Customers and Vehicles

The two foundational components of tickets are customers and vehicles. All tickets are tied to one customer and one vehicle at a time.

When creating an estimate or repair order, the first thing you need to do is search for and select a customer and vehicle.

Watch the following video to see an overview of selecting customers and vehicles when creating a new ticket.

Understanding the relationship between customers, vehicles, repair orders, and parts and labor is vital to using R.O. Writer to run the daily activities of your shop.

• A customer can have no vehicles but a vehicle must always be assigned to a customer.
• Vehicles can be transferred from one customer to another.
• Estimates and repair orders are assigned to a specific vehicle when first created and always belongs to that vehicle.
• History is tied to the vehicle first, customer second.
  • If a customer's vehicle is deleted, the repair history of that vehicle is deleted even if the customer remains in R.O. Writer.
• Vehicle information like VIN (vehicle identification number), make, model, model, and year should remain the same.
  • Change this information only to make corrections.
• If a customer no longer has the vehicle assigned to them in R.O. Writer, do NOT change the existing vehicle information. Instead, keep the old vehicle and add the new one.
  • If you do change the vehicle, all vehicle history - including vehicle statistics and repair information - becomes incorrect on reports.

To configure customers and vehicles, click the following link: Customers/Vehicles Menu.

The topics in this section include: