Oil stickers

An oil sticker tells the customer when their next oil change is due: a mileage, a date, or both, whichever comes first. GarageFlow prints it as a PDF the exact size of your label, so there's no printer driver to set up and nothing to install. Oil stickers are on every plan.

Set up your intervals

Settings → Oil Stickers holds the intervals a sticker counts the next change from. Each one has:

• Name, such as Standard or Long life.
• Distance, in km or mi, added to today's odometer.
• Months, added to today's date.
• Heading, printed above the due figures. Left empty, it prints Next oil change.

Leave Distance or Months empty for an interval by time only or by distance only. Set as default picks the interval the print dialog opens on. Your shop starts with two: Standard (10,000 km / 12 months) and Extended (15,000 km / 12 months), or 5,000 mi / 6 months and 7,500 mi / 6 months for a shop that works in miles. Change them to suit your shop. Deleting an interval doesn't change stickers already printed.

The Label section sets the Default label, the stock a screen prints on until someone picks another in the print dialog. After that, each computer and each phone remembers its own, because each sits next to its own printer.

Changing this page needs the Manage shop operations permission.

Print from the order

Use Print → Oil sticker in the order's header. It's there once the order has a car. Anyone who can open the order can print one, mechanics included: a sticker carries no prices.

The dialog fills itself in from the order and the interval:

• Interval: the default, or the one the last sticker for this order used.
• Odometer today: the order's mileage out, or its mileage in if there's no mileage out. If the order has no reading, the car's last recorded reading is shown with Use beside it. It's never filled in for you, because the car may have been driven since.
• Next change at and Or by: today's odometer plus the interval's distance, and today plus its months. Type over either. Picking another interval puts both back on its figures. Remove the date prints a sticker by mileage only, and an empty Next change at prints one by date only.
• Oil: filled in when a line on the order names a grade, such as Castrol EDGE 5W-30. Parts are read first. Change it or leave it empty.
• Label: the stock in your printer, or Custom size (20 to 150 mm on each side).
• Printer alignment: moves everything on the label right or down, up to 10 mm, for a printer that prints off-centre. It's saved on that computer.

The preview is the PDF itself, so what you see is what prints. Print records the sticker and opens the PDF in a new tab. In your browser's print dialog, pick the label printer and Actual size (100%).

A reading typed in the dialog

A new odometer reading you type is saved to the order as its mileage out when you print, and becomes the car's mileage. The dialog says Saved to this order as the mileage out when you print when it will. It isn't saved when:

• the order already has a mileage out,
• it's the same as the mileage in, or below it,
• it's the car's last reading, put in with Use.

Printing it again

The dialog opens on what the last copy for this order said, with the date it was printed, so a second copy matches the first unless you change something. Each print counts as the car's newest sticker.

Print from the tech app

On a job with a car, Print an oil sticker sits under the car's details. The sheet has the same fields as the dialog, and a typed reading is saved as the job's mileage out by the same rule. Or by opens the phone's own date picker.

• Print opens the phone's print sheet (AirPrint on an iPhone), which shows a preview.
• Share hands the PDF to a label printer's own app, such as Brother iPrint&Label.

The label and the printer alignment are saved on the phone. Printing needs a connection.

What prints

From top to bottom:

• Your logo or shop name. On a short label the logo is left off, so the due figures stay large.
• The interval's heading, or Next oil change.
• The due mileage and the due date, large, with or between them.
• Serviced with today's date and odometer.
• Oil and the grade, when there is one.
• Your phone number and website.

Your logo, phone and website follow the same settings as your PDFs: see your logo and contact details. The sticker prints in your shop's Default language, with dates and numbers written the way your region writes them. It prints in black only, because label printers are thermal and print grey as a speckle.

The booking QR code

When online booking is on, the 62 × 100 mm and 3½ × 1⅛ in labels add a QR code to your booking page, with Scan to book your next visit. The smaller labels don't have room for it beside the due figures, so they print your phone and website instead.

Label sizes

After it prints

On the vehicle page

The car's page shows Next oil change, with the mileage and date from the newest sticker. It turns to Oil change due once the date arrives, or once a reading recorded for the car passes the mileage.

A reminder email

In Campaigns, the Oil sticker due starter sends a reminder when the date or mileage on the car's last sticker comes up. The mileage is judged from how far the customer drives, from the readings you've recorded. Heads-up sets how many days early it goes (7 to start with; 0 sends on the day). A newer sticker replaces the old one, and the email goes to the car's current owner. The {Sticker Due} tag quotes the sticker, for example 85,000 km or 27 October 2027. See reviews and campaigns.

Troubleshooting

"The sticker prints small, or across two labels." In the print dialog, pick Actual size (100%) rather than Fit to page, and check that the label in the dialog matches the roll in the printer.

"Everything is shifted to one side." Use Printer alignment in the dialog to move it back. It's saved on that computer or phone, so you only do it once per printer.

"The odometer on the sticker is old." The dialog counts from this order's own reading, never from an older visit. Type today's reading in Odometer today.