Best Automobile Workshop Software in 2023

Automobile workshop software is a tool that helps car service businesses streamline and automate servicing and repair operations. The software helps workshop managers schedule and dispatch work, track inventory & technician productivity, invoicing, maintain vehicle inventory, and more. 

Most Common Features of Automotive Management Software

• Sales Forecasting: Automotive management software helps with sales forecasting and provides real-time sales inputs.
• Stock Visibility: This feature of automotive management software helps improve stock visibility and reduce wastage.
• Client Management: It provides marketing modules to help attract new customers records, stores and manages the entire data of customers and promotes retention through loyalty programs.
• Payroll: Automotive payroll management software helps determine the net pay of staff, generate pay slips, make deductions and comply with wage code.
• Help Desk: With automotive help desk software, you can take care of automotive maintenance, help desk, and employee training.
• Service Orders: All service orders can be taken, assigned and administered for vital process effortlessly. Service order management includes job card creation, process, and staff assignment, and job status tracking.
• Sales & Marketing Management System: Automobile ERP helps businesses to execute their sales and marketing operations smoothly with extensive sales and marketing features.
• Supplier Details: Details of suppliers along with their history and performances can be managed for easy and quick access. Businesses can administer the payments made and credit limits with each supplier.
• Document Management System: A DMS solution helps in maintaining digital copies of important documents pertaining to the dealership and sales. You don’t have to maintain a file room that contains stacks of documents, for record-keeping. Having digital copies not only removes the need for a dedicated physical space but also makes accessing documents easier.
• Expense Management System: This feature helps a dealership with their expense management and budgeting. A dealership’s expense is varying, ranging from large (showroom maintenance, stationery, furniture, storage space) to small (snacks for customers, F&B for employees) expenses. With the expense management feature, dealerships can track how much is being spent and accordingly decide where to invest and where to cut down.
• Insurance & Tax Calculation: Say goodbye to lengthy tax and insurance premium calculations. The software can be programmed to calculate taxes and insurance premiums that a customer must pay. Both are essential functions that must be performed before handing customers the key to their new vehicle. It can also highlight  the insurance premium that the customer must pay on year-on-year basis, along with the benefits they get with the coverage.
• Track Shelf-Life: Keeping a track of the shelf-life of different products is simplified by dealership management software. A DMS can display the shelf-life of a product (as specified by the part manufacturer). This helps in weaning out old & unused products and in highlighting products that are nearing the end of their shelf-life. With this information, dealerships and workshops can ensure that their products are used to the maximum capacity and there’s minimum wastage of products due to mismanagement.
• Vehicle History: A dealer management system can maintain a vehicle’s history including details such as purchase date, manufacturing year, the number of services conducted, parts changed, so on and so forth. This feature helps in maintaining a comprehensive record which is especially useful in case of insurance claims.
• Stock Reports: You can’t run a business without knowing what products you have and in what quantity. With DMS software’s stock reports feature, dealerships can keep track of their products effectively. Stock reports can be created based on different criteria like location, color, stock assigned to the salesman, branch allocation, etc. 

Modules of Automotive Management Software

1. Billing and Invoicing: Dealership billing software manages the essentials of billing & accounting. When a customer makes a purchase at your dealership, auto dealer accounting software does invoice calculation and generates a printable digital copy. It minimizes the need for human intervention in calculations, letting your employees focus more on important tasks.

Additionally, the billing & accounting module assists with bookkeeping by maintaining detailed records of transactions, taxes and expenses. Different elements of accounting such as tax registry, ledger maintenance, dues tracker, budgeting, bank reconciliation, and balance sheet maintenance, can be performed by the billing & accounting module.

Most auto dealer accounting software solutions in India are GST-compliant, so your invoices are calculated and generated correctly. This prevents any discrepancy in your financial numbers.

2. Inventory Management Module: This module helps an automotive showroom staff take smarter steps towards organizing the stock and managing demand. Maintaining a well-organized inventory lets a dealership solve stock problems faster and improve overall customer experience.

Inventory management is also important for dealerships as it lets them filter and removes non-performing stock. Because automotive items are space-exhaustive, there’s a limit to the amount of stock a dealership can hold at a time. Hence, inventory management module not only help in prioritizing space but in turn, assists dealerships in increasing sales and profit margins.

3. Sales Management Module: The sales management module works two-fold: pre-sale & post-sale. The pre-sale aspect works by creating a record for a new potential customer. This record contains details of the said customer, his/ her name, phone number, email id, address, vehicle preference, budget, car requirement, etc. Based on these details, a salesperson pitches the vehicle best-suited to the customer’s needs.

The post-sale aspect works after the customer has agreed to make a purchase. Depending on the vehicle, there are different things that need to be done like vehicle registration, tax calculations, insurance premium calculations, EMI calculations, maintenance and servicing schedule, etc. The sales force automation module can be used to perform the required calculations, and it has dedicated sections that assist with vehicle registration. Aside from these, the sales management module keeps a track of sales figures, which plays a major role in reporting & analytics.

4. Reporting & Analytics: Any automotive, big or small, can be considered as a high-value property. And when you sell such products, it is of vital importance to analyze the sales numbers to identify what’s selling and what’s not. A dealership management software aids showrooms with a dedicated reporting & data analytics software module. This module provides pre-and-post sales analysis, financial figures for procurement and selling, and postulate sales projections.

The reporting & analytics modules can be used to view and assess sales reports based on different factors (sales numbers, financial figures, month/quarter/annual sales-wise, model-wise, city-wise, outlet-wise, color-wise, etc.) It can also be used to keep a track of employee sales targets and create performance reports. Besides these, a dealership can use sales reports to identify how they need to spend advertising money and which products need more advertisements. Lastly, analytics helps a dealership create sales projections on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.

5. Automotive Spare Parts Management System Solution: While automotive forms the primary chunk of a dealership’s inventory, spare parts management is also crucial for overall efficiency. Spare parts are vital in different functions, especially in garages and workshops, such as vehicle servicing, maintenance, vehicle assembly, etc. The spare parts management module of a DMS helps in keeping a track of spares along with maintaining a sales record.

Spare parts management works separately from inventory management, the latter is more focused on vehicles and their storage. Spare parts management is a separate module due to the dynamic nature of spare parts. In simple terms, dealerships have to keep spare parts on-demand basis and including them in inventory management can lead to lesser space for the more important component: automobiles.

6. CRM Module: The success of any business, including automobile dealerships, depends primarily on the customers. Happy and satisfied customers lead to better word of mouth which further results in more sales. A CRM software module assists with the buyer’s journey, documenting their progress as they move from lead to customer to user.

Using the CRM module, a dealership can get customer feedback on using a vehicle, as well as the service rendered by a dealership. Additionally, a CRM module helps in maintaining tabs on upcoming servicing dates and other important maintenance dates for a vehicle. CRM is also important in forming a personal relationship with customers by sending bulk SMS and emails on their birthdays and anniversaries. The CRM module can also be programmed to send reminders and promotional messages to customers.

7. Service Management System: The auto workshop management software helps deliver effective auto repair services to your clients. From maintaining contact details to analyzing their car service requirement, automotive management software assists at every stage.

5 Reasons to Use Online Automobile Management Software

• Order Management: With automobile workshop software, dealerships can view and evaluate purchase history. It further assists with order commission, payment, order transferring and other complicated tasks related to managing customers’ orders.
• Sales Enablement: To make your vehicle sales and service business profitable, investing in the right form of technology is critical. The software helps manage sales with successful staff and inventory management. It provides marketing tools to attract new clients and boost vehicle sales.
• Automobile Maintenance: The dashboard of automobile workshop software helps record the complete service history of your client vehicles. As a result, you can send them reminders for the next automobile maintenance appointment.
• Electronic Database: he electronic database module helps cut down on paperwork significantly. All data and documents can be stored securely. The electronic database further assists with secure data sharing using robust data management system.
• Staff Management: Manage the payroll of your staff with automotive management software. It also assists with maintaining employee database and assessing their performance.