completely reworked the Grouping Feature with a better layout for how you structure items on a JobCard. This upgrade makes organizing large maintenance packages, diagnostic work, or multi-stage projects simple and intuitive.

The New Layout

We reorganized the JobCard tabs to give you quick, clean access to what you need:

• Detailed: Your classic, familiar working view.
• Compact: The condensed, high-level summary.
• Grouped: This tab is now the dedicated, go-to spot for creating and managing all your organized, collapsible groups.

How Grouping Got Better

• Organize on the Fly: You can build, move, and edit all your groups directly inside the Grouped tab. Just use drag-and-drop to put items where they belong.
• Mobile Management is Easier: If you’re using a tablet or a smaller device, we added a simple dropdown menu that lets you move items within groups without having to mess with dragging things around.
• Choose Your View: We give you two ways to interact with your groups:
  • Grid View: Best for drag-and-drop when you’re building and moving groups.
  • List View: Best for sorting items inside groups, making sure the repair steps are in perfect order for the mechanic.
• It Stays Put: Once you organize your groups and items, the order is locked in. It won’t change, even if you refresh the page or step away and come back later.
• Canned Jobs are Smarter: When you drop a Canned Job (a pre-set package) onto the card, ARI now automatically creates a new, separate group for it. That’s instant, zero-effort organization.

(Note: These new sorting features work best on new Job Cards. We’ll keep tweaking the logic to make it perfect across all documents.)

JobCard & Invoicing Changes

We packed some small but powerful fixes into the JobCard to cut down on clicks, keep your records honest, and make closing out a job a breeze.

Keeping Your Data and Time Accurate

• Mileage Guard: Never miss an odometer reading again! ARI will now automatically pop up a reminder if you select a vehicle without current mileage or if the last update was over 30 days ago. It keeps your service history clean and spot-on.
• Write More Detail: The box for your labor description on the Detailed table now expands as you type. Go ahead and write everything you need—the box won’t cut you off.
• Labor Hours, No Math: We added a line for the Total Hours right at the bottom of the Detailed table. You can instantly see the total labor time for the job without adding it up yourself.

Closing the Job fast

• Auto-Complete: You told us you wanted the system to work for you, so we wired it up. The second you mark an invoice as Paid, the JobCard automatically flips to Completed. That’s one less thing you have to click!
• Personalized Emails: When you email an invoice, you now get the option to quickly add free text to the email body. Perfect for a quick “Thank you,” a reminder, or special instructions for the client.

How it compares to the old versions

Thank you for the support and feedback that made this update possible. We appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas with us. Now that this new version is out, we’re eager to hear about your experience. Keep the feedback coming so we can continue making your day-to-day work smoother

First things first, let’s talk about the look and feel. Every single page in ARI, from where you enter company details to how you manage your inventory and vendors, has been completely overhauled. We wanted everything to have a consistent look, like all your tools are neatly organized. No more jumping from one screen that looks outdated to another that’s more modern. Now, whether you’re creating an invoice, managing client information, or checking stock, everything has a unified design and a much-improved layout. This also means our software is now much more responsive, fitting perfectly whether you’re on a desktop monitor, a tablet, or even your phone.

Under the hood, we’ve also been doing some serious work to fix up those nagging web display issues. Ever had trouble scrolling smoothly, or seen things jump around on the screen? We heard you loud and clear. We’ve fine-tuned the native scrolling, adjusted grid layouts so your information lines up just right, and fixed those annoying tab-related problems. The result? A much clearer, more stable view of your data, making it easier on the eyes and less likely to cause frustration.

You might also notice the small details, and sometimes these make the biggest difference. We went through every single button, piece of text, and placeholder in the software and gave them a refresh. This wasn’t just about making them look nice; it was about making them clear and consistent. No more guessing what a button does or squinting to read tiny text. Everything is designed to be instantly understandable, saving you precious seconds throughout your day.

And speaking of saving time, we’ve made significant improvements to how you navigate through the software. We’ve added smarter back buttons, improved our pagers so you can flip through lists of clients or parts more efficiently, and supercharged our search functionality. Finding what you need quickly is crucial, and these enhancements are designed to help you get there quickly. It’s like having a well-organized workspace where everything is exactly where you expect it to be.

Finally, we’ve added some helpful guidance to assist you along the way. You’ll now see clearer warnings before you do something irreversible, helpful confirmations to make sure you’re on the right track, and more useful explanations to walk you through certain processes. We also gave our modals (those pop-up windows), standard popups, and snackbars (those little notifications that appear at the bottom of the screen) a complete overhaul. They’re now designed to be less intrusive and more informative, ensuring your interactions with the software are as smooth and user-friendly as possible.

We’re proud of this update and believe it’s a game-changer for how you interact with ARI. We’ve put in the effort to make your daily tasks simpler, quicker, and more enjoyable, whether you’re an auto repair shop owner or a dedicated mechanic. We’re always striving to build the best tools for your business, and this redesign is a big step in that direction. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Hey, everyone! We’ve got some news we’re excited to share, and honestly, it’s all thanks to you. ARI(Auto Repair Software) just received a letter from Top Business Software, earning their High Achiever Award for Spring 2025. This award comes straight from user reviews, which tells us that the hard work we put into ARI is matching the effort you put into your businesses every single day.

Think about this: Top Business Software looks at over 106,000 products. For ARI auto repair software, including solid features like our auto repair invoicing software, to be picked as a High Achiever means your voice stood out. It shows that sticking to the nuts and bolts – focusing on what people need to run a successful shop – makes a real difference that gets noticed.

This isn’t just about popularity; it’s about you folks seeing real value and telling others about it. Your feedback highlights how ARI helps you get the job done right – handling estimates, smoothing out the whole process with our auto repair invoicing software, and generally making things run better on the shop floor. It confirms that our auto repair software is built for the people working hard in the bay and at the service counter every day.

Honestly, this Top Business Software High Achiever Award feels like your award as much as it is ours. It comes straight from you, the shop owners, and everyone else who uses ARI and took the time to leave reviews. Your honest feedback is the backbone of what we do; it’s what helps us know what’s working and where we can make things even better.

We’re incredibly proud of this achievement and genuinely thankful for the amazing community of ARI users. Thank you for trusting us to be a tool in your shop. We’re dedicated to keeping ARI reliable and helpful for you, day in and day out.

Let’s show you how to set it up.

Brand Email Domain Setup

There are numerous benefits to activating your custom email domain, such as:

• Better chances of avoiding the spam inbox
• Better recognition thanks to the company domain
• Better engagement rates
• No reliance on ARI’s servers

If you want to take advantage of these benefits, the easiest way is to set up your email address. Do that from ARI Settings -> Email Address Setup. Once there, read the instructions and input the required SMTP settings. We’ve linked a guide that will help you complete the steps. 

Once you gather and input the details from your email provider, click Connect so you can complete the setup. You will get a pop-up reminder when sending an email from ARI’s domain to consider switching to your company domain. Different email providers require different settings, so please ensure you are following the instructions.

And that’s how you set up your email domain in ARI(Auto Repair Software). Stay tuned for more updates and exciting feature releases. Your feedback as a user is always appreciated, so make sure to share your thoughts about the recent changes.

Please check if you are using the app version with the help of this guide.

Appointment field customization

In previous versions, the appointment fields on your online booking page had only default values. Now, the fields on the form can be edited according to your needs. For example, if your shop specializes in tire changing, you can delete some of the fields like the number of doors or vehicle color, and replace them with some tire specs. If you are running a heavy-duty shop, you can add new fields and remove the driven wheels field. You can also choose to make the input field mandatory or optional.

You can find all these booking form customizations in the appointments menu. To start editing – go to the appointments view and click more. Then select ‘add custom fields to booking form‘ and go over each field you like to change. If you don’t want to delete a field, you can mark it as hidden and clients won’t see it. Once ready – click Save Changes and the edits will be reflected on your booking page.

Are we on the path to making the app more practical? We’ve tried to implement the most-requested features and create a comprehensive auto repair software. If you like the app’s performance, you can leave a comment below or this article over social media.

Please follow this guide to ensure you are using the latest app version.

Vehicle Overview Page Changes

Our new vehicle menu introduces a new design based on the latest UI standards. The menu has been remade with new icons, buttons, columns, and advanced search options. The vehicle list on the page can be seen in columns or cards depending on your chosen view.

Thanks to the action buttons, it’s much more intuitive to upload a picture, detect/ decode a license plate, or scan a VIN. One of the new AI features of our auto repair software is the plate recognition option. With it – you can upload a picture of a license plate and the AI will fill in the data from it. You again have the option to toggle between the list and grid views for a better workflow.

Adding a new vehicle

We’ve enhanced the process of adding new vehicles. You can start adding a car with the + button on the vehicle menu and you will be brought to the input panel. There you can easily select the vehicle details with the new drop-downs. The drop-downs are designed to ease the input and reduce mistakes. As an alternative to the fields, you can use the M1 Vehicle Selector to pull a car out of the database. Once you put all the details you need, simply hit save to store the data.

Vehicle Details Page Changes

The upgraded look of the vehicle details page introduces a handful of new icons and buttons. At the top, we have the edit and delete options which allow you to change the vehicle details or delete them them completely. Below them, you can add or view a picture of a vehicle and the labels and car specs.

One big addition to the car info page of our auto repair software is the label button which you can use to add labels to your vehicles. The icons next to the car specs help you understand the info seamlessly. On top of that – you have action buttons that can open the NHTSA Car Details, the Car Diagnose tab, and the Service reminders if there are any.

Similarly to the client page, you have an info tab that gives you quick access to other menus such as:

• Vehicle owner
• Estimates
• Invoices
• Carfax
• ARI History
• Notes

There’s another completely new tab in this bar called ‘Deferred’. This new feature shows all declined parts and labor items for a certain vehicle. Use any of the info bar windows for a quick cross-reference or edits for your cars.

In this update, we made significant progress on the app’s design. Our goal is to improve the usability significantly and introduce a modern feel to our auto repair software. Let us know what you think about the changes with a comment below. Don’t forget to share the article over social media if you like where the app’s headed.

Make sure you are using the latest ARI version with the help of this guide.

Let’s explore the changes in detail:

Client Page Changes

The new client page has a modern layout that lets you navigate easily
and find your clients in seconds. Depending on your chosen view, you will see your client info in columns or cards on the main client page. The grid view is the default setting for a desktop PC or laptop, and the list view is the default mode for mobile devices.

We introduced new icons and rearranged some fields so you understand the information more intuitively.

Adding a new client

Adding a new client now is much more intuitive. When you click on the + button in the client view, you can start adding the client details. Most of the fields are identical to the previous version, but the fields are restructured to make the data input easier. We remade some of the action buttons such as ID Scan, Contact Import, and phoning a client to improve usability.

There are new toggle settings you can activate on individual clients. For example, you can make a client tax-exempt, apply a discount, or override the labor rate or parts markup for them. Use any of the toggle buttons to turn on and off any of the settings you like.

Client Details Page

The new layout combines all key client info in a much easier-to-understand format. You can see all the details, labels, and action buttons in one place. By clicking on the arrow button next to the details, you can dial the phone, open your email client, or open the client location on Google Maps.

We’ve added two new action buttons to each client details page. One is the Client Portal tab, where you can preview the portal or send it to your clients. The other is the Client Chat which gives you quick access to the chat in case a client has initiated it via the portal.

Each client page now has a summary of the total Invoiced amount and a breakdown of the Paid and Due sum.

A brand-new feature is the info tab which grants quick access to every menu in the app related to a certain client. You can see a client’s Vehicles, Invoices, Estimates, Statements, Notes, Messages, and even toggle any of the custom settings for them.

Client Portal Minipage

The client portal page also received a significant design change. We’ve explained how it works, listed its perks, and added the unique credentials and sharing options in the layout. Remember, clients can generate their IDs and Passwords after you grant them the initial access keys.

Thanks for sticking along. Please try the new design and tell us how you feel about it. We’ll be glad to hear your feedback.

Ensure you are using the latest app version by following this guide.

Here’s what’s new:

Changing the color of existing appointments.

ARI now allows you to choose a different color for your appointments. To do this – open one of your appointments, scroll down to the change color section, and choose a new color for your appointment. Once ready – click save to confirm the changes. The new color should be visible right away on the calendar.

Please keep in mind that changing the color won’t change the status of your appointment.
The default colors from the color legend are still valid in case you don’t choose a new color.

Assigning a Technician to an Appointment.

You can now assign one of your technicians to different appointments. It happens the following way:

• Open the Appointment
• Click the ‘More‘ menu
• Select ‘Assign Technician‘
• Choose one from your list of Employees
• Click Save

Adding Appointments to Personal Calendar on the Web App

Previously a mobile-only feature, we now support adding appointment events from ARI to your calendar. To do this – go to any active appointment and click ‘Add to Calendar’. Choose one of the options below and this will sync the appointment with the calendar app you are using.

Support for custom working times

Aside from standard working hours like 9:00 – 18:00, ARI now supports custom working times ( 8:45 AM – 6:12 PM.) If you want to set up yours – go to your appointments page in ARI. Then go to the more menu(top-right corner) and click on ‘Set up your working hours’. From there you can choose whatever works best for you and save the changes.

Is there anything you would recommend moving forward with the updates? Do you find the new features useful? Please share your thoughts below.

Get the latest software version with the help of this guide.

Let’s break down each of the significant changes.

Possibility to Add Pictures for Each Checklist Item

Vehicle Inspections in ARI now allow you to add a picture for each checklist item on a vehicle you are servicing. This is crucial for clients who require more information about their car’s condition and your intended services. There’s a separate column for the pictures where you can add them. You can add a picture from your gallery or camera.

The images are later visible both on the inspection preview and the online form you share with clients. You add pictures to a checklist category too. If you want to delete a picture – simply click on it and select ‘OK‘ once you see the deletion pop-up.

*Visual feature guide

When clicked – the checklist item images will open in a new tab. You can zoom in later by pinching the page and seeing the picture in greater detail.

An Option to Show and Hide the Pictures

The main inspection template now has a button that allows you to show or hide the pictures from the checklist items, vehicle, and damage reports. It allows for a cleaner printing of the whole checklist when needed.

The same show/ hide function is also present in the online inspection. On click each checklist picture is opened in a new tab. The client can interact with the online inspection and open it in the client portal.

What do you think about the new feature changes? Are we on the right track of introducing the most-requested features to date? Please share your thoughts below.

Update your app to the latest version with the help of this guide.

Let’s dive into the changes.

Identifying Parts Details from a Picture

When uploading an image of a vehicle part, ARI’s AI can help identify the part details based on that image. To do this – open the Inventory section from the main menu and go to Parts. Then click on the plus button to add a new part or start editing an existing one. Then click the more menu, upload a picture, or take one with your camera. Once ready – select ‘Identify Part from Image’. The AI will attempt to get all the relevant details that you can later transfer to the current Part. If you don’t want to transfer the details back – simply click cancel.

Attach PDF to Expenses and Extract Data with AI

A feature that works similarly to data extraction from a picture. This time – the supported format is different. If you need to upload a bigger PDF file and extract the data from it as an expense – here’s how to do it. Go to Accounting -> Expenses and create a new expense. Select ‘Attach file’ and upload yours. Then select ‘Extract data from the file’. After the details are ready – you can either transfer them back to the expense or choose to cancel.
You can also open the PDF file or delete it using the button ‘View/Delete Attachment.’

Do you have any suggestions for features you want to see in the next updates? Please share your thoughts so we can start developing them in time.

Ensure you are using the latest app version by following this guide.

Create a Purchase Order from the Job Card or an Invoice/Estimate

To make ordering even more accessible – we added an option to create a purchase order straight from Invoice and Job Cards. To access this feature – open an Invoice/ Job Card or begin editing one. Then click the More Menu -> Create a Purchase order. You will be redirected to the purchase page where you can add parts from Inventory, do it manually, or via PartsTech. Once you fill in the details – the record will be saved as a Purchase Order in Accounting.

Better Sorting, Filtering, and Customization Options

Thanks to the grid view, you can filter your Invoices by different parameters. With this update, we added a VIN column to the grid as well as the Cost and Labor Type fields. We’ve improved the search condition rules so you can find items easily.

To improve customization – we removed the default parts from the grid dropdown when adding parts to invoices. If needed you can bring them back as default in ARI Settings -> Account Management -> Toggle button. 

There’s also an option to expose due, ordered, and scheduled dates in the invoice (Template Settings -> Select from the checklist.)

Changing Job Cards into other types

We added the option to turn Estimates back into Invoices as well as the option to make an Invoice from Job Cards. These options are found on the individual Job Cards/ Invoices and are type-dependent.

Do you like the changes? Please let us know what we can add or change for future updates!

It’s safe to say that most people nowadays depend on technology but when it comes to younger generations, it’s not just dependence, it’s a way of life. This is why operating with auto repair software is a must for every shop. However, there’s more to it, and below, you can find some effective strategies to understand and retain younger mechanics in your shop.

Paying Extra Attention to Younger Mechanics

The gap between supply and demand is widening because more and more seasoned mechanics retire and there are fewer and fewer people entering the field. Here’s how this pays off in the future:

1. Keeping the Business Rolling: As old-timers hang their wrenches to retirement, the younger ones will become the backbone of the industry.
2. Riding the Tech Wave: Young people are more likely to bring fresh perspectives. Also, being all about the latest tech makes them easily adaptable to such. This may come in handy someday!
3. Driving Growth and Cool Ideas: Young talent can drive innovation and growth within your shop, keeping it competitive and relevant.

Generational Challenges

Skill Gaps and Training Needs

A lot of young people entering tech schools lack a mechanical background which is unusual for previous generations who grew up working on cars and machinery. Today’s youth often have their first hands-on experience in tech school.

While this is not necessarily bad, quite a few tech schools provide outdated training requiring shops to invest in further training. With no previous mechanical background, facing the industry this young and inexperienced may be a turn-off. Also, outdated training can be a turn-off by itself as youngsters are used to modern and computerized systems.

Work-Life Balance Expectations

Younger generations prioritize a healthy work-life balance, seeking a job environment that respects their time and offers flexibility. This is quite the opposite compared to many auto shop’s expectations of long working hours and weekend shifts.

To avoid conflict, it’s best to find the middle ground and ensure you have enough employees to cover several shifts with a fair number of hours. Speaking of working hours, establishing a decent mechanic labor rate may be tricky and definitely a factor, so do your research and make an informed decision.

How to Keep Young Mechanics Happy & Engaged?

Create a Supportive Training Environment

1. 1. Finding a Common Language: People who are just starting to dip their toes in the auto business may find it difficult to communicate with older mechanics. When training younger technicians, make sure they don’t get overwhelmed and try to find a way for them to relate to your experience, not just bore them.
   2. Persistent Mentoring: Let the younger guns see you as a mentor even when the training is over. They should feel comfortable asking you questions when the training is over. A culture of learning and cooperation is promoted by tackling problems as a team and promoting group problem-solving.

Inspire and Motivate

1. Set Goals: Understand every team member’s interests. Employee commitment and job happiness are increased when their roles align with their hobbies.
2. Offer Career Growth:  Youngsters often forget future growth and only “need a job” but having something to offer on the table may turn into a permanent life decision. Specialization in particular repairs, transitioning into service advisory roles, or even owning the business are just some ideas to talk about with younger technicians.

Friendly & Positive Environment

1. Maintain a Good Work-Life Balance: Younger mechanics wouldn’t struggle as much if they were left with some free time after working hours. Instead of packing them with too many hours and tight shifts, give them a flexible schedule.
2. Keep the Team Happy: Work on building a team-oriented culture where everyone feels valued. Recognition of hard work and contributions can go a long way in maintaining morale and loyalty.

How Auto Repair Software Can Help

Having auto repair software that is well-integrated into your business is already a factor that younger mechanics would consider a plus. ARI is one of the most affordable, yet fully functioning automotive software out there.

Add Multiple User Roles with ARI

With ARI you can add multiple users and assign them specific roles. For example, if you’ve just hired someone, you can only give them access to the Job Cards feature, ensuring they focus on their duties without accessing other sensitive information.

Seamless OBD2 Scans

Young technicians have a lot of expectations when it comes to technology and ARI couldn’t make things easier when it comes to OBD2 scans. All you need is a phone/tablet and an OBD2 dongle that’s based on ELM327. It’s the seamless experience and convenience that gets most young people nowadays.

Additional ARI Features to Help You Manage Your Team:

Yes, it’s important to keep the young mechanics engaged but do not forget you have other people to manage. ARI has got you covered and you can see some of its other managing features below.

• Job Cards & Work Orders: You can assign tasks, track times, and manage job approvals from any mobile device.
• Time Tracking: ARI offers clock-in and clock-out features to track employee activity.
• Labor Guides: As mentioned above, you should settle on fair payment, and ARI gives you access to detailed labor guides and estimates.

Retaining younger mechanics in your auto shop requires a combination of effective training, motivational strategies, a supportive work environment, and great auto repair software like ARI. Investing in modern technology and young technicians means you’re investing in the future of your auto shop.

If you believe financial transparency has a place in your business model, stay with us to explore how to promote it in your auto repair shop.

What Is Financial Transparency?

There is no catch to it, it means what it sounds like, namely – being transparent about your shop’s finances. This includes earnings, expenses, and investments. Sharing this with your employees builds trust and shows integrity.

What about salaries you may ask? Well, the best approach here is to be transparent about them also, because if you’re not willing to be that transparent, your best shot is to put the sum of all salaries under “expenses.” From an employee’s perspective (who obviously knows their salary), it will only be a matter of a few deductions to figure out how much the others are getting.

So, with that out of the way, let’s set an example.

If your team understands your auto shop’s financial health, they’ll appreciate decisions like hiring new people or adjusting salaries. How would this help? Well, it’s part of seeing the big picture. Combine this transparency with retention strategies, for example, and you’ll get a motivated and trusted workforce.

Benefits of Financial Transparency

If you’re reading this, you probably have an idea of the possible benefits of being financially transparent with your team. Let’s list all of them:

Increased Trust and Credibility

Financial transparency is beneficial for building trust with employees but also, if you have investors and stakeholders, being transparent is a great way to demonstrate honesty and integrity. You can state that on your website/listing for your customers to find out which also

Enhanced Employee Morale and Engagement

When you provide such valuable information, employees feel like they belong, making them more engaged in your shop. Understanding the shop’s financial performance makes them feel more valued, fostering a sense of control, and ownership even.

Streamlined Decision-Making & Accountability

Giving your team access to financial data will help everyone make informed decisions, improving your shop’s long-term strategic planning. Being financially transparent helps employees take better ownership of their roles knowing the financial context.

How to Implement Financial Transparency in Your Shop

So, you’ve made an informative decision that financial transparency is something you’d try but still wondering where to start and how to do it properly? Let’s break down the process:

Define Goals & Boundaries

Let’s go back to the question about being transparent about salaries. Whatever your decision is, you should set clear goals and boundaries for what financial information will be shared and who can access it. Nobody is fully transparent and neither should you.

Implement Regular Financial Reporting

You should establish a routine reporting schedule to share financial data consistently and on time. A monthly report is a common choice but feel free to adjust depending on how much business you get.

Adopt an Accounting Auto Shop Software

Investing in software that can provide real-time data access and financial reporting is crucial. ARI’s auto shop accounting feature is just one of its many. You, as well as everyone from the team, can create purchase orders, track your expenses, and monitor the profits.

Provide Financial Literacy Training

Now, it’s one thing to give opportunity for better decision-making but people who make those decisions should know how to make them in the most beneficial for your shop way. This is why providing training or at least spending the time to talk about budgeting, reporting, risk management, and investment tactics is just as important as being transparent.

Foster Clear Communication

Just like establishing regular reporting, creating communication channels for sharing information among everyone from the team is crucial. From daily or weekly meetings to informative emails, why not have interactive webinars?

Encourage Open Dialogue

When it comes to meetings, you should ensure everyone from the team is comfortable enough to share thoughts and discuss anything from financial matters to ideas that could benefit the shop.

Transparency isn’t just a business routine; it’s a vital strategy for the success of your auto shop.

ARI’s Auto Repair Software

As mentioned above, ARI can help with its accounting feature but you should know that it’s a lot more than that. ARI is an auto repair software used by thousands of shop owners and mechanics worldwide, offering a complete set of features such as client and vehicle management, estimates and invoices, marketing, and time tracking – to name a few. ARI’s ease of use guarantees a seamless experience and it’s definitely a great tool to help you promote financial transparency but has the potential to do a lot more.

Establishing financial transparency in your auto shop is a big step in building trust and responsibility in your team. What’s tricky about transparency is finding the right boundaries and setting the right atmosphere. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, you should consider everything from above. ARI’s auto repair software is a great start and its features would help not only being financially transparent but also being a more productive shop in general.

Remember to follow this guide and ensure you are using the app’s latest version.

Let’s dive into the changes!

Feature Updates

• Payments Improvements – Introducing Bulk Payments, Deposit Requests, Tips and Direct Payments via Client Portal
• Improved Item Grouping Functionality
• Approve/ Deny entire Item groups on an Estimate
• Better ways to add/ edit Parts& Labor on an Invoice – Table Mode, List Mode, Grouped View
• AI Detection and Data Extraction for documents (vehicle specs from an image | client info from driver’s license | expenses from receipts | tire sidewall scanning)
• Reports Improvements – Table view for reports, Sales Tax View
• Home page redesign
• PaidDate and status change date
• open JO then go to More/Change Status to see the latest status change date -> PaidDate automatically shows on the Invoice when the status changes to Paid
• Separate disclaimer for Invoice and Estimates (add in Profile/Disclaimers)
• Vendors page enhancements – Add new and Edit are now separate pages | option to view Expenses/Purchases for the vendor
• Include an inspection URL to an invoice after the inspection is attached (ARI and Online Invoice)
• save grid column settings (three dots/columns/hide show column)
• Inspection checklist templates Improvements – reordering option by drag-and-drop
• Employee Improvements – record Salary and rate per hour | prefill the rate when creating payslips in Accounting/Expenses | option to import Labor from Jobcard to Accounting/Expenses
• Sign-up page redesign

Bug Fixes

• Remove an alert when the notification is not allowed
• Duplicate clients when creating from appointment is fixed
• Hide financials when creating a Job Card page when the role does not allow it
• Labor prefill rate when adding to Inventory
• Hide hours on inventory/Services when fixed rate
• Only users with View access can open the Vehicles page
• Remove voided, refunded, and written-off invoices from dashboard/ due invoices
• When coming from the Job Card creation page, the checklist template does not persist on the Inspection page

Miscellaneous

• Hide Team comments on the Client Portal
• Remove SMS, email, and call buttons on the Job Card page and add that functionality as text links
• Redesigned Estimate/Invoice buttons on the Job Card page to highlight the current type of document
• Client imports now support the company name
• Warning if Miles in > Miles Out on the JobCard page
• transfer fixed labor to Canned Services
• print carfax reports
• autoincrement purchase Number
• When duplicate invoices – remove the signature
• detect landline phone numbers when sending SMS and prevent sending without taking credits
• auto-resize pics>5 MB instead of showing an error
• time tracking redesign
• search clients by company name
• link to Vehicle from the JobCard page
• JobCards/ WorkFlow – option to Archive JO (three dots menu)
• Add 8000 as a mileage step option for service reminders
• JobCard autosave will stay on the same page as opposed to redirecting to the preview

Thank you for your continuous support in making this update possible. We’ve made most of the changes thanks to your direct feedback. If you have any suggestions – please let us know so we can keep moving in the right direction.

We are extending our AI capabilities to assist you in handling everyday tasks concerning client documents. We’ve introduced many powerful tools that save time by gathering and prefilling data into your documents. Let’s break each of them down.
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*This is a developing feature that may occasionally produce incorrect results.

Identifying Vehicle Specs from an Image

ARI now lets you pull and transfer data for vehicles based on an image input. You can do this by uploading a picture when you add a new car. After a successful upload – you will see the ‘Identify Vehicle from Image’ button. Upon clicking it, the AI will scan the image and give you the make, year, model, and engine type specs that you can later transfer to the page.

Choose OK to fill in the data, or hit cancel if you don’t want to transfer the info.

 

Client info from driver’s license, ID, and other documents

When creating a new client in ARI – you can get data straight from their ID, driver’s license, or other personal document. To do this – go to the client’s section and select the + button to add a new client. Then choose ‘Scan ID‘ and upload/ take a picture of the document and add it. The AI will check the document and pull any relevant data.

 

After the scan is complete – you can select ‘OK’ to transfer the data or ‘Cancel’ to stop the process.

 

Extract Data from receipts

ARI now has the option to add a picture of a receipt and extract the data to an expense.

You will find this option in the Accounting menu -> Expenses view. Start by creating a new expense with the + button. Then choose ‘Attach or scan receipt or invoice‘, upload your picture or take one with your device, and hit ‘Extract data from Image.‘

 

Hit OK to complete the transfer – or Cancel to discard the changes.

 

Tire sidewall scanning

The tire sidewall scan is used to get the tire info from a picture instead of checking and writing it manually. The AI does all the work for you.

To use this feature – go to Inventory -> Tires -> Add a Tire. Then hit Scan Tire, grab your camera, and take a picture or upload a saved photo of the tire. The AI will scan it and you can choose if you want to transfer the data to your Tire inventory or cancel the process.

 

We’ve updated the parts and labor functionality with a couple of new modes. The idea is to make adding multiple parts and labor items easier and more intuitive in every situation.

How does it work?

Grouped View

You will enter the Grouped View by default once you create a parts& labor group and save it. When try to add new parts and labor here – you will go to the detailed item view. After you add the item – it will go to the bottom of the list and remain ungrouped unless you change its status by selecting reorder & group.

Your workflow gets a ton easier with the features from our latest update. We are introducing approving and denying recommended items for groups.

Creating Item Groups

Recommending Grouped Items

Interacting with Estimates – Client POV

When your customers receive a digital estimate – they will be notified that recommended items exist and prompted to take action. They will also see a header notification that leads to the client portal where they can pay their invoice or handle their business.

Upon clicking the “R” button next to the invoice item – they can either approve or deny the recommended item. After they do this – you will see this updated on the invoice/ job card itself.

ARI’s most recent update brings you the most-requested features to date. We are happy to introduce Deposit Requests, Bulk Payments for Invoices, and Tipping.

Let’s dive into the new features!

Creating a deposit request in ARI

Requesting a deposit in ARI is quite simple. You first need to create an invoice or start editing an existing one. Then select “Request a Deposit” from the menu at the bottom. Once you are there – you can set the deposit amount, and reason for the deposit request and monitor the deposit’s status.

Once you are ready with your request – just hit save to finalize the changes. The deposit request will appear immediately on the client’s Invoices and Client Portal, and they can pay it from there. You will see the deposit status change after clients take action. If you don’t require a deposit anymore, you can always delete the deposit request in the future.

• You need an active online payment processor so your clients can pay the deposits. If there isn’t one active – they won’t be able to initiate the payment. Check out this video to learn how to activate a default online payment processor in ARI.

   

Making Deposit Payments as an ARI Client

As mentioned previously, your clients will see any deposit requests after you create them. Your clients can then pay the deposit from the client portal. You first need to grant them access and ensure they receive the right credentials. Follow this guide to set up the client portal access for your customers.
​
Assuming you’ve granted them access and you’ve made a deposit request from the app – customers will see this reflected on their invoices. When you share a link with the invoice – they will see a “Deposit Required” notification. Upon clicking on “make the payment” they will be redirected to the client portal where they can send the advance payment.
​

 

If they are to open the client portal straight from the regular link you give them – they’ll end up on the main page. From there they should select Make a Payment -> Make a Deposit and select the right one. Clients will see the notes you left on the request and write notes themselves. They can also give tips for the advance payment.
As soon as clients pay the deposit – you will see the status change on the invoice.
​
Every time clients have an unpaid invoice or deposit – they will see a notification on the client portal dashboard. They can follow the link and will go to the same payment action page.
​

Paying Invoices in Full(Bulk Payments in ARI)

Bulk payments allow your clients to pay multiple Invoices at once. Customers will see all the invoices gathered until now and choose which they want to pay in full.
To pay multiple invoices at once – first, open the client portal. Then go to Make a Payment -> Pay Invoices in Full and you’ll see the bulk payments section.
After that, select the invoices you want to pay, leave a note and a tip if you’d like, and continue towards making the payment.

Sending Direct Payments

Alternatively – clients can now issue direct payments without creating an invoice. You can handle such payments if needed or if there’s an emergency. You can think of it as a new channel for receiving partial payments. If there’s a service you performed and your client had to pay later – you can request such payment and ask your client to note the previous Invoice number as a reference. Tips are also available here. To leave a tip – choose one of the default amounts or input a custom one from the menu.

Elevating Auto Shop Management: Key Strategies

The following strategies can significantly impact both the operational efficiency of your shop and the satisfaction level of your customers. We know that implementing those can be challenging, so we’ll also talk about how leveraging technology can be a game-changer, enabling shop owners, mechanics, and managers to focus more on growth and less on day-to-day management tasks.

Inventory Management

Efficient auto repair inventory management ensures that your shop never runs out of necessary parts nor ties up capital in excess stock. It’s about finding the balance between demand and supply, tracking parts usage, and predicting future needs based on data.

Workshop Scheduling

Effective workshop scheduling maximizes shop productivity by eliminating double bookings and ensuring that each technician’s time is optimized. This involves coordinating customer appointments with available bays and technicians and also managing workloads to avoid bottlenecks.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Turning every first-time visitor into a loyal patron is a dream come true for every business. Building strong relationships through personalized service, however, is not enough. An effective CRM system would keep detailed customer and vehicle records, send service reminders and follow-ups, and generally keep track of everything that comes and goes.

Billing and Invoicing

Accuracy in billing and swift invoicing are crucial for maintaining cash flow and customer trust. This process includes providing itemized, understandable invoices immediately after service completion.

Employee & Workflow Management

Whether you are working solo or your shop has several employees, it’s important to track working hours spent on particular tasks. Maintaining efficiency is vital and solid data is the way to achieve it.

Vehicle Diagnostics and Repair Tracking

The ability to quickly diagnose vehicle issues and track repairs through to completion adds value to customer service and workshop operations. This process is increasingly relying on auto shop management software and tools for real-time updates.

Quality Control & Assurance

Maintaining high standards not only satisfies your clientele but also sets your shop apart from competitors. Regular audits, customer feedback, and continuous training are part of this ongoing process.

Marketing and Promotion

Understanding your target market and leveraging both digital and traditional media are key strategies when it comes to attracting new customers and also retaining existing ones.

Data Analytics and Reporting

Utilizing data analytics transforms raw business data into actionable insights for improved decision-making. It can reveal trends in customer behavior, operational bottlenecks, or financial performance.

Compliance and Regulations

Navigating the complex landscape of automotive repair regulations ensures that your business operates legally and ethically, fostering trust among your clientele.

How Technology Streamlines Auto Shop Management

As the auto repair industry becomes more complex, technology plays an important role in simplifying these multifaceted management tasks. This is where auto repair software solutions come into play, offering a wide range of tools designed to enhance every aspect of shop management.

ARI (Auto Repair Software) stands out as a stellar example of how technology can transform a garage into a streamlined operation. With features like detailed inventory management, sophisticated CRM tools, and even OBD2 scanning, and much more, ARI provides an all-in-one solution for auto shops aiming for greatness.

By using the right auto shop management software daily, owners can not only improve efficiency but also elevate their level of service and customer satisfaction. Using ARI will let you crank up your garage’s productivity and help you become the repair shop everyone’s talking about.

Did we miss anything? Maybe you’re using another app or you just like to share some feedback? Feel free to – the comment section is all yours!

We just introduced Business Assets and Recurring and Additional Fees. And updated the Labor Guides design for quick access from the homepage.
Let’s break them down one by one.

Recurring and Additional Fees Support

With recurring fees, you can add small taxes or special fees to all of your invoices. You can choose between a percentage or a flat amount. And decide whether to make them taxable or not. All recurring charges will apply to new invoices unless you delete or change the amount.

Here’s how to set them up:

Profile -> Recurring Charges-> Add new record -> Save changes

Quicker Labor guides access

If you’ve activated your Labor Guides in ARI – you’ll have an easier time working with them. We combined all features into a single section. With it, you use the Vehicle Selector, Labor Guides, Parts, Fluids, Wireframes, and Repair Procedures in one place.

You’ll find each of them in the Labor Guides section on the main menu.

Business Assets support

If you have special tools, equipment, or other valuable assets, be sure to place them in the right spot. You can use the business assets section to do so.

Follow these steps to use the feature:

Inventory -> Business Assets -> Add new -> Save changes

We are in the process of developing exciting new features.

Please tell us what you think about the latest update in the comments, and share the article on social media if you find value in it.

We are presenting AI Annotations for Vehicle Inspections. Giving you the convenience of quickly detecting potential damage done to a vehicle. Instead of drawing and describing the issue – the AI will tell you what’s wrong with the vehicle – be it a dent, a scratch, a deformation, a crack, or something else.

Let’s show you how to use the feature in real-time.

Using AI Annotations in ARI

The AI Annotation provides additional context to your Vehicle Inspections. When the inspection checklist and pictures are not enough – you can use the AI to simplify damage reporting. Just upload a picture, and the AI will detect and list any potential damages. Those are transferred as notes next to the image for your reference.

Here are the steps to use it:

Inspections -> Create/ Open an Inspection -> Pictures -> Automatic Annotations

*Each AI Annotation use costs 10 ARI Credits!
*This is a developing AI feature. Results might not always be 100% accurate.

We are working to implement more AI tools to help you manage your auto repair workflow. AI for auto repair is here to stay, and we need your feedback to improve the app.

Please tell us what you think about the feature in the comments, and share the article on social media if you found it helpful!

Please read this guide to get the app’s latest version.

This week, we will give you a short overview of the Client Portal. A way for your clients to see their entire business with you. It is used for everything from tracking Invoices, Payments, and Inspections to live chatting with you.

See the complete guide below and learn how to share the client portal with your customers.

Client Portal Guide

Client Portal Key Features

With the portal, your clients get a complete summary of their Invoices, Appointments, and other business items. The data is relevant to one client at a time – and they need login keys to access it. You control what they see as the data is taken directly from ARI. That means the portal automatically updates after making any edits to the client profile, invoices, inspections, vehicles, or other relevant info.

Here’s how to give access to your clients:

Open a Client -> Client Portal -> Send via Email | Send via Text | Copy to clipboard

To preview it yourself before sending it – simply hit preview.

You can grant or stop access to the portal anytime via the toggle button on the client portal page.

Clients can open the help center and start a conversation with you. You will receive an in-app notification if you are working in ARI. Or get a push notification with the app in the background if you allow it from the device settings.

*Quick Demo

User Sessions in Activity Logs

User Sessions are a way to highlight employee activity while they are working on the same ARI file as you. In other words – you will see if someone from the team is editing an Invoice or Inspection in the app.

User Sessions are available for all multi-user accounts. To add your staff as an ARI User, you must create a User Role and a User Access. Do that from:

Profile -> User Roles -> + Button
Profile -> Users -> + Button

When viewing a user session – you will see the user’s Name, Role, and Presence. The feature is active whenever you edit:

• Invoices
• Job Cards/ Estimates
• Payments
• Vehicle Inspections

To access the User session panel:

Open Activity Logs -> User Sessions

*in-app illustration

Keep your app up to date – follow this guide to ensure you can access the latest features.

For your work comfort – we added a Fixed Labor Rates | Profit Margins Selector and a Multiple-Delete Option for a hassle-free editing and labor configuration process. Let’s show you how to use them in the app and get more work done. (*Visual guides below)

Fixed Labor Rates | Profit Margin

We fulfilled your requests and added an option to change your Per Hour Labor Rates to Fixed Labor Rates. Before you start, it’s good to know and have access to some standard Labor Times for some auto repair activities. Here are the steps to access the Fixed Rates/ Profit Margin feature.

From the main menu – go to Profile -> Labor Markup. There you will see a toggle button that enables/ disables the Fixed Labor Rates. 

Click it and adjust the slider to get the required amount. Once done – click save, and you will see the corresponding value as profit each time you add a Labor Item to your Invoices.

You can toggle the button off if you need to work with different Labor Rates and Types again.

Multiple Delete Option

The Multiple Deletion Option is Part of our menu redesign, which provides further editing options. With Multiple Deletes – you can select an entire list from a page and delete every item. You will see it in the menus:

• Job Cards
• Clients
• Vehicles
• Invoices
• Inspections
• Tires

To use it – open any of the menus and click “More“. Then choose Multiple Deletes, check the upper-most tickbox on the page, and click Delete Selected items to proceed.

Once activating Multiple Deletion – the setting can’t be reverted.

Stay tuned for more new updates and changes feature changes in ARI. We will attach visual user guides for you to learn using the product faster.

Comment below with feedback about Fixed Labor Rates and Multiple Deletes, and share the article on social media if you find it helpful.

To begin things – we introduced Web SMS Editing and a new Discount Coupons Template to make engaging and retaining clients much easier for you. Let’s show you how to use the features and create value for your business. (*Please check the visual guides below)

SMS Editing in the Web App

ARI’s Web SMS Editing now allows you to send personalized messages or add crucial details about your Invoice, Inspection, or Appointment with clients. They can be used for Marketing Activities, Customer Support, Client Outreach, and much more.

To edit an SMS – open an existing Invoice, and select Share -> Send via SMS. You will see the default SMS template, which you can edit and send to clients depending on the situation. After finishing the edits – select Send to complete the operation.

SMS editing Options will appear in the following menus.

– Invoices
– Inspections
– Online Appointments
– Service Reminders

The process is the same – each section only has a different SMS template.

Discount Coupons Rework

ARI Discount Coupons were updated with a professional look and an option to attach them directly to Job Cards/ Invoices! You can create one from the Profile Menu and see how it looks. Finish the coupon creation by adding coupon codes and a monetary value/ percentage depending on your needs.

To attach a Coupon to an Invoice – open an active Job Card/ Invoice and select “More.“. Then click “Attach Discount Coupon“  and choose one of your active promotions. A special discount will be applied after you save the progress on your Invoice/ Job Card.

Stay tuned for more overall improvements and changes in ARI. We will provide user guides for most of the crucial features in this update.

Comment below with feedback about Web SMS Editing and Discount Coupons, and share the article on social media if you find it helpful.

Please keep your app up-to-date with the help of this guide.

New Features

One of your most-requested features was Automated Appointment Reminders for your clients. It’s one of the many improvements that came with the update. Here we will show you how to use it and extract value for your business.

Automated Reminders for Online Appointments

ARI now provides the convenience of automatically reminding clients about their appointments with you!  You can send Automatic Reminders to customers in your shop via email or SMS. To do that – open the Appointments calendar and create an Appointment for one of your clients. Head to the bottom yellow section “Automatic Reminders for Clients.“.  Then choose whether you want to send them an SMS or an email before they come to your shop.

You can use the Automated Appointments after clients book a service from your Online Appointments page. Once the appointment is confirmed – open it and tick the boxes so clients receive an email/SMS 24 hours before their scheduled visit!

Stay tuned for the upcoming changes in ARI. We will provide user guides for most of the crucial features in this update.

Comment below with feedback about Automated Appointment Reminders, and share the article on social media if you found it helpful.

As an auto repair company manager or owner, you know that consistent income levels depend on the amount of new and returning clients in your repair shop. And here, Upselling strategies are among the most efficient methods that come to your aid. Upselling can be done significantly easier when auto repair software assists you. Upselling gives consumers an extra service or product that improves or complements their purchase. When done correctly, upselling boosts profit margins and improves client happiness and loyalty.

This article will discuss three top-up selling strategies for car repair firms that can improve revenue and client retention. Thus, read on to find out more.

Service and Parts Bundle

Offering service bundles and part packages is one of the most efficient strategies to boost sales through upselling. For example, if a client comes to have a change the oil, you may offer a complementary package containing an additional checkup. You can raise your profits by selling these service bundles at a higher price compared to the regular oil change price individually.

Grouping components and services may assist clients in seeing the benefit of getting what they need all at once instead of separately. Auto repair firms can advertise service bundles and parts packages at their store, on their website, and in their bills to effectively promote them.

Discount Coupons

Provide discount vouchers for additional services or repairs as another successful upselling strategy. You can boost the chance of returning customers and create long-term client loyalty by giving customers a concrete reason to revisit your store. For example, a car repair business may provide a discount of 10% off an alignment with the purchase of brand-new tires. This encourages consumers to examine their vehicle’s alignment in addition to buying new tires.

You can offer discount coupons in a variety of ways. Distribute them using various media outlets, such as direct mail, social networking sites, and email marketing campaigns. ARI even has the option to distribute campaigns via SMS. The following works best when you have a way of segmenting your most engaged clients.

Discount Cards/Membership Cards

Discount or membership cards are another excellent way to drive upsells and promote repeat customers. When clients use these cards to make a second purchase of parts or services offered by the company, they receive special discounts or benefits. Membership cards help the business generate a steady income while building client loyalty.

Conclusion

The implementation of upselling strategies requires effective advertising and communication. Auto repair firms may enhance their chances of earning more sales by prominently advertising upsell offers in the store, online, and through print materials. Finally, the key to effective upselling is understanding the customers’ situation and offering something more valuable than they expect.

We’re thrilled to announce that ARI v.10.6 is now available with exciting new features to make your life easier and more productive!

Here are just a few of the ways we’ve improved your experience:

Customizable Email Templates

Say goodbye to boring, generic emails! Our new update lets you customize your email templates to make them more professional and impactful. Find out more about how to customize your auto-repair email templates

PDF Files on Invoices

We know how important it is to keep all your invoices and files in one place. That’s why we’ve added the ability to attach PDF files to invoices – all for your convenience.

Appointment Confirmations

Keep your clients in the loop with appointment confirmations via email, phone, or SMS. It’s never been easier to stay organized!

Improved Time Logs

We’ve added a grid view to time logs making it easier to filter and sort your hours and stay on top of your jobs.

Access to Wiring Diagrams and Repair Procedures*

Need to pull Wiring Diagrams or Repair Procedures for your next job? No problem! Now you can access all ProDemand features when creating a new Invoice/ Job Card.

*this feature is available to clients who already opted in for our Labor Guides add-on!

Bug Fixes

We’ve listened to your feedback and fixed several issues, including reset password in ARI Settings/Account management. Items in invoices keeping the same placement as when they were entered, back buttons bug fixes, and Partstechs issues fixed – among others.

And the best part? You can get access to all of these top-quality features and benefits with no hidden payments or restrictions. Go PRO today and take your auto repair business to the next level!

Don’t wait – update your ARI app now and start enjoying these amazing new features.

The latest ARI(Auto Repair Software) update brings enhanced customization options to improve the communication between you and your clients. Now the Invoicing, Inspection, Service Reminder and Appointment Confirmation email templates are editable within the app. You can swiftly change the default company logo so yours shows on top! Moreover, you can edit the disclaimers, headings, text fields, fonts, colors, and shortcodes to display additional company information from your ARI profile! Use the feature wisely to create the best possible experience for your customers.

Super convenient for your clients

Build an impactful message that will resonate with your clients. You are no longer restricted to the default email template and can add unique flavor and content to each message you send. You can include additional Client, Vehicle, and Invoicing data in your email templates according to your needs. Get feedback on what’s important to your customer and include it in the Service Reminder or Vehicle Inspection message.

What’s more – you can use our services, and we will help with content creation and generating the best template we can offer.

The importance of looking professional

Now more than ever, it’s become crucial to distinguish yourself from other businesses to gain credibility and trust. One effective way of doing this is by improving the look of your email templates. Your customers will benefit if the information on their Invoices and Inspections is more accessible and relevant to them. And the most significant upside is that it’s as simple as ABC.

How to customize your email templates

You have one of the following options when customizing email templates. 

1. Editing the Invoice/ Estimate template
2. Editing the Vehicle Inspections template
3. Editing the Service Reminder Template
4. Editing the Appointment Confirmation template

Let’s start with a simple example. Open an existing Invoice and click the “Share/ Send/ Download” button. Select “Send via email” to preview your template. Then choose “Customize” in the top left corner. Open the Invoice template and start making the required changes. You could reset to the default template if you don’t like your progress. Once ready – click “Save Template” and return to the previous page to start sending to clients! 

Try changing the info displayed on the templates by selecting a different shortcode from the menu. Here is a list of shortcodes you can use:

Client Info

• ${client.Name} 
• ${client.Address} 
• ${client.Phone} 
• ${client.email} 
• ${client.City} 
• ${client.State} 
• ${client.ZIP}
• ${client.CompanyName}

Vehicle Info

• ${vehicle.type} 
• ${vehicle.vin} 
• ${vehicle.regNum} 
• ${vehicle.make} 
• ${vehicle.model} 
• ${vehicle.year} 
• ${vehicle.milage} 

Invoice Info

• ${selectedItem.Status} 
• ${selectedItem.TypeOfForm} 
• ${selectedItem.Date} 
• ${selectedItem.BalanceDue} 

This article is a continuation of the topic of Professional Client Email Templates. Have a look at it if you are just getting started with creating your first email. If you have any comments or suggestions about the feature – please share them in the comments below! We would appreciate it a lot.

On this day today, April 8th, 2023, ARI (Auto Repair Software) has achieved the User Satisfaction & Likelihood to Recommend distinctions by G2, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.

This recognition is based on the responses of real users for each of the Grid® Report for Auto Repair | Spring 2023 related questions featured in the G2 review form.

“We are extremely happy to see the results of years of work finally come to fruition! We started ARI as a low-cost auto repair software trying to provide an affordable solution to mobile mechanics, but we are now amongst some of the leaders in the industry. We couldn’t be prouder of this achievement but we also know we have more work ahead of us! We are very confident that ARI will become The BEST auto repair software on the market!” said Constantin, the founder of ARI

ARI achieved Niche High Performer on theGrid® Report for Auto Repair | Spring 2023 by receiving positive reviews, from verified users compared to similar products in the Auto Repair Software category. For inclusion in the report, a product must have received 10 or more reviews.

“Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,” said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. “Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they’re rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews.”

Learn more about what real users have to say (or leave your own review of ARI on G2’s Auto Repair Software review page!

About G2

G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 80 million people annually — including employees at all of the Fortune 500 — use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Thousands of software and services companies of all sizes partner with G2 to build their reputation, manage their software spend, and grow their business – including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and Adobe. To learn more about where you go for software, visit www.g2.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Follow our recent press release on the topic for more relevant information!

Previously this option was only accessible through the mobile apps on IoS and Android. If you prefer using the mobile app – get it from the App Store or Google Play. Now we are increasing service flexibility by providing more send options. We aim to enhance our auto repair software and other features in the future.

How to send text messages from the web application?

• To send an SMS this way – create a new invoice or a job card. Or open an existing one. 
• Go to “Invoice” and select Print/Share/ Download. 
• Choose the “Send via SMS” icon to complete the action.
• Click OK to confirm the action.

See the illustrative screenshot for a better sense of how it looks in the app.

What are the benefits?

1. Better accessibility
2. More ways to reach your customers
3. Easy to use

Feature Overview

With the latest ARI(Auto Repair Sofware) update – we are introducing one of the most requested and exciting features to date – labor guides and labor rates. ARI users can now access the complete auto-repair database of Mitchell 1 ProDemand and use it to create invoices and job cards on the go.

If you already have a paid ProDemand account – you can use all ProDemand benefits inside ARI free of charge. As a new user – you can sign up for Mitchell 1 at any time and get one of the most accurate and comprehensive data in the auto repair industry.

How to connect your ProDemand account to ARI?

To get started – open the “Settings” menu and select Labor Guides. Then read the instructions
and enter your credentials from your original ProDemand account. You can also watch the explainer
video linked in the description. Once you are connected – you can start operating with the ProDemand labor estimates, guides, times, and rates.

Creating Invoices with Mitchell 1 ProDemand

The ProDemand interface and features fully integrate into ARI. To access them – create a new Invoice or edit an existing one. Open the Job Cards, Estimate, or Invoice menus. Then select a vehicle or create a new one(year/make/model are mandatory). Click the Labor Guides button to open the ProDemand window.

Once the ProDemand window is open – you can search and add Parts&Labor, Maintenance, and Fluids items from the respective tabs. You can add or remove items depending on your needs. For each item – you will see the description on the left side. Once you gather the info you need – click the transfer button. This function will move all selected Parts, Labor, and Notes onto your Invoices/ Estimates.

Vehicle selector from Mitchell 1 ProDemand

You can browse and handle vehicle data with the Vehicle Selector functionality. To start – open the Vehicles menu and create a new vehicle. Then press the “Open Vehicle Selector” button. There you can search for cars, SUVs, and trucks included in the interactive list. After you find the one you need for your job – click “Use this vehicle,” and the data will appear in your ARI Vehicles section. We recommend using the vehicle selector for your Job Cards to get the most accurate Labor Guides.

Fleet management is a very significant and essential aspect of most transportation companies. It refers to everything that needs to be completed to ensure the fleet continues to operate smoothly and without any problems. A fleet manager is responsible for ensuring the supervision of all aspects of fleet activities and making decisions regarding the routing, selling, and buying of vehicles and all other aspects of fleet management. However, managing all of these factors can become a burden for fleet managers. But luckily – fleet managers can employ ARI(Auto Repair Software) to make things simpler for them.

What Problems do Fleet Managers Solve?

The fleet management teams confront various difficulties. Fleet managers must develop plans for planning, directing, coordinating, controlling, and overseeing everything related to fleet vehicle replacements and disposals. The problems fleet managers are responsible for solving are as follows:

• Time management on the administrative tasks
• Fuel use and cost tracking 
• Vehicle maintenance cost
• Proper communication with drivers 
• Safe driving habits
• Geographically separated team management 
• Asset utilization 
• Drowning in a lot of data
• Integration between fleet data and existing software system 
• Misuse of fleet assets 

The fleet managers must solve the above issues using fleet management software to produce notifications and real-time alerts regarding problematic driving practices and many other problems.

How to Improve Your Fleet Management Performance?

Improving fleet management performance is an essential objective for the company. Fleet managers must understand the industry and strategies to collaborate with the team to enhance fleet management to boost efficiency. They can also benefit from using different fleet management software. Here are some of the ways you could increase fleet management performance.

• Implement Software: Fleet management software is one of the most effective ways to enhance your management systems. These applications will assist fleet managers in becoming more effective and creative in handling diverse tasks.

• Automate Workflow: Using an automated, digitized workflow system will aid in optimizing fleet performance and improving time management for the fleet manager since an automated workflow has a meager chance of error. 

• Lower Maintenance Cost: As a fleet manager, your priority should be to reduce maintenance costs, which may rapidly build up over time. The idea is to be preventive rather than reactive. Make use of several methods that can help you reduce maintenance costs.
• Ensure Safety: This is the most overlooked section. You must ensure the fleet’s and its drivers’ safety. As a fleet manager, you must be well-versed in safety aspects. Proper safety features can avoid future maintenance and adjustments.

How can ARI Help You?

Many fleet managers have found ARI unexpectedly valuable for handling fleet management tasks. It is because it includes necessary features required by any fleet manager. Some examples are as follows.

VIN Decoder/Scanner

Fleet management has become more straightforward with the introduction of ARI and fleet management software. Features such as the VIN decoder and scanner assist fleet managers in keeping track of the vehicle’s entrance. This approach is highly beneficial within the fleet management process.

Reports and Stats

This ARI system also has a report and statistics capability that significantly assists the fleet manager in tracking any financial movement inside the business. This feature may simplify your work with distinct labels, descriptions, and statistics. In addition, this feature allows the fleet manager to monitor financial information, inventory records, and personnel reports, allowing you to keep an eye on everything going on without needing anyone else.

Inventory and Part Management

This feature will provide you with a thorough overview of the inventory. The fleet management feature uses unique data entry tools to ensure first-class inventory and auto parts management. This approach makes work considerably more straightforward for a fleet manager by precisely showing all of the company’s inventory.

Why don’t you try it and see for yourself? As a fleet manager – your feedback will be invaluable. Make sure to comment and share on social media if you find the content engaging.

*images are illustrative

Why Are Vehicle Inspections Necessary?

Vehicle inspections are a significant factor in determining the overall health of a vehicle. The best way to protect the safety and durability of the vehicle is to put it on regular vehicle inspections. Many automobiles have unseen damage on the inside that may go undetected for a long time. Damage to the inside of the vehicle might put the safety of the vehicle in jeopardy to a substantial degree. 

The majority of accidents that occur in the present era are the result of either human error or mechanical failure of the vehicle. Therefore, doing an appropriate vehicle inspection can provide a great deal of information about the vehicle. It’s a mechanic’s responsibility to present the info to the owner in a decent manner.

When is it Optimal to Make Vehicle Inspections?

The exact answer is “it depends.” Multiple factors come into play such as weather, mileage, car part quality, and car year make. Clients will usually come to you and get car inspections at least once every season or year to ensure the vehicles’ safety and long-term sustainability. As a mechanic, you’ll notice that many clients come to you while considering a used car from an auto dealership.

Taking regular inspection of the vehicle for granted might be quite problematic. If one of the car’s numerous mechanical parts suddenly stopped working, likely, you wouldn’t notice immediately, which would make things much more difficult for the vehicle. 

Therefore, it’s crucial to know the significance of vehicle inspections. The inspection of several vehicles can be done in one of today’s numerous convenient methods. One effective strategy is to enroll in a comprehensive auto repair software program that assists with the procedure.

What About (ARI’s)Auto Repair Software Vehicle Inspection Feature?

The optimal management of an auto repair shop requires a lot of attention. In addition, if you don’t have suitable tools and instructions, getting a car inspected could be a total hassle. Therefore, software designed to help you with vehicle inspections might be of significant service. Its extensive list, which includes more than 30 criteria, will guarantee a detailed look into the vehicle. Our auto repair software also has some handy features, such as the ability to make your checklist, which assists mechanics in creating custom checklists.

The checklist is provided in a complete suite along with a chart that is quite comprehensive and is sorted into three different statuses: good, fair, and poor. With this tool, mechanics and technicians can rapidly write down the problems their customers are experiencing. Here are some of the most notable benefits provided by our auto repair software:

• Customizable Inspection Checklists
• Multiple Damage Report Templates
• Option to Attach Pictures With Damaged Parts/ Vehicles
• Company Info Visualisation
• Preview and Send via SMS/ PDF files

Did you think our article was helpful? We would appreciate your feedback or sharing on social media if you think we made the advice accessible.

The main points we will discuss in the article are:

• What are the fundamental changes to the online bookings page, and how does it compare to the previous version
• How you can set up your online bookings page
• How to configure your work hours and list your services
• What customization and editing options you have
• How to share the online booking page with your customers
• More information about the version update

Your customers can now enjoy a completely different online booking experience. ARI- Auto Repair Software‘s latest update allows your clients to see your work hours, available repair slots, and provided services. The design is simplified, and it lets people make appointments at your shop with a few button clicks. Here’s a visual comparison to put things into context:

How to set up your online appointments page?

Before using the online appointments functionality – you will need to confirm your e-mail from the “Appointments“ menu. Once you do that – our system will register that your e-mail is confirmed, and you should start receiving booking notifications there.

After you are ready – you can start configuring your working hours. The way to do that is from the “Appointments“ view when you click on “More” and go to the “Setup working hours” page. From there, you can add your work schedule, holidays, and how many appointments you can take in a timeframe. Additionally, you can choose to enable half-hour appointments or block short-notice appointments.

Listing your services and customizing form fields

You can list your services from the “Appointments“ view by clicking on “More“ and selecting “List your services“. On this page, you can enter the services you want to display in your online booking form. Once you complete your list – click on “Save changes“ to complete the record.

You can write descriptions for each of them, and choose a service duration and a total price.

From the section “Add custom fields to your booking form“ you can choose what information your clients need to enter in your booking form. There you will see the default and custom fields that have a mandatory and an optional state.

A box with a tick means the option is optional. If the box is empty – the option is mandatory. The fields “client.name“, “client.phone“, and “vehicle.make” are not editable in our auto repair software.

Additional editing options in our auto repair software

You can make changes to the e-mail your clients receive after a confirmed booking in the “Edit appointment confirmation e-mail“ section. Besides, you can choose to automatically confirm all new appointments when you receive one from your clients.

You can also switch back to the old calendar view if you need time to adjust to the new design. Moreover, it’s possible to create appointments straight from the calendar in the “Appointments“ view. But you will need all relevant customer and vehicle details. Additionally, you have the option to change the appointment hours by dragging the calendar event or double-clicking to edit it.

*whenever you see a small red triangle on the top right of a section – this means there are some unsaved changes.

Sharing the booking form with your customers

Once you finish customizing your booking form – it’s time to send it to your clients. Open “Appointments“ -> “Get a link to the online booking page“ and see what the form looks like. Then copy the link, and share it via text, e-mail, or social media. Or print it and place it so your clients can see it.

You can also scan a QR code that opens up the online booking form or embed an HTML snippet on your website that leads to it.

We advise you to test the booking form before sending it to your customers and check if it includes all the details and services you want people to see.

What does the customer’s online booking journey look like?

We made sure the customer experience for your clients will be as intuitive as possible. The first thing they see is your company name, logo, and booking calendar. After they choose a time, date, and service for their vehicle – they need to give you some vehicle info and appointment details to continue. The last step is to provide you with contact details so you can confirm the booking and they can receive an e-mail notification.

ARI (Auto Repair Software) V.9.9.7 is active – take a look at the other updates

The online booking calendar redesign is part of our recent app update.

Please check if you are running the latest version of our software by following this guide

Aside from the changes to the Appointments section – here are the other important changes and bug fixes:

• • Inspection ID auto increments when a new inspection is added.
  • Inventory is updated whenever you delete a part from an existing invoice.
  • Printing long invoices on multiple pages.
  • Attaching Inspections to Job Cards.
  • Creating Job Cards and Estimates from the Appointments menu.

We are excited to announce that ARI is now part of the QuickBooks app store as a partner app. QuickBooks was one of ARIs’ first integrations, and we worked hard to achieve good software compatibility so you can enjoy a better invoicing and accounting experience.

Learn more details about ARI’s feature on the QuickBooks app store.

About Intuit QuickBooks

QuickBooks is one of the first and most popular accounting software with over 30 years of development. It’s geared mainly towards small and mid-sized businesses and offers multiple financial, bookkeeping, invoicing, and business growth tools. They also provide flexible business plans and have a great resource center and customer support.

What are the benefits of connecting QuickBooks to your ARI account?

If you have an auto repair business and you are already using ARI (Auto Repair Software) – linking your account to QuickBooks can only enhance your overall productivity. The setup is straightforward and intuitive.

After you finish connecting both systems – ARI gives you the option to sync your invoices, clients, and inventory items. And from then on, you can use more advanced accounting options, get reports, track income and expenses, and manage your finances efficiently.

Check out this guide for more information on connecting ARI with QuickBooks.

Why being featured in the QuickBooks app store matters

Intuit QuickBooks is extremely effective in integrating with third-party solutions. And understandably
so, they build many software integrations to ensure a greater bandwidth. But only a handful of apps can meet their strict data security requirements and quality standards to gain a spot in their app store and be featured as a partner app.

QuickBooks doesn’t take commissions for featuring third-party solutions in their app store, and each of their partner apps goes through a rigorous testing protocol. With data safety and software infrastructure quality being the main priorities. We are glad to have one more bulletproof testimonial that highlights we handle your data as a customer properly. We know from experience that’s crucial for most businesses.

As always, we continue to expand the quality of our auto repair software.

In this article, we will talk about more interesting adjustments within ARI.

Follow this guide to make sure you are using the latest version of the app.

Also, see our previous articles to learn what other changes we made to our auto repair software.

Clients – source info

ARI now lets you include source information for each of your customers(e.g Social Media, Referral, Google). This can serve as an important feedback point because it helps you understand how customers discover your business and which segments are most valuable to you.

You can add the source from the “Clients” menu as you are adding or editing any customer details. Once you open the edit view – click on “Other” from where you can fill in the relevant information under “source”. After you finish, click on “done editing” to save your progress.

You can also search by source in the “Clients” view where you will see each customer that corresponds to your query. All you have to do is use the search box.

Additionally, you can get the source information when you open “Reports”, click on “Client Reports” and export the data.

See what it looks like:

Inventory/ Parts

ARI now provides the option to mark different car parts as suitable for a specific vehicle. To access that option – go to the “Inventory” view and select “Parts”. After you choose to create or edit a part – click on “More options” and fill in the appropriate details. To complete the action – click on “Save” in the top right corner.

You can also use the search option in the “Parts” menu to bring up different parts that are suitable for a specific vehicle.

Each time you are editing or creating a new invoice – you can add an inventory item from the current invoice view. Upon doing that the item will be auto-appended in the “Inventory” view as well.

You can see examples below:

Web invoicing changes

We made a few interesting changes to the web invoicing template of our auto repair software. One of them is the option to translate your invoice documents with the help of Google Translate.

Another is the possibility to display multiple address lines in your business profile. The web invoice logo size was also adjusted and it now depends on your invoice settings.

An interesting convenience is the possibility to hide the price of your parts in each web invoice. You can choose to do so in the invoice settings and the changes will be reflected in the documents. If you want to see how to access these invoice settings – follow this guide https://ari.app/2021/06/auto-repair-invoice-templates-settings/

Whenever a web invoice is not found, the link is invalid or something else is broken –  you will see a displayed error.

Here’s how it looks:

Payments 

For easier access to information and better filtering options ARI now supports the grid view for the “Payments” menu on all desktop devices. To access it you need to be inside the view and click on the “grid view” button. Learn more about the benefits of grid views in this article.

Aside from that – ARI now has a POS terminal integration, which allows you to process in-person payments with ease. Learn more about it on our dedicated page.

Appointments 

Interesting usability plus is the new option to create invoices from the “Appointments” menu. This can happen after you open the view, open an existing appointment, and click on the “More” button. After that, you should see the “Create Invoice” text and you can generate an invoice if you need to.

To help your task management – ARI now allows you to add existing appointments straight into your calendar. This option is available only on the mobile app and you can access it by doing the following. Open the “Appointments” view, select an actual appointment and choose the “add to calendar “option at the bottom.

See the examples below:

Service Reminders 

One development to our service reminders menu is the possibility to upload the mileage info from your vehicle details. In the same service reminders view, you can also choose the next service due to mileage with the help of a combo box with standard service intervals.

Accessing this menu happens after you open a vehicle in the “Vehicles” view. After that – click on “More” and choose service reminders. Once you open the reminder and start editing it – you will see the “Next Service Due after” text, which opens the combo box.

Also, our service reminder stickers are sized at 2 inches to match the industry standard.

Find examples below.

ARI settings

One of the new changes is ARI’s “Settings” menu redesign. Some of the icons have been changed so our auto repair software has a cleaner UI.

We also added the PGK (Papua New Guinea Kina) currency as an option. You can find it by using the search box or by selecting it in the currency list. The way to do that is from the “Settings” menu under “Currency”.

The other important addition in the settings menu is our “POS Terminal Setup” section where you can find tons of relevant information about the topic.

Here is a list of some recent bug fixes:

– Parts ID dropdown deletes the id after completion (fixed)

– SMS not working on iOS (fixed)

– no Warnings for leaving the page without saving (fixed)

– bad image resize (fixed)

– alignment issues (fixed)

– speed/lag (improved)

– invoice # not present in reports (fixed)

Thank you for reading and tuning into all our latest updates.

Please share the article if you think the content is useful. And write us a comment if you have any suggestions on how we can improve our auto repair software.

This article will cover another batch of useful developments within ARI.

If you are still using an older version – check out this article and make sure your app is up to date. 

Also, see our latest blog post if you want to learn about other important changes in our app. 

Inspections – adding damage report templates

A big part of ARI V 9.9 is the improvement of the “Inspections” functionality. Starting with the option to add your damage inspection template. In previous versions, you were able to choose from 5 common vehicle blueprints(car, SUV, pickup, motorcycle, and a rear truck section) and mark where a vehicle is damaged. To extend usability it’s now possible for people to add their vehicle blueprint. This template variety allows mechanics to diagnose problems easily and efficiently. 

The way to access these damage report templates is from the “Inspections” view. Whenever you are creating or editing an inspection in the view – go to the “Damage Report” section. Once you are there – you should see the standard car blueprint. If you wish to change that click on “templates” (in the top right corner), then use the “add template” button, which allows you to upload up to 5 damage report templates of your own. 

In case you made a mistake or don’t need the old templates – you can always delete them through the “delete template” in our auto repair software. 

Checklist page reordering

Providing better list readability and easier navigation are among our top priorities. Our auto repair software now allows you to change the order of your checklist items and categories.

This again is a functionality accessible from the “Inspections” view. Changing the order of items and categories is possible while you are editing or creating a new checklist. After you have an inspection open – go to “Checklist” and click on the “Reorder” button. That allows you to move things around until you reach an optimal order. Once you are done – click on “Done Reordering” to complete the action and save your progress.

Don’t forget that you can also add and delete different items or categories in the checklist view.

Company info adjustment

An important change to the inspections template is the new position of the company details. 

Unlike previous versions where the company details were placed below the first big section – now you will see them next to the Vehicle details on the top right side of the page. With this change, we aim to provide a cleaner look and to display the most relevant information on top. Double-check your inspections to see if your company details are displayed properly and edit out the information if necessary. 

Here is a comparison to put things into perspective.

Some of these features might be tricky to find so please make sure everything runs smoothly. 

Write us an e-mail or a comment if it’s difficult for you to navigate around our auto repair software or use some of the features.

The newest version of our auto repair software is here, and it brings multiple improvements. If you want to stay on top of our latest features – make sure your app is up to date by following this guide.

So, here are the most important changes to our software.   

Invoice/ Job Cards – Mark as Paid

Marking invoices as paid can now happen much easier.

You can access this option whenever you are on the Job cards or Invoice views and you have an amount due for a service. Once the view is open and you click on the “More” section, you will see the “Mark as paid” button on the bottom right side. 

Upon clicking the button system will notify you that a cash payment record will be created and the amount due will be removed. Afterward, you should see the completed record in the payments section.

Here’s how it works:

Duplicating invoices 

A big convenience plus is the new “Duplicate Invoice” functionality.

That gives you the option to make a copy of the details in a previously created Invoice or a Job Card. The newly generated job card will have a different ID and the old vehicle parts and labor details won’t translate onto it.

You can access that both from the Job Cards and the Invoices view. The path is the same – after clicking on the “More” section you should see a “Create Duplicate” button.

Here’s how it looks in our app:

User roles

Our auto repair software now allows you to limit the visibility of vehicle parts or labor prices from different employees in your organization.

This happens in the “Profile” menu where you go onto “User Roles”. From there you can select “invoices” or “jobcards” and you can choose the exact details you wish to share with your staff. 

Learn more about user roles and profile setup here.

Deleting vehicle parts images

Sometimes you need to edit out or delete an image that illustrates your inventory parts. Now you can do that within the Invoice view after you add an image. 

You just need to go to the Parts option, click on “More options” and click on the delete image button.

Vendors and warehouse inputs added

Adding this information to your vehicle parts can be quite useful. Now you can write where you bought a part from(vendor) and the place of storage (warehouse) of your inventory items.

You can access this option in the Job cards or Invoice views. Once you are in the view – go to “Parts” and click the “More options” button. There you will see a blank row where you can fill in all the necessary information.

Check out our car parts integration and order what you need.

More information about the updated features in our auto repair software is coming with the next blog posts.

 Offering a reasonable rate for your auto repair services can be a lot trickier than people think. Mechanics, technicians, and shop owners need to consider multiple things as they determine the final cost of their services. Customers, on the other hand, tend to focus primarily on prices and oftentimes feel confused or worried once it’s time to pay for their car fix. But why exactly is that the case?

Determining prices.

When it comes to car repair prices, people most commonly think of hourly rates.  Hourly rates are oftentimes based on repair labor times, which are a standardized estimate of how much time mechanics require to perform a task. For this purpose, a qualified technician with access to all necessary tools is timed while completing an auto repair job. 

The process is also labeled as the “factory time standard” and is usually determined by a vehicle manufacturer. Such labor times are useful to many large-scale repair shops and dealerships that have enough experienced mechanics. 

In some cases, smaller-scale car maintenance businesses need to rely on different tools when deciding how to price their services. One of them is a labor guide. Popular guides include MOTOR Auto Mechanic Labor Guide, Real-Time Labor Guide, and Chilton Motor Guide.

The following books provide relevant information about estimated repair times of many tasks. Mechanics generally prefer labor guides that provide longer work times, because they commonly get paid on an hourly basis.

Other factors such as business scale, location, contracts, partnerships, etc. also, play a big role when auto industry workers establish their repair rates.

Industry-specific technology

 Aside from the factory time standard, labor guides and flat-rate manuals modern auto repair software can help tremendously with price makeup. Such software has functionalities that can generate estimated prices, determine task difficulty, count local taxes, and even calculate “environmental fees”. 

Another benefit of those apps is the interface itself. It allows for more productivity by giving you time tracking options, easier access to ongoing tasks and important vehicle details.

ARI provides these and many other helpful features. Check them out here!

 Exceptions in price makeup 

 Contrary to what people believe, if you ask a friend mechanic to do a repair job for you outside their working hours, it may cost you more or even double than what you usually pay. This happens because of the added responsibility for their efforts outside a standard work setting. Add to that the possible lack of specialized equipment or additional transportation costs and the argument for a higher price starts to seem obvious.

 Similarly, conditions such as rust, moisture, or cold can add a significant amount of time to a repair job. Thereby bringing the repair time and consequently the service price up. 

The same thing happens when an old vehicle arrives in a repair shop – the maintenance work can be more difficult and the labor time – much higher. 

Don’t lose track of your labor times with ARI!

As it’s the case with almost everything – you are much more likely to pay more when something unexpected happens.

Why customers might feel frustrated?

As mentioned previously – customers rarely have time to think about all those price makeup factors. 

Whenever clients have to pay a large fee, explanations such as “This is how things are” or “That is the standard The procedure” will rarely if ever alleviate their frustration.

From your perspective and even objectively your pricing can indeed be fair. But if you make little effort to communicate that – the customer experience won’t be as satisfying.

How to approach the issue

Sometimes explaining things plain and simple is the way to go. But if your clients are unwilling to accept your perspective – here are some extra things you can do to make them happy:

• Provide price estimates

This can be difficult in some cases, but it’s a great idea to bring a reference point whenever possible. 

• Give price comparisons 

When your prices are better than the competition, it’s only natural to showcase that. That’s one good way of making your customers happy.  

• More transparency 

Building prestige and customer loyalty is a difficult thing to do. But doing that the right way means you won’t lose customers even if make some unintentional mistakes.

• Be extra informative

Sometimes only a mechanic knows how to inform clients about certain features of their vehicle. Doing that charitably can be a way of earning their trust.  

• Send reminders

Whenever some repair service is due, do your best to inform your clients about it. People appreciate the extra effort.

ARI can also help you with service reminders! 

Ultimately, it’s always a plus to give your customers relevant information about pricing, services, and their vehicle in general.

Make sure to share the article if you liked the info and tips here. And leave a comment to give us feedback or remind us about something we missed.

As of ARI V9.8+, you are now able to create email marketing campaigns that you can then send to your entire client list. The sending service will be provided by ARI so we can ensure high delivery rates. For each successfully sent email, we will subtract 1 credit from your account. Try the new functionality in ARI by clicking the Marketing icon!

Is Email Marketing Still Effective for Auto Repair Businesses?

Although not as effective as classic marketing, email marketing remains the most cost-effective way to attract new leads for your auto repair business in 2021.  On average, every dollar you spend on email campaigns converts into an estimated $42. The best part is that it takes very little time to set up and send emails, especially if you use ARI’s new Marketing function.

What Kind of Emails Should You Send?

There are several types of email campaigns every auto repair business should send to their clients in order to ensure a successful campaign.

Welcome Emails

Keep these brief and to the point. The whole idea behind a welcome email is to thank your auto repair client for sharing their emails with you. Tell them what they can expect from you in the future (eg. occasional discounts, promotions, etc.) and ask them to save your phone number in their contacts in case they need emergency services!

Connect Emails

These emails should also be kept short and to the point. The main goal is to invite your clients to bookmark your website or visit your social media. This is also a great opportunity to share with them your online booking link where they can easily book an appointment with you.

To get your online booking link, search for your business in our auto repair shops directory and then add the link to your email campaign. If you can’t find your business in our directory, then make sure you open your ARI app, navigate to Appointments, go to More, and click on Online Booking Link to find your unique link.

Promotions

Are you running any seasonal promotions for your auto repair business? Maybe you’d like to offer some discounts to particular clients? All this can be easily achieved with an email marketing campaign.

Furthermore, you can use ARI’s Coupons feature where you can create discount coupons and assign them a code. You can then attach that code to your emails. Once the client presents this code, you can insert it into the Discounts section on the Invoice page and the system will automatically apply the discount.

Email Marketing Tips for Auto Repair Shops

Although these tips apply to any type of email marketing campaign, they are specifically important when dealing with auto repair clients. In general, people don’t expect emails from their mechanic, so you need to make sure your messages aren’t too intrusive or spammy, or else they will never read them.

• Keep it simple: There is no need to write stuffy emails that noone reads. Go straight to the point and convey your message clearly and rapidly. The most successful email campaigns contain less than 100 words of text!
• Never Spam: Most email services such as Google, Yahoo, AOL use smart filters to determine if your email is SPAM or not. If they mark your content as spammy, then your email will end up in the SPAM folder or will not be delivered in the first place. To avoid this, make sure you always sign your emails and never use spammy words such as “money”, “saving”, “free”, etc.
• Always Use Your Valid Email Address: The best way to ensure the successful delivery of your email campaign is to use your company’s email address, especially if you already had a previous email exchange on that address with your clients. If you use the wrong email address, then there’s a very good chance your emails will end up in SPAM or never be delivered in the first place. Also, keep in mind that some of your clients may want to reply to your emails, so it makes sense to use an active email address.

How to Send Email Campaigns?

There are many tools out there that auto repair business owners can use to send marketing emails in bulk. Here are some of the most common ones!

• MailChimp Great for big businesses but can be quite expensive.
• SendGrid Very powerful but requires technical knowledge to set up
• ARI (Auto Repair Software) Designed specifically for Auto Repair Businesses with smooth integration and affordable prices for email marketing.

How To Send An Email Campaign With ARI

Log into the ARI app and then click the Marketing button. On this page, you will see all the email campaigns you’ve sent so far. Since this is the first time you create an email campaign, you will see no records yet. Click on the Plus button to create a new campaign and start filling out the required info

• TO: Select the list of email addresses you want to send your campaign to. The system will automatically import all your clients who already have an email address recorded. You can also Add New Records in case you want to add more emails. Once you’re ready, select the list and click the Save Changes button. You should see a message saying how many Valid Email Addresses have been selected.
• FROM: This is the email address that your clients will see when receiving your emails. It is also the address they will reply to. It is very important that you use a valid address here so that clients know who they receive emails from. The system will automatically append your email address in the From field.
• Campaign Name: This is for your reference only.
• Email Title: Make sure you use a short and engaging email title so that clients are intrigued to open up your email and read your message
• Email Body: Feel free to use the editor tools in order to format your message in a way that looks professional and up to your business standards. Remember to keep your message short and to the point. Focus on one thing only and sign your email so that clients know who’s emailing them.

Once you’re ready, click the Send Now button to start the sending process. We use ARI’s internal sending servers in order to increase delivery chances. You can also save your campaign for later.

Credits

ARI’s email Marketing is a paid feature that works on credits. Basically, you need to purchase credits in order to send your campaign. Each paid plan comes with a certain number of credits included but if you need more, you can easily buy from the app. Just click on the Remaining Credits button, select the number of credits you want to purchase, and then proceed to payment. The credits will be added automatically to your account after a successful transaction.

As of ARI V9.8+ you can now get all the important info about your auto repair business in one view, the ARI Dashboard. This can help you manage your business easily and also keep a very close eye on your business’ growth.

Make sure you first update your ARI app to the latest version

Here are some of the most important sections of the Dashboard

Monthly Invoices and Estimates count

In this graph, you can see all the Invoices and Estimates you have created for the past 7 months. This can give you a quick overview of how your auto repair business is growing and also show you the strongest months as well as the weakest ones.

Clients and Vehicles

In this section, you can see all the existing and new clients and vehicles you have added to your account.  The data goes back 7 months in order to give you a good look of how your business is growing.

Invoice Values

In this graph, you can see the total and paid values of all invoices created in the past 7 months. Please note that the data uses the Total values of your invoices, not the Due value. This is a great way to check how your business finances look like on a month-by-month basis.

Payments by Month and Type

In this graph, you can see all the payments processed by month and by type. This data comes from the Payments module, not from your invoices.

Purchases, Expenses, Profit

This section shows 3 of the most valuable data sets for any auto repair business. On the upper-left corner, we have the Purchases value followed by the Expenses and then the Profit values recorded for your shop. All this data comes from your Accounting module. You can also filter all these individually by this month, last month, last 30 days, last 90 days, and all.

Due Invoices

Here you can see a list of all the due invoices under your account. Please note that the data contains all invoices that have a due value bigger than zero. In other words, even if an invoice is marked as paid, if the Due is still >0, it will show in this list. You can also Open an invoice straight from this view.

Upcoming Appointments

Just like the name suggests, this view shows all the upcoming appointments for your auto repair shop. You can filter them by Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 days, Next 30 days, and All. You can also open the booking record directly from this view in case you want to change its status or edit the info.

Upcoming Service Reminders

In this list, you can find all the service reminders that are about to become due. The info provided contains the client name, vehicle make and model as well as the due date. Once again, you can easily open the record straight from the view.

Out-of-Stock Parts

Here you can easily see the parts that are out of stock from your inventory. You should know that the data filters all parts that have a negative stock Qty value.

Recent Payments

This is a list of the last 9 recent payments that you have recorded in your Payments module. You can easily open any of the records to see details or change the status. This is a crucial feature that any auto repair software should possess.

Running Clocks

In this list, you can see all the employees who have clocked in and their clocks are still running. This is the perfect place to get a good view of who is working in your shop and what car and service exactly. You can also use this data later on when calculating your auto repair labor rates.

Workflow Status

Here you can see all your JobCards classified by their status: Created, Work In Progress, Completed. You can also see the total values accumulated for each category.

New Plus Button for Fast Creation

Use the Plus button on the Dashboard page to easily create new Clients, Vehicles, Invoices, Appointments, and Inspections.

What data do you need?

Let us know what else we can add to this Dashboard so we make it even more useful for you and your auto repair business. We want ARI to be the #1 auto repair software in the field, and we can do that only with your help.

We have just rolled out the biggest ARI update for 2021. Follow this guide to update ARI so that you can use the latest features.

Grid View

We have implemented a grid/table view that makes it much easier to manage your data. Currently, the grid view will load by default on the Web and Windows versions of the app, for the following modules:

• Clients
• Vehicles
• Invoices
• Estimates
• JobCards
• Inspections

With the new grid view, you have the capacity to sort, filter, search, and reorder your items much easier and faster.

More About Grid View

WorkFlow

You can now easily change the status of a jobcard by simply drag-and-drop on the corresponding column. In addition, you can also reorder your Jobcards. This means you can move a jobcard up the list so your mechanics can prioritize it.

More About WorkFlow

Employee Payslips

You can now generate employee payslips based on their assigned tasks and labor times through the month. Head out to the Accounting module and create a new Expense. Select Salary as an expense type, choose your employee and then import their time logs right inside the expense record.

Click the Items button to view all the imported time logs and then adjust the rates and total if necessary. Once done, click the Save Change button. You can now preview the Payslip template at the bottom of the page.

More About Expense Updates

Vehicle Service History with ARI

See all the parts you used and services your performed on any of your vehicles. Export the data so you can create complex reports about vehicle service history.

More About Vehicle History

Part Usage History

Find out on which vehicle one of your part ended up on. Get reports on how many times a similar part has been used overall. This can help you track down part history and also create detailed reports about your part usage.

More About Part Usage

Other Changes

• PDF files generated on Web and Windows are of much better quality now
• download PDF option in invoices, inspections, etc.
• JobCards/ Add Parts/ ID field now exposes a table dropdown that allows you to easily select a part and even see the stock qty.
• inventory update is much smarter now. It will remember previous values and add/remove parts from stock only when necessary.
• removed estimates from Profit reports
• group inventory by category by drag-and-drop the category column on the grid header.
• service reminders will show customer name from now on
• hide Total/Paid/Due on home page when the user does not have View Invoice rights;
• search invoices and estimates by license plate or unit number
• speed updates
• various bug fixes

If you have requested a change that did not make the cut for this update, rest assured we’ll implement it next.

If you have any feedback for us, pls don’t hesitate to write us back.

Tips

• If you are using multiple devices, make sure you always refresh your list before creating a new item. You can use the Refresh button on most of the pages. If there is no refresh button, then pull down to list to refresh it. This will guarantee that you’re always working on the latest dataset.
• If you have issues with the Web app, make sure you refresh with CTRL+F5 to clear the cache.
• if your screen freezes on the Client page, double-tap the mobile screen on an white part of the page to unfreeze.

As of ARI V9.7.0 you can get a report of how each part has been used where. This is extremely useful in cases when you want to find out on which vehicle one of your parts ended up on. It can also help you figure out how successful a part is compared with others.

How to Access It?

Go to Inventory, Parts and open any of your existing items. On the upper-right corner, click the More button. Then select the Track Part History option. At this point, you should see a list of all the invoices where this particular part has been used on. You can also see the vehicle info and how many same parts have been used on the same vehicle.

Available Info

You can see all the info you’d normally have on your Invoices. Check the screenshot below for how such table will look like.

We hope you find this new future useful. Let us know if there is anything else we can add to it.

This was one of the most requested features from our clients, and we’re happy to say we made it happen in ARI version V9.7.0. From now on, you can easily pull a report of all parts and services you’ve done on any of your vehicles.

How to access it?

• After you log in, go to the Vehicles section and then choose any of your existing vehicles.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the “Get Service History from ARI” button.

If there are any invoices for this vehicle, then a popup will appear with a list of all the invoices. You can then inspect the report and even open an invoice right from inside the popup.

What’s included in the Report?

The report simply exposes all the Invoices you created for that vehicle. However, it also pulls out more data about the invoice contents.

Parts Installed

You will see all the parts added to the respective invoice

Services performed

You can also see the labor items you have added to each of the invoices for that particular vehicle

ODO

The mileage of the vehicle at the time the service was performed. Please note that you need to input the miles at the time of invoice creation after you select the vehicle.

Export Report

You can simply press the Export to Excel button to download the vehicle history report on your PC. This could be extremely useful when clients want a report on what exactly has been done on a vehicle over the past year.

We hope you enjoy this new feature. If you want us to see more of these, let is know!

As of ARI V9.7.0 we have added some new functionality to our Accounting module in the Expenses section. Here’s what’s new

Employee Salary (PaySlips)

You can now generate employee payslips based on their worked hours. You can then email or print those payslips and hand them to your staff.

Create Expense

To create a payslip, you first need to head to the Accounting module and then create a new Expense.

Import Working Times

Under the Expense Type choose Employee Salary. After that, go ahead and select an Employee. By now you should see a new button that says “Import Employee Labor Times from Times Tracking” click on it

You should now see a table with all the jobs assigned to this employee according to the Time Tracking module. Mark the items you want to include in the payslip and then click Import. Expand the Items section so you can see the newly added item.

You can add more items to the list by using the Add Item button. You can also add qty and rate. The line total will be calculated automatically, but you can still edit it if need to. Hit Save Changes when you’re done with the items list.

Send or Print PaySlip

Once you’ve added all the items and adjusted the amounts, simply click the PaySlip button to preview the form. You can print it or send it via email to your employee.

Make sure you Save your expense record when you’re done!

Expense Items

Aside from logging employee salaries, you can use the Expense function for many other purposes. For example, you can log in the rent, electricity expenses, transportation, maintenance, and many other types of expenses that your auto repair business may incur.

In order to create a detailed expense record, you can now add multiple items using the Items table. Simply expand the Items section and click the Add New Item button. Full in the required info and then click Save Changes. You can add as many items as you want. Every time you click Save Changes, the system automatically calculates the grand total and appends it to the Total field.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to the Accounting/Expense module. If you want to see any new features, don’t hesitate to contact us.

As of ARI V9.7.0, we are introducing a new page called WorkFlow. This will help auto repair shop owners easily manage the status of their jobs. With a simple and intuitive drag-and-drop feature, you can now change the status and order of your jobcards in an instant. Here’s everything you need to know!

How to access the WorkFlow page?

Log in to ARI, then go to JobCards and make sure that the GridView option is enabled. Click on the Workflow tab below to open up the dashboard.

How to Use the WorkFlow Dashboard?

Drag-and-drop

The idea of the WorkFlow dashboard is to easily monitor and manage auto repair tasks inside your garage. For instance, when you create a JobCard for the first time, the status will be set to “Created” and the JobCard will be placed in the respective column. When the mechanic starts working on the task, you can simply drag and drop that jobcard from the Created column to the Work In Progress column. At that point, the status of the JobCard will be updated as well as the date.

Re-Order

You can now change the order of your JobCards by using the WorkFlow dashboard. Simply drag-and-drop the jobcard to the desired location in the column and the list will rearrange. This will allow you to set up a priority list for your technicians meaning that they will work on their tasks in the order you set up.

NOTE: If the JobCard does not rearrange when you move it, try again by moving the other jobcards around it.

We hope you find this new ARI feature useful. Let us know how we can improve it.

As of ARI V9.7.0, there is a new way to view, filter, search and handle your data. Aside from the regular listview, we have now implemented a grid/table view which looks much better, especially on bigger screens. Here is what you should know about this new feature.

• Please note that the app will default to GridView on Web and Windows versions.
• On the mobile app, it will default to the classical list view instead.
• You can always toggle between listview and gridview from the upper-right button

What is a Grid View?

The grid view is a table that displays your data. On bigger screens, it’s much easier to read and handle tabled data as opposed to lists. Here’s how the grid view looks like for Invoices.

Benefits

Here’s why using the GridView is much better when handling big data.

Sorting

Just click on the column you want to sort by and the whole table will apply the Ascending or Descending sorting function. This is the easiest way to sort your invoices by ID or Profit or even Clients names.

Filtering

You can filter your entire list based on multiple criteria as seen below. This could be extremely useful when you want to create complex reports or gather crucial info such as how many paid invoices from a certain client you have registered this month.

Exporting

Use the Export to Excell button to download the entire list so you can process it later on in Excell. This function is very useful for accounting purposes.

Hidden Columns

Some tables contain extra columns that are hidden by default. You can enable them by clicking on the dots icon/ columns and then enable the info you are interested in. Here’s an example of hidden columns for the JobCards gridview.

Supported Modules

We are planning to roll out the gridview to all modules of the ARI app in the future. However, currently, we’re supporting the following sections

• Clients

• Vehicles

• Inventory/Parts

• Invoices & Estimates

• JobCards

• Inspections

We hope you enjoy this new ARI feature. Go ahead and try it out and let us know which is the next module you’d like us to support with a GridView?

The competition among auto repair shops is fierce and more and more it seems that customers are choosing their mechanic based on a Google search. 

It may seem inconsequential but optimizing your Google My Business profile could be the deciding factor in driving customers your way.

Google My Business profiles of relevant businesses just below a Google Map when someone makes a search that references their location. Two examples of these type of searches are: “auto-repair shop in West Chicago” and “auto-repair shop near me”

The listings here are all of Google My Business profiles

A Google search of this kind will return a few million results, however at the very top of the page will be the Google Maps response, complete with links to local Google My Business Profiles. 

A well optimized Google My Business profile is therefore a free means to jump right to the top of the search results. There are three key ways in which you can optimize your My Business profile and direct customers to your business:

• Completing your My Business profile accurately and with as much information as possible.

• Using consistent citations for your business across directories.

• Maximizing your profile’s click through rate. 

Below is a guide on how to do this.

Completing your Google My Business profile in full

Google is designed to provide its users with the most useful results possible. This means that the search engine is more likely to serve users up Google My Business profiles with complete information, so users can make the most informed choices about which businesses to use.

When filling out your profile you will be asked to complete a large number of fields, these include your business address, opening and closing hours, website address and photos of your business.

While you do not need to complete all these fields to set up your Google My Business profile. With all else being equal, Google will give more prominence to profiles that are more completed. It’s well worth spending a bit of extra time making sure that you fill out as many of these fields as possible.

One field that you should definitely fill out in full is “services”. Make sure that you complete this field with all the services that you offer. This will give you the opportunity to rank when someone searches for specific services such as “oil change near me”.

Having consistent citations of your business

To maximize the potential of your My Business Profile, Google needs to confirm that the information you are providing is accurate. 

They will do this by comparing the information on your profile with other online instances of your business’s name, address, and phone number. These instances are commonly referred to as “citations of your business”. 

One way of building out these citations is by registering your auto repair shop with relevant online directories. Relevant directories are either:

• Recognizable ‘big’ brands for example yell.com.

• Directories specific to your local area.

• Directories that are specific to your industry.

You may find that some local directories will ask for a small annual fee, don’t let this put you off. By paying that small fee you will be included in a directory with a much smaller pool of businesses and may reach a market that your competitors are overlooking. 

There is a technical side to citations that you will need to give some attention. The search engine will not make connections between citations unless they are identical. 

For example, Long Street and Long St would not be recognised as the same address; this is also the case with phone numbers. Decide which format you want to use for your business address and use this across all directories. 

Click Through Rate

Click through rate refers to the number of times that your Google My Business Profile is clicked on compared to your competitors following specific searches.

If people click through on your profile more than your competitors, this informs Google that your business is the best result for that search and as a result your business will rank higher in future searches. 

Having a large number of positive Google reviews is the most effective way of improving your profile’s click through rate. This is because your average star rating from Google reviews is displayed as part of your Google My Business Profile in a search engine results page. 

To increase the number of positive reviews for your business you can set up an automated system which will request reviews from your customers. A Customer Relationship Management system can help you to do this.

Summing Up

Remember that when running a local business, the Google My Business rankings for local searches are separated by the smallest margins. Consistent optimizations is how you end up above your competitors in local search. If you want to take the next step you can use  Google Search Console to view the number of clicks that you are getting from local searches and chart your progress.

Mike Skoropad is the CEO of online automotive parts retailer United Tires.

The company was recognized among the most efficient platforms for tracking service history, managing work orders, and more 

Digital.com, a leading independent review website for small business online tools, products, and services, has announced ARI among the best auto repair software companies of 2021. The top solutions were evaluated based on three main criteria. 

ARI and other systems were required to provide comprehensive features like work order management, service history tracking, and billing/invoicing. Experts at Digital.com also examined solutions with built-in CRM tools to schedule emails,  track leads, and get a wide-ranging perspective of the entire sales process. Reporting tools are also critical for measuring and improving performance.

Digital.com’s research team conducted a 40-hour assessment of over 50 solutions. To access the complete list of best auto repair software, please visit

https://www.digital.com/best-auto-repair-software/

ABOUT ARI
ARI stands for Auto Repair Invoicing, but it means much more than that. This auto repair software comes with a very wide range of features, all dedicated specifically to mechanics and repair shop owners. Started back in 2016, ARI has rapidly become one of the most trusted auto repair apps in the automotive industry. More than 5000 mechanics are now using ARI on a daily basis for all their repair tasks, from appointment booking to invoicing.

ABOUT DIGITAL.COM
Digital.com reviews and compares the best products, services, and software for running or growing a small business website or online shop. The platform collects twitter comments and uses sentiment analysis to score companies and their products. Digital.com was founded in 2015 and formerly known as Review Squirrel.

To learn more, visit https://digital.com/. 

We’re happy to announce that the new ARI update is finally live. Before you continue, please make sure you update your app to the latest version V9.6.6 by following this update guide.

What’s new in this update?

Group labor and parts together for a better invoice experience

You can now group together a service with its relevant parts and display that grouping on your invoice so clients can easily read and understand which parts have been used for which service.

This is a major improvement for ARI and we strongly recommend using it as it has the potential to really improve your client’s invoicing experience

Here’s how grouped items will look like on invoices

Read All About Grouping Here

Limited Access to Payments

We have added a new section to the User Roles that allows you to control user access to the Payment module. You can now allow or deny access to view, create, edit and delete functions of the payment module.

By default, the access is revoked so you will need to edit your user roles access in order to allow access to the payments module.

Login and go to Profile then click on the User Roles button. Select the role you want to edit and click the Edit icon. Scroll down to the payments section and edit the access. Go back to your users and reassign the role.

Save and then re-log your users for changes to take effect.

NOTE: If you don’t see the Payments section in your Role list, then please create a new Role and then assign that new role to your user and re-log!

Read More About User Roles Here

Show/Hide Units on your Auto Repair Invoice

You can now display units such as pc. gal. hrs. on your invoice. All you need to do is go to ARI Settings and click on the Invoice Template Settings

From the list menu, scroll down and activate Show Units.

Save and now open an invoice and check the form.

You should be able to see the units displayed after the qty just like in the image below

Read More About Invoice Settings Here

Sorting on Parts, Tires, and Clients

You can now sort and filter your parts list in inventory by various criteria. We have also added a very useful alphabetical filter bar that will allow you to easily navigate through your inventory.

Learn More About Sorting and Filtering

Multiple Parts Markup

You can now have up to 3 markup values setup in your profile as opposed to just one. Then you can access your markup matrix from anywhere inside the Inventory, JobCards or Purchase modules.

Head out to Profile and click on Parts Markup to setup your matrix.

Learn more about Setting Up Your ARI Profile

Purchase Module updates

We have made the following changes to the Accounting/Purchases section

• when ordering a part from inventory, the system will pre-fill the quantity field based on your stock quantity and the minimum critical count setup for that part.
• the system will pre-fill the previous cost and price of a part during Receiving status
• you can now order parts that are not in your inventory stright from the Purchase page. The system will add these parts in your inventory once the status of the purchase is changed to Received
• exposed part number to the Purchase Order form

Expenses module update

We have also made some changes to the Expenses module of ARI

• added consumable items to the Expense Type list
• you can add more than one expense type for the same expense record
• you can attach a receipt or invoice picture to your Expense

Read More About Accounting Module

Inventory Count Fix

Many of you have reported issues with the inventory count not being accurate. That issue is fixed now.

We have added a confirmation popup that will prompt you to update your inventory every time you save your JobCards or Invoices. This way, if you edit your invoices, then make sure you don’t subtract the parts from your inventory upon resaving.

The message looks like this:

Send Payment to QuickBooks

You can now sync your ARI payments to your QuickBooks Online account. All you have to do is go to Payments, open the payment you want to sync and click the QuickBooks button on the upper right corner.

Make sure that your Invoice is synced to QuickBooks in advance.

Other changes

• jobcards search by make, model, license plate
• service reminder email and notification fix
• display labor id on invoice
• order from PartsTech button added to create part page
• expose invoice and PO numbers in Purchases
• billing statement print fits the screen
• wide screen on Web version
• Jobcard/Invoice numbers generated based on last max number
• send local notification to users when job assigned
• display number of clients and vehicles on their respective pages

We hope you find this ARI update useful. As always, let us know if you want any changes done to the system so we can add them to our next release.

ARI Wins a 2021 Top Performer Award in Auto Repair Software category From SourceForge

ARI s honored to be recognized as a Top Performer by SourceForge, the world’s largest software reviews and comparison website.

July.13.2021– ARI (Auto Repair Software), today announced that it has been awarded a Summer Top Performer Award by SourceForge, the world’s largest software review and comparison website. This award recognizes companies and products with a significant amount of recent favorable user reviews that puts them in the top tenth percentile of highly reviewed products on SourceForge.

 “We’re happy to announce this year’s outstanding Summer 2021 Top Performers” said SourceForge President, Logan Abbott. “ ARI team showed that their users love them, as evidenced by the significant amount of outstanding user reviews.”

To win the Summer 2021 Top Performer award, each winner had to receive enough high-rated user reviews to place the winning product in the top 10% of favorably reviewed products on SourceForge, which demonstrates the utmost quality that ARI delivers to customers.

 “At  ARI, we’re excited to accept the SourceForge Summer 2021 Top Performer Award. We do our best to provide a best-in-class product, and we’re happy to see our users rewarding us with good reviews. We’re honored to be valued by our customers and to be recognized by SourceForge” said Constantin C. – founder of ARI

As most of you know, ARI comes with a built-in Appointment feature. This basically allows your clients to book your services online. Those appointments will then show up in your ARI app where you can manage them.

There are 2 ways clients can find your online booking form:

• using your unique link (you can get it from the Appointments settings).
  It should look something like this:
  https://www.aribooking.utilitymobileapps.com/?shopID=5d9ca6f3b31642760ce5bc79
• using our public directory by searching for your company name or address directly

Here are the changes we’ve made to the form

NOTE: Refresh your page several times in order to clear the cache and see the latest updates. You can also use CTRL+F5 on Chrome

Multi-Language support

From now on, your clients can view the form in their own language by using the dropdown at the top of the page

Pre-Filled Form Parameters

If you’re using your own booking forms and would like to integrate it with ours, then you can now use URL parameters to transmit data from one form to another.

Here are all the parameters supported:

• vin
• regNum
• make
• model
• year
• transmissionType
• drivenWheels
• color
• milage
• Name
• Email
• Phone
• Address
• City
• State
• ZIP
• Details

To use them, you just need to add them to your unique booking link separated by the “&” character just like in the example below

https://www.aribooking.utilitymobileapps.com/?shopID=5d9ca6f3b31642760ce5bc79&vin=12545JHGDSJG54645&regNum=CA7667SD&year=2012&make=Audi&model=A6%20Quattro&Name=John%20Doe&Email=john@doe.com&Phone=0222333223&Details=Car_needs_an_oil_change

copy-paste this into your browser and check to see how the vehicle and client info is prefilled.

Confirmation QR code

Once the user submits an appointment request to your shop, they will receive a QR code that contains all the appointment info. Make sure you scan that code inside your ARI app to pull up all the appointment info!

We hope you enjoy all these changes. Let us know if there is anything else you’d like us to add to the online booking form!

This feature is pretty simple and yet it offers a great way for you to provide the best customer service to your auto repair shop’s clients. With a click, you can now pull out all the relevant pending service reminders for the current vehicle and add them to your invoice.

Why is this important?

Besides offering a reliable and professional auto repair service, you can also save your client another trip to the service. Imagine your client came with an Engine Light issue, but while you create the jobcard, you also notice that the have a pending service reminder for an oil change. You can now add that labor to the Estimate as a recommended service. If your client approves the labor, then you have just upsold your services and made your client happy.

Here’s how to do it

• create a new JobCard
• select a vehicle
• click the Check For Pending Service Reminders button

if there are any reminders in the system, then you can select some or all and add them to the job card as labor items.

ARI offers a wide range of options when it comes to customizing the look and feel of your auto repair invoices. In this blog we’ll explore all the current options and show you how you can create an invoice template that fits your business needs.

To get access to the templates settings, follow these steps:

• log in to ARI
• open any existing JobCard, Invoice or Estimate
• click the Invoice button to preview the template
• tap the Options button on the upper right corner

Template Settings

Here you can change a lot of settings regarding the way your invoices look and feel. Most of these settings will also apply to your online invoices. Here’s a breakdown of what you can do to customize your auto repair template look and feel.

• Show Logo – This will display the Logo of your company on the invoices’ right-side corner. You can upload your logo in the Profile section of the app
• Show My Address – This allows you to show or hide your business address on your invoices. Addresses can be edited from the Profile/My Company section
• Show Template Number – It will allow you to hide or show the Invoice or Estimate number. Although it’s not recommended to hide this info, it could still be useful when generating Estimates
• Show Mileage – This will allow you to show or hide the vehicle’s mileage on the invoice. Please note that mileage can be edited from the Mileage In / Mileage Out fields on the previous page
• Show License – It will allow you to hide the license plate of the vehicle on your invoice. Could be useful when invoicing heavy-duty machines that don’t have a license number
• Show VIN/Serial Number – This will let you hide or display the Vehicle Identification Number on your invoices.
• Show Labor – Very useful in cases when you want to hide the details about the time and rate of your labor details.
• Show Note – Although it is marked as default, you can still hide the Notes on your invoices.
• Tax Invoice (Australian Format) – If you are located in Australia, then you are required by the law to display the words Tax Invoice on your template. Make sure you have this setting turned ON
• Hide Item Numbers – This is extremely useful when you don’t want your inventory item IDs displayed on the invoice form.
• NEW: Align item description to the left – By default, the item text is aligned in the center. You can move it to the left by selecting this option. Make sure you go out of the invoice and then come back for the changes to take effect!
• NEW: Show QR code to view Invoice online – Although it’s off by default, we strongly recommend changing this setting to ON so you offer your clients an easy way to access the invoice online and then pay it from their phones!
• NEW Show units (pc, gal, hrs, etc.) – This will allow you to display the item units on your invoices!

WARNING: Some of these settings may not be immediately visible after you click the Save button. If that’s the case, then log out and then log back in for changes to take effect

Template Headers

This option allows you to customize the image background on the header of your auto repair invoice templates. It can add a nice customization to a rather boring look. Choose from on of the many headers we have to offer

Change Invoice Color

Do you wanna make your auto repair invoices stand out from the rest? Then choose a custom color that matches your business and also makes your client remember you and your shop. ARI offers a wide pallet of colors for your to choose from.

Font Size

Would you like to increase or decrease the text size on your auto repair invoice? Maybe you want to change the font style and choose something that better fits your business? Rest assured that you can do all that with ARI’s Font Size feature.

Simply click on the Change Font Size icon and choose the appropriate size and style of your font. Make sure you save everything in order to see changes on your invoice templates

Edit Invoice Template Text

This is a very powerful feature that allows you to literally change most of the text on your invoice. For instance, you can edit the names of the table headers or the details of the Notes section.

Maybe you want to rename some of the fields in your invoice or maybe you’d like to delete some lines? You can do all that using the Edit Text feature.

Custom Template for your Auto Repair Invoices

in general, we recommend using the default template as it comes with the most advanced features for customization. However, if you’d like to use a really custom template, then we’re happy to let you know that ARI comes with 7 unique invoice templates.

Once you choose the template that you like, make sure you save it as your custom template and then you can access it from My Custom Template button later on.

In the hopes that you find this blog useful, we once again encourage you to share your opinion and feedback regarding invoice template settings. Let us know what else we can do to make your invoices the best in the automotive industry!

ARI allows you to add vendors to your account so that you can easily select them when ordering parts or logging expenses. However, you may also want to get some reports for these vendors so you can easily track the expenses or purchases incurred for each of your vendors.

We have added a new addition to the Reports section of ARI. You can now get detailed reports for your auto repair service Vendors and Suppliers.

In case you are not sure how Vendors can be added to your accounts, go to Profile and click the Vendors section. Make sure you add the suppliers you work with. You can then use these suppliers when ordering parts or submitting expenses in Accounting.

Expenses & Purchases Amounts

To see the total expenses and purchases amounts you’ve incurred from each of your suppliers, follow these steps

• go to Reports
• Vendors Reports
• select the datesFrom and To accordingly
• click the Refresh button

Download Vendors Reports for Post Processing

You may need to post-process your vendors expenses and purchases amounts to get a better understanding of how your money was spent. For this purpose, we you can download your reports and use them in any spreadsheet editor.

• click the Export Data button

Please note that all your vendors need to be added to your Profile in order to show up in this report. If you think some vendors are missing, make sure you add their exact names in the Vendors section.

As always, let us know if you find this vendors and suppliers report useful for your auto repair business!

As of ARI V9.6.5 there are a few changes that should make your job as an auto repair service provider much easier. Make sure you update your app to the latest version before you proceed with this guide.

Most important changes in the Appointments feature of ARI

1. QR codes for all online appointments

Starting with ARI V9.6.5, every appointment made online, by your clients, using our online booking system will also generate a QR code.

The final booking page will look like this on the client’s end.

If a client comes to your shop with this QR code, all you have to do is

• log into ARI on a mobile device (needs camera)
• go to Appointments
• click More (upper right corner)
• tap the Scan QR Code Appointment
• scan the QR code with your camera

If the scanning was successful, then you should see the client’s appointment on your screen.

2. Create Appointments from JobCards

This has been a long-requested feature and we’re happy to say that we finally got the chance to implement it. You can now create an appointment straight from the JobCard menu. The client, vehicle, and invoice/estimate data will automatically populate into the new appointment.

This is useful in cases when you create Estimates. Once the estimate gets approved by the client, then you can simply book that entire job right into your calendar.

Here’s how to create an appointment from the JobCard menu

• go to JobCards page
• open up an existing jobCard
• click the More button (upper right corner)
• tap the Create an Appointment
• select the time and date you want to book the client
• verify and Save the appointment

3. Show Vehicles associated with the selected Client

Just the same as with JobCards, from now on, when you select a Client in the Appointment section, the system will automatically filter down only the Vehicle associated with that client. This should make it much faster to create an appointment.

login -> Appointments -> add new Appointments -> tap to Add a Client -> tap to add a Vehicle

4. Show Clients associated with the selected Vehicle

Obviously, the same applies backward. If you select a vehicle first and then add a client, the system will display only the associated owners first. This way, you won’t have to search for the client manually

login -> Appointments -> add new Appointments -> tap to Add a Vehicle -> tap to add a Client

5. Search functionality

You can now search through your appointments by client name or vehicle registration number. All you need to do is open the Appointment section, go to More, and tap on the Search Appointment button. Input the client name or car’s registration number to pull up the respective appointments.

We hope you find these updates useful. If there is anything else you’d like to see in your auto repair software, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Here are some of the most important changes in this release

Tax Settings

You can now change the default tax setting for parts and labor items.

IMPORTANT: follow the instructions below before you create any new invoices or jobcards

Go to Profile/Tax Setup scroll down to Tax Settings and change the checkboxes according to your business requirements. Hit the Save button even if you did not make any changes.

From now on, all new parts or labor items added to your invoices will have the default Taxable field loaded according to the settings above.

PartsTech Integration

This allows you to order parts from your favorite local suppliers right from inside ARI. Before you can do this, you first need to create yourself a free PartsTech account and then connect it to ARI.

NOTE: PartsTech currently works only in US and Canada for now.

Click for PartsTech Integration Guide

Multiple lines on invoices

You can add multiple lines on your invoices by simply pressing the Enter button (new line) on the input fields. The supported fields are

• labor description
• invoice notes
• disclosure

Custom Online Booking Fields

This allows you to add your own additional fields to your online booking page. Here’s how to do it:

go to Appointments -> More -> Additional Info and add new fields that you require to be answered by your clients.

These will then appear on your online booking page. If not set to Optional, then the info will be mandatory for your users in order to send an appointment.

Tax Reports

We have added separate Tax reports for Invoices, Expenses and Purchases. You can access them by going to Reports -> Tax Reports

We have also added taxes to Expenses and Purchases. To check them, simply go to Reports -> Income & Expenses

Other Fixes

• category import when adding part in invoice
• hours import when adding labor items to invoice
• CarFax history report works outside US now
• alphabetical sorting of labor, tires, and packages
• payment select in invoice fixed
• make & model selection fix
• removed Tax subtraction from profit (invoice needs to be resaved)
• speed and reliability improvements.

We hope you enjoy this new release and stay tuned for more cool stuff coming out soon.

Let us know if you have any questions!

ARI is honored to be recognized as a Top Performer by SourceForge, the world’s largest software reviews and comparison website.

Today, April 27th 2021– ARI (Auto Repair Software) announced that it has been awarded a Spring Top Performer Award by SourceForge, the world’s largest software review and comparison website. This award recognizes companies and products with a significant amount of recent favorable user reviews that puts them in the top tenth percentile of highly reviewed products on SourceForge.

“We’re happy to announce this year’s outstanding Spring 2021 Top Performers” said SourceForge President, Logan Abbott. “ARI showed that their users love them, as evidenced by the significant amount of outstanding user reviews.”

To win the Spring 2021 Top Performer award, each winner had to receive enough high-rated user reviews to place the winning product in the top 10% of favorably reviewed products on SourceForge, which demonstrates the utmost quality that ARI delivers to customers.

“At ARI, we’re excited to accept the SourceForge Spring 2021 Top Performer Award. We do our best to provide a best-in-class product, and we’re happy to see our users rewarding us with good reviews. We’re honored to be valued by our customers and to be recognized by SourceForge. We have big plans for this project and we’re aiming at becoming a leading auto repair software” said ARI’s President, Constantin Coutun 

About ARI

ARI is one of the best auto repair software in the industry. The company’s main goal is to provide a comprehensive solution to all auto repair business owners out by keeping a very close eye on the owner’s expense. As a result ARI is one of the most affordable car repair software on the market.

About SourceForge

SourceForge.net is the world’s largest software comparison directory, serving over 30 million users every month and featuring user reviews, product comparisons, software guides, and more. SourceForge’s mission is to help businesses find the best software to fit their needs and their budget. There are a variety of software tools available to businesses, and there are tools in almost every category and niche, each serving a slightly different purpose.

As always, we work hard to make sure ARI has all the tools required for you to run your auto repair business with ease. With regular updates and constant feature additions, we stay ahead of our competition by offering an affordable yet compelling auto repair software.

NOTE: Before you continue, make sure to update to the latest ARI version

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Here’s what’s new in this update

1. Payments

This was one of our client’s most requested features: to expose all the Payments on a separate page so you can easily search by client name, payment method, invoice number, and of course, the amount paid.

After login into the auto repair software, while on the Home page, click on the payments icon    to open the page. You should now see all the payment records you’ve done so far on ARI. Here’s a screenshot of how the payments page looks like.

NOTE: Old payments do NOT have a client name or invoice number displayed. This data will show up only for new payment records created after this update.

Create a new payment record

So far, you could create payment records inside the Invoice page, but from now on we have a much easier way to create new payments. Just click on the + button and you should see the new payment form. Click on the Select Invoice button and then select the invoice you want to process payment for. After that, select the Payment Method

More Payment Methods

We have added a few more payment methods in order to cover all the possible options. Now you can process Online Payments, Cash, Check, Card, Wire Transfer, Paypal, and Other. The form will change depending on the type of payment method you select.

NOTE: When you select Online Payment, you have an option to Process Payment on the spot. Just click the button and follow the instructions on the screen to set up online payments with Stripe.

Invoice Status and Paid Amount Auto Update

Once you Save your new payment record, the Invoice paid amount will update automatically, and depending on the balance due, the invoice status will change to Paid if the due amount is zero.

2. QuickBooks Auto Sync

We have redesigned the entire QuickBooks integration feature in order to ensure better stability and much faster transfers. But the best news is that you can now set up ARI to sync with your QuickBooks account automatically, every time you create a new client, part, service, or invoice.

NOTE: Invoices in JobCards will sync only after you change the status to Completed

Settings

Head out to ARI Settings and click the Connect to QuickBooks button. If you are not connected, then follow the instructions on the page to connect ARI with QuickBooks. After successful connection, you should see this page

NOTE: Make sure you always click Save Settings after you made changes.

How Auto Sync works

If the AutoSync option is enabled, then every time you create a new client, or add a new part or service, the system will automatically add or update your QuickBooks records. Invoices will be sent automatically as well but only after they are marked as Completed. Please note that for invoices, the system will ask you to confirm the sync every time you complete a jobcard.

3. Vendors/Suppliers Exposure

We have added the possibility to select a vendor when creating a new Part record. This will help you stay on top of your part ordering process and give you a better understanding where your most sold parts are coming from.

Parts Supplier Selection

Go to the Inventory page, click on Parts and then create a new record or edit an exiting one. You should now see a new field at the bottom of the page that lets you select a Supplier. Once done, save the item and you’ll see that the supplier’s name will be displayed on the Parts page

Supplier Reports

In order to take full advantage of the feature above, we have also exposed the supplier names in the Reports/Sales&Purchases . You can now clearly track the parts that sold the most and where did they come from. Don’t forget that you can also download the report data and process it later on in the excel file.

4. Better Profit Reports

There are several things we have changed when calculating and reporting Profit. Read this part carefully in order to get a better idea of the changes.

Subtract Tax and Discount from Profit

From now on, the net profit of an invoice will be calculated as a sum of Parts and Services minus the discounts and taxes. This makes for more realistic reports.

Net Profit Reports

We have adjusted the Reports/Inventory&Profit accordingly. You can now get separate reports for profit resulted from parts selling, labor or overall invoicing.

NOTE: Net Profit contains the overall profit from an invoice after discounts and taxes have been subtracted. Also, the data is available after this update only.

5. Other changes

We have made a couple more small changes to ARI according to our clients’ feedback. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Notes in the Client section.
• Invoice Paid text exposed on invoices that are marked as Paid
• Speed improvements
• Bug fixes

We hope you enjoy this new update. Let us know in the comments below if you want anything else added to ARI so we can make this the best auto repair software there is!

Aside from this, we will share with you a list of the best automotive directories!

For those of you who have been using ARI for while now, you will receive this news with great pleasure. Many of you have requested a faster and more stable version of our website so we finally managed to do that.

Since this is our first blog, we will keep it light and to the point. Here are a few things you should expect from our new auto repair software website

Dedicated Info

Our main website is more of a company portfolio website, and so we have info about all our apps there. However, since ARI is picking up a lot of traction, we have decided to create a separate website dedicated just to this amazing auto repair software. This way, our users will have an easier way to access all the info about ARI

Faster Website

We have changed the hosting provider to GoDaddy so that we make sure we provide faster connection not only in USA but also Canada, Australia, UK, and many other countries. In addition, we have purchased SSL certificates for the website so you can rest assured that your ARI data is kept secured and according to the most rigorous standards

Bigger coverage

We are planning to put a lot of effort into making ARI more popular and so we will be submitting this auto repair software info in a lot of automotive directories. We hope this will bring more traffic to our website.

Here are some of the most popular directories we’ve submitted ARI to:

Finding Our Way Directory

This is one of the most popular directories for business services. We are pleased to be approved and represented in this directory.

One Million Directory

With a great mission in mind, to cover more than 1 million businesses worldwide, this directory supports all sorts of categories. ARI is submitted under Business and Finance software!

The Elf Directory

Another great directory for submitting ARI as a business and finance auto repair software.

The Mats Directory

A reputable directory specialized in all sorts of businesses from Finance to Home and Garden.

ACF Directory

This online directory handles a wide range of categories and industries. Definitely a good fit for ARI in the Business section.

Expotural.com

This directory is one of the most curated and reliable directories. Suitable for our submission in the Organisations category

Automotive Directory

This directory specializes in the automotive industry only. It’s a great place for ARI to be represented here.

Car and Auto Site

A proper directory dedicated to auto repair shops software solutions. We are very pleased to be reviewed and accepted here.

Auto Directory

Find automotive information including the auto parts, motorsports, automotive show, automotive rental, car galleries, automotive dealers.

Automotive Directory

Welcome to the USA home of autos and cars since 2004. This directory is perfect for any car repair software, however it is paid only!

USA Automotive Directory

One of the most reputable automotive directories in USA. It is paid, but it offers a very curated list of some of the best auto repair software in the states!