If you own your own shop, you may be considering getting some type of auto service shop software. After all, it will help you keep track of your customers, expedite diagnostics, and speed up repairs, but what should you be looking for in an automotive repair software?
Features
The first thing to consider is, what features you want? There are several different features available, such as parts ordering, service reminders, labor guide, and more, but each thing you add adds to the price. You have to decide early how much each feature is worth to you and determine if it is worth it to spend the extra money. In most cases, you will find that money spent on the software today will pay for itself in the headache certain features can prevent.
Price
Like any business software, automotive repair and management software can get expensive and the prices can vary widely. With this in mind price should not be one of your biggest concerns. It won’t do you much good to save a few hundred dollars on software if it doesn’t work.
Stability
This is one of the most important factors. If your software is unstable, it will not only be a headache, but can also lead to a loss of data. Let’s say you are entering the final notes of a repair on a customer’s vehicle and the software crashes. Chances are you just lost all of your notes. This is the best case scenario, if the software crash were to corrupt your database you would lose a lot more than one customers notes. With this in mind stability should be a top concern.
Support
This is one that gets overlooked a lot. You are paying for this software; you should expect at least a few months’ worth of free support. If something goes wrong, you want to be sure you can call and get it resolved before you invest in the software.
