Running a repair business can be tough. Along with managing customers and suppliers, one has to keep an eye on inventory, payments, employees, and repair jobs. Doing all this using manual methods and procedures such as paperwork is not worth it.
Instead, one should use small engine repair shop software, as it helps you manage, and streamline all the ongoing admin work. Let us explore how such automation can help your business.
1. Inventory Management
Managing inventory is one of the challenging parts of a repair business. The reason? One has to keep an eye on a number of small repair parts, accessories, and products. When you use paperwork and spreadsheets to do it, there are high chances of errors, and missed entries. As a result, you may lose several chances of making sales.
Let’s understand this better. A customer visits your repair store and wants you to fix the piston and rings of his generator. You look at them, quote a price, and start repairing it after their approval. However, while you are repairing it, you realize that you don’t have the piston head, or rings in the inventory. You tell this to the customer and as they can’t wait much, they leave your shop to start looking for another repair service provider.
So, this way, you lose sales opportunities regularly, and this is how your business is losing money without inventory management. To get rid of this, you must use small engine repair shop software. Whenever a small engine repair part or product gets low in the inventory, the system will let you know. Along with that, you can reorder any item, or part from your favorite suppliers and vendors. Thus, you don’t have to look for the contact details of suppliers any time you need something.
2. Repair Tracking
Again, tracking repairs on time is tough. Most of you are unable to manage and track repair jobs because you rely solely on manual work. In addition, most of the customers who visit you are in a hurry. They want quick responses from your side. And as you are busy dealing with other visitors and suppliers, it gets difficult to get back to everyone right on time. As a result, they may lose interest in your business due to lack of communication, and delayed repairs.
This is where software for small engine repair shop comes in. Using this system, you can create repair tickets for every job that comes into your lab. The ticket will include the following things:
Customer contact details (phone number, email)
Issue with the small engine
Delivery date
Name of the assigned technician
Then, you can assign the job to any of your available technicians. When the job is done, the software will automatically notify the customer. So, they would know their small engine has been fixed and they need to revisit your store.
3. Employee and Payment Management
Employees and repair technicians at your repair store are your assets. If they are skilled enough to finish all the repair jobs, and have the right attitude, they can help you grow. Contrary to this, if they are not sincere and honest with their work and your business, they can harm your reputation. Thus, whenever you onboard or hire someone, ensure they are a good fit for the job.
Also, some of them may try to steal inventory or cash from your workplace. Studies tell us that 75% of employees commit theft at least once. So, if you keep using cash registers to manage cash you will struggle. Similarly, if you continue to mark the attendance of your employee manually, it can hurt your business.
Use small engine repair shop software instead. It can track check-in, and check-out timings of your employees, and repair jobs they complete in a day/week/month. Also, using this system, you can calculate commissions and process payroll. So, you can ensure everyone gets paid fairly and identify which of them are not performing up to the mark.
Similarly, getting payments on time is a difficult task. If you don’t have the amount, how would you be able to pay wages, and clear pending payments? This happens when your customers forget to pay you, and you don’t ask for it. However, now that you use an automation tool, you don’t need to worry about managing cash flow. The repair shop software automatically sends payment alerts to your customers regarding unpaid invoices. Additionally, it can send a payment link to a customer so that he can pay right on time.
Final Words
Fixing small engines can be messy and hectic. After you are tired due to all the work, you don’t want to do the admin work yourself. That’s why you need to equip your small engine repair shop with the right software that can do it all for you. Hopefully, you will pick the right fit for your business and keep away all the headaches.
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