Garage software looks simple until you model it. A single job card touches customers, vehicles, parts, labour, payments and messages. If you are building or evaluating a workshop system, here is the data model that works.
Core entities
Customer has many vehicles.
Vehicle has a service history (the “vehicle passport”).
Job card links a vehicle, a technician, services, parts and status.
Estimate and invoice are generated from the job card, not typed separately.
Inventory item has quantity, buying price, selling price and reorder level.
Payment is recorded against an invoice, with method (cash, card, UPI).
Message belongs to a job, so chat history is part of the record.
Design lessons
Make the job card the single source of truth. Parts and labour entered once flow into invoices and reports.
Treat status as a state machine: checked in, estimate sent, approved, in progress, ready, delivered.
Support multi-currency and tax rules per market from day one (GST, VAT).
Keep an audit trail. Disputes always come back to “who changed what”.
If you would rather see a working version than build one, Autodots follows this model, and you can check the feature overview for how it fits together.
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