The fastest garages we see all do the same thing: they bake their most common 15–25 jobs into service templates on day one. After that, every estimate for those jobs is one click instead of three minutes of typing.
Why it matters
An average estimate has 3–6 line items. Without templates, each line is name + price + qty typed by hand. With templates, you pick "Periodic service — 10,000 km" and labour, parts, qty, and price drop in pre-filled.
Multiplied across 10 estimates a day, that's 30+ minutes saved — every single day.
What to template first
Look at your last month of invoices. Sort by service name. The top 20 names are your day-one templates. Don't try to template everything; the long tail is fine to free-type.
How to build one
- Settings → Service Templates → New template.
- Name it the way your front desk would say it ("AC gas top-up", not "RAC-001").
- Add the labour items (name, hours, hourly rate or flat price).
- Add parts with SKUs from inventory — they'll deduct stock automatically when the estimate converts to an invoice.
- Save.
Pro move: start the template name with a digit or symbol so it sorts to the top — many shops prefix the busiest 5 with
* (asterisk + space).Other speed wins
- Custom fields on the workboard card — surface things you ask every customer (warranty? preferred brand?) so the mechanic doesn't open the customer record.
- Automatic discounts — never manually apply "5% repeat-customer" again.
- Saved campaign audiences — appointment reminders, payment follow-ups in two clicks.