Shop Commander Docs
Task guidance for the current ShopCommander product, including roles, permissions, capabilities, provider dependencies, and real screenshots.
Getting Started
Getting Started
Sign in, use the role-aware workspace, and find optional setup, readiness, tours, task guidance, and documentation.
Setup & Readiness
Use the optional Setup Wizard, understand launch blockers and provider readiness, and resume configuration without creating false completion.
Your First Real Workflow
Follow the current customer-to-settlement workflow after required setup and readiness are complete.
Signing In & Your Account
Invitations, passwords, email verification, and getting back in when you're locked out.
The Mobile App
Shop Commander on iPhone and Android — live updates, push notifications, and camera scanning for VINs, plates, and odometers.
What's New in ShopCommander
A shop-facing summary of the current role-aware workspace, setup, mobile workflow, inventory, communication, and reporting improvements.
Home & Daily Work
Role-Aware Home
Understand what Home shows Owners, Administrators, Managers, Service Advisors, Technicians, and Apprentices.
Check-Ins
Configure QR self-check-in, review matched or unmatched arrivals, and acknowledge the live front-counter queue.
Job Board
Read current shop-floor workload, assignment, promise risk, bays, and blocked work, then open the source record.
My Work
Technician and Apprentice assigned work, Ready Next, waiting reasons, supervisor review, and completed context.
Repair Workflow & Billing
Repair Orders
Carry customer concern through estimate, authorization, assignment, work, invoice, and settlement on one governed record.
Estimates & Authorization
Send the current estimate revision, collect customer decisions, record staff authorization, and understand supersession.
Payments & Settlement
Post the invoice, record real manual tender or provider-confirmed payment, reverse corrections, and keep settlement separate from billing.
Warranty Claims
File claims against coverage, track every one to a decision, and record reimbursements as they really arrive.
Customers & Vehicles
Customers
Find the correct customer, manage contact and consent facts, and open vehicles, visits, decisions, alerts, and value history.
Vehicles
Full vehicle records with VIN decoding, odometer tracking, photos, and complete service history.
Scheduling
Appointments
Book, reschedule, cancel, check in, and hand a visit into the repair workflow using current availability and history.
Online Booking
Your shop's public booking page — customers pick a service, a time, and book themselves in.
Bay Management
A live view of every service bay — what's in it, how it's progressing, and what's waiting for one.
Inspections
Digital Inspections
Perform the DVI, satisfy required findings and evidence, then keep completion, publication, sharing, and customer view distinct.
Inspection Builder
Build inspection templates from reusable modules — your checklists, your order, your photo rules.
Customer Communication
Messages
Use configured two-way customer messaging with current context, templates, consent, opt-outs, delivery state, and history.
Phone System Overview
How calls and texts reach your shop — providers, numbers, routing rules, the AI receptionist, voicemail, and an emergency backup.
Campaigns & Follow-Up
Build consent-aware campaigns and work declined or deferred opportunities without assuming universal automation.
Phone
Answer, place and review calls from the browser or the mobile app, with the caller's customer, vehicle and repair-order context beside every call.
Phone & Messaging Settings
Set up the phone provider, decide how calls are routed and who they ring, and manage voicemail, recording, desk phones and the emergency backup.
Numbers & Porting
Get a new phone number, bring one you already own, or move your existing number to Shop Commander without losing it.
AI Receptionist
What the AI receptionist can do on a call, how it hands off to your team, and how to configure its greeting, booking rules and advisor style.
Emergency Failover
Keep receiving calls when Shop Commander or your shop's internet cannot — a backup number the phone company rings on its own, with a non-disruptive test.
Inventory & Custody
Inventory
Track parts, tires, batteries, fluids, vendors, purchase orders, and returns — from the shelf to the repair order.
Canned Jobs
Pre-built service templates with labor and parts, ready to drop onto any repair order in one click.
Tire Storage
Track customer-owned seasonal tire sets held in custody, their locations, condition/history, and changeover workflow.
Loaner Vehicles
Run your courtesy fleet — check-outs with photos and digital signed agreements, returns with damage checks.
Custody Exceptions
The reconciliation queue for loaner and tire custody — every inconsistency stays visible until someone resolves it or overrides it with a reason.
Workforce & Administration
Employees
Add and maintain employee identities, invitations, role templates, active status, and links to their actual Access Control.
Access Control
Understand standard and custom roles, effective permissions, per-person overrides, scopes, and authoritative enforcement.
Work Timer
Start or switch Productive Time on real assigned work and keep it distinct from Attendance, Sold/Credited Time, and pay.
Business Office
Manage attendance, pay and incentives, accounts payable, cash drawers, and known contribution in separate addressable workspaces.
Tasks
Internal shop tasks with checklists, assignments, and recurring schedules — the work that isn't on an RO.
Feedback
Shape Shop Commander — post ideas and bug reports, vote with shops across the platform, and follow what ships.
Support
Message the Shop Commander team from inside the app — one conversation across web, mobile, and email.
Management & Reports
Reports
Operational reports plus the registers that reconcile — daily close, invoices, payments, A/R, tax, credit, discounts and parts GP.
Work Opportunities
Turn declined and deferred work into a focused follow-up list without losing the original repair-order context.
Configuration
Settings, Features & Integrations
Configure shop settings, Employees, Features & Modules, financial policy, providers, and readiness.
Developer API
Connect your own website, fleet system, or accounting tools to Shop Commander with API keys and signed webhooks.