Every order can be printed as a PDF for the customer. GarageFlow lays it out for you from what's on the order: there's no template to design. This article covers which document you get, what's on it, and the settings that change it.
Which document you get
An order is one job from start to finish, and what it prints as depends on how far it has got.
| Order status | Prints as |
|---|---|
| Estimate, Estimate sent, Approved | Estimate |
| In progress, Completed | Repair order |
| Invoiced | Invoice, and the repair order is still available |
Use Print in the order's header:
- Download Estimate PDF gives you the estimate. From In progress on, it's Download Repair Order PDF and gives you the repair order.
- Download Invoice PDF appears once the order has an invoice.
- Inspection Print appears once the order has an inspection. It opens a page your browser can print or save as a PDF.
Printing needs the Print, duplicate and archive permission, which owners and managers have by default. If Print is greyed out, the order is missing a customer, a vehicle or a line item; hover it to see which.
Sending them
Send in the same header emails the customer, with the PDF attached:
- Send Estimate attaches the estimate, or the repair order once work has started. It isn't offered once the order is invoiced.
- Send Invoice attaches the invoice.
- The receipt a customer gets when an invoice is paid has the invoice attached too.
If the PDF can't be produced for some reason, the email still goes, without the attachment.
What's on them
From top to bottom:
- Your shop. Your logo or shop name, your address, phone, email and website, and your VAT number if you have one under Settings → Tax & Invoicing.
- The document. Its name and number, the date, and on an invoice the issue date, due date and order number. A PO number on the order prints here too.
- The customer and the car. Name, company, phone and address, and the tax ID of a business customer. The car with its plate and the mileage recorded on this order.
- The work. Each service as a section with its own total, and its lines underneath: type, quantity or hours, unit price and line total. A note added with Add Customer Note on a service prints under its title.
- Recommended Services: suggestions the customer hasn't answered yet, and work added after they authorized the estimate that nobody has authorized since. They are not in the totals until someone authorizes them.
- Declined Services: work the customer turned down, or that you recorded as declined, kept as a record of what was offered. It's not in the totals.
- The totals. Labor, parts, tires, fees, sublet work, shop supplies and discounts, then subtotal, tax and total.
Every page carries your shop name, the document and its number, the currency, and 1 / 2-style page numbers, so a page that comes loose can still be matched up. An estimate's footer adds that it may change before work is authorized.
What changes on each document
- A signed estimate carries an Authorization block: the customer's signature or typed name, and the date and time. If you recorded the authorization yourself, it says so, and how: in person, by phone or by email.
- An invoice shows Balance Due with its due date, or Paid in full, and what has been paid so far.
- Bank details print on invoices when you've filled in Invoice payment details under Settings → Tax & Invoicing, with the invoice number as the payment reference. Leave them empty and nothing is printed.
Showing less of the price
A service can show one price for the whole section, or list the work without prices. Both are set on a canned service: Lump Sum prints the section as a single figure with no lines, and Hide Line Item Pricing lists the lines with no prices beside them. Either way the section's total still shows, and the money doesn't change. A service added from that canned service takes the setting with it.
Numbering
Estimates, repair orders and invoices share one counter. Order 1043 is
EST-1043 while it's an estimate, RO-1043 once work starts and INV-1043
once it's invoiced. It's the same job throughout, so you and the customer
never have to match up two numbers.
- Each document prints its full number:
EST-1043,RO-1043orINV-1043. - Each new order takes the next number after the highest one ever given out. Deleting an order doesn't free its number for reuse. Numbers aren't padded with zeros.
- An invoice keeps the number it was issued with, even if you later change the invoice prefix.
Starting from your old system's numbers
Coming from other software, you can carry on its sequence. Under Settings → Branding & Documents → Document Numbering, set Start numbering at to the next number you want, and the page shows what the next estimate, repair order and invoice will be called. You can also change each prefix there.
The starting number can only move the counter up. If it's lower than a number you've already used, numbering carries on from the highest one in use and the page tells you so, so a number is never handed out twice.
Your logo and contact details
Included in EnterpriseSettings → Branding & Documents is where you upload a logo (PNG, SVG or JPEG, up to 2 MB), choose which of your logo, phone number, email address and website appear in the document header, and set your own prefixes and starting number. It's part of the Enterprise plan, and changing it needs the Manage branding permission.
On the other plans, documents show your shop name where the logo would go,
with your phone, email and website underneath. Numbers use EST-, RO- and
INV- and count up from 1.
Language, dates and money
Documents print in your shop's Default language, set under Settings → Shop Profile. That holds even when the email they're attached to is in the customer's own language. Dates are written in that language and in your shop's time zone, and amounts in your shop's currency, which the footer names.
Invoices don't change after they're issued
When an order is invoiced, its lines, totals and the car's details are saved with the invoice. Change a labor rate, a tax rate, a matrix or the car's mileage next month and the invoice still shows what the customer was charged.
Two things on an invoice stay current:
- What has been paid. Download it again after a payment and it shows the new balance, or Paid in full.
- Your shop's details and the customer's. Your logo, address and bank details, and the customer's name and address, print as they are today.
Estimates and repair orders aren't frozen: they always show the order as it is now.
The copy the customer authorized
Each authorization on an order keeps the estimate exactly as it stood when the customer signed. Find it in the order sidebar under Authorizations and press View PDF. Useful when the order has changed since and you need to show what was agreed. See estimates and authorization.
A statement of account, listing a customer's invoices and what they owe, is a PDF too: Statement in the ⋯ menu on any customer's page. It's described in fleets, where it's used most.
Troubleshooting
"I don't see Print." Your role doesn't have Print, duplicate and archive.
"Print is greyed out." The order needs a customer, a vehicle and at least one line item. Hover the button to see which is missing.
"There's no Download Invoice PDF." The order hasn't been invoiced yet.
"My logo isn't on the PDF." Custom branding is part of Enterprise. On Enterprise, check that Show logo is on under Settings → Branding & Documents.
"The PDF is in the wrong language." Documents follow Default language under Settings → Shop Profile, not the customer's language.
"My bank details aren't on the invoice." Fill in Invoice payment details under Settings → Tax & Invoicing.
"An old invoice still shows the old price." That's on purpose: an issued invoice shows what was charged. See getting paid.
"A section shows only one price." It came from a canned service set to Lump Sum or Hide Line Item Pricing.