01
The customer is in the dark
Today a customer gets three snapshot links — inspection, estimate, invoice. Statuses like “waiting on parts” or “on hold” exist only inside the shop's board. Nobody outside can see them.
Brief §3.6
Prototype byUmbrella IT
One repair order,
seven people who need it.
We read the brief and built the part of it that is hardest to describe in words. This follows a single job through your shop — a 1969 Bronco in for an engine overhaul — from the phone call that starts it to the month end that closes it, seen from the seat of every person who touches it.
Step 1 of 17 — The phone rings. Nothing exists in the system yet.
Why this shape
Your work already runs in a circle. It is broken in four places.
A car arrives, gets inspected, quoted, approved, repaired, released, invoiced and paid — and the customer comes back. Each of the four breaks below is a place where that circle drops something: information, money, or trust.
02
The recipe lives in someone's head
Writing an estimate means remembering every associated part. Forget the thermostat and the vehicle comes back. The labor guide covers 1984 and newer — for the work this shop is known for it returns nothing at all.
Brief §3.5
03
Nothing gates the release
There are nine required-field checks before a repair order can close, and not one of them asks whether the vehicle was actually road tested.
Brief §3.6
04
The money leaks quietly
The monthly supplier statement is printed and ticked off by hand. A part billed to no ticket is money spent and never invoiced — and nobody finds it until someone goes looking.
Brief §3.1
The walkthrough
Follow one repair order, in the order it actually happens
Every screen below carries the thing that had to happen before it. Nothing appears out of nowhere: no estimate before an inspection, no approval before an estimate, no invoice before the road test was signed off.
Act 1
Something breaks
A truck that has been in one family since 1998 starts knocking under load. Nothing exists in the system yet — not a customer record for this visit, not a repair order, nothing.
Act 2
What is wrong, and what it costs
The vehicle is on the lift. Everything the shop finds has to reach the owner in language he can act on, and be priced before anyone touches a bolt.
Act 3
Three weeks in the bay
An engine overhaul with machining is not a morning's work. This is the stretch where a customer goes quiet and starts wondering, and where the shop's own numbers drift.
Act 4
Money, and the circle closes
The vehicle goes home, the money is accounted for, and the same phone line that started the story is what catches it if the work comes back.
Or pick a seat
Same repair order, seven points of view
Switching role does not load a different example. It re-draws the same job for somebody else — which is the whole reason a shop needs one system instead of four.
Customer
Ray Whitaker — no login, opens a link
- Repair status§3.6
- Approve estimate§3.6
- Inspection report§3.6
Service Writer
Sam Wright — answers the phone, sells the work
- First contact§3.3
- Job Board
- Write-up
- Send the report§3.⅘
- Estimate§3.5
- Invoice & pickup§3.9
Technician
Marco Ruiz — ASE Master, engine builder
- Teardown findings§3.⅘
- My jobs
- QC & road test§3.6
Accounting
Joanne Pike — reconciles the statements
- Reconciliation§3.1
- Reports & sales tax§3.2
Owner
Dave Bell — ASE Master, AERA member
- Dashboard§3.2
- Warranty & comeback§3.3½
Parts
Curtis Hale — orders, receives, counts
- Parts & inventory§3.8
Platform admin
Umbrella IT — multi-tenant operations
- Tenants & features§§4
Platform
Umbrella IT — the engineering answer, and what comes after today
- Solution architecture
- MVP composition
- Work breakdown & estimate
- Roadmap & critical path