Hi Nikole
I take it that they do no car sales?

What specifically are they looking for their software to do?

What turnover? How many invoices do they issue each day?

Hi Nikole
Go anywhere nice? Daft question as anywhere anyway from work is nice. Hope you had a good time though!

So - rather annoying question perhaps - can you network the sage (do you have enough users on it) and add it to the receptionists/front desk computer?

Then set them up so that all invoices are completed on sage, but the crucial thing here is THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO POST TO THE LEDGERS. Now that isnt to suggest you change any amounts or whatever, but just helps as you will find lots of nil invoices and such messes when they first start but with an hour or two training they can soon get the hang of it. One of mine does more than double the number of invoices and there are car sales involved (much more convoluted) and they got the hang of it pretty quickly after a short structured training sesh. They still use the template invoice if they have any weird deals (which do happen on the car sales side!), so yours should be even more straightforward.

You set up the things they are likely to sell as products (with nil stockholding), so that all appropriate tax codes are taken care of and they do not need to think about it. You can even include lines for Labour and say a fixed price service and then for the most common other garage items eg cam belt, MOT class 4, MOT class 7, filters, clutch....blur blur blur. You also then direct the 'products; to whatever nominal code you prefer them to go to. Eg MOTs all to one, or split between the classes ect so you can see the turnover for each area sold. Lump parts all together etc.

They print two copies of the invoices, ideally. Mark up how the invoice was paid - cash or card (and attach the card slip) and one copy goes to you so you can post the invoices when you are ready and pay them at the same time (easy to even easier depending on the version of sage).

Dead easy to set up. With a good receptionist you will have a relatively flawless process once they get the hang of it - only time it will mess up is when that person is on holiday as no one ever wants to cover that role!

Sorry I know that doesnt answer your question exactly, but have to say the garage software Ive seen is pretty pants. Some do not even have reports in excel and so might not resolve the issue of your staff putting wrong info in and just cost a fortune. One of my clients has been using VGM for MOT expiry dates notifications and that works pretty well until we tried to drag some info from it to discover it doesnt do excel dumps - only pdf. Well, they have told me there is a way but needs access to another site and not managed to drag a single report from it. Never used it for invoicing - might be ok. Never will - sage works. (They have sage on 4 PCs!)

VinceH wrote:

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I don't know anything about this sort of software, so can't comment on that, other than:

"Ideally if I could integrate the garage software with Sage then that would be a bonus."

At the very least, any decent software of this sort - no matter what industry it's specific to - ought to allow you to export data as CSV. If so, properly set up, you can get the data into Sage (or any other package that can import) that way. If you start looking at packages, and this ability isn't there, cross it off the list. (Even if there is Sage integration - bear in mind that you don't know for certain that in one year, two years, n years, Sage will still be the accounts software of choice.)

"From a marketing perspective it would be ideal if the software had a function to alert previous customer of MOTS/Services due ect."

Be very careful doing this. If you find something that makes it easy, make sure you/they/it get explicit permission from customers to receive such notifications, make sure the date/time/etc that permission is granted is fully recorded, whenever they are notified give them the option to stop being notified, and make sure such requests are honoured.

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Totally agree on both points.  

One the first - I was totally gobsmacked when I tried to use it (never get involved normally but they admit to being technically challenged, even worse than I am!!) and found it was only dumping to a pdf!    That said, Ive since set up access to this other website although Ive not had two minutes to try to access the info, so it might be just what they need when I do.   It mostly does what they want in terms of texts for MOT reminders, except where there is only a house phone listed, but they can do more with it Im sure, but they dont even try!  Its not even cheap!!!  But there are even worse Garage Mgmt packages out there, so rigourously test as much as poss via a free trial first.

Hi Vince

Didn't think about further down the line and changing accounting software! Lots to consider....

Be very careful doing this. If you find something that makes it easy, make sure you/they/it get explicit permission from customers to receive such notifications, make sure the date/time/etc that permission is granted is fully recorded, whenever they are notified give them the option to stop being notified, and make sure such requests are honoured.

I'd hope the software would already have this function? again something else I they need to take into account. I think i'll stick to my bookkeeping and let them arrange the software.