Every shop’s got at least one of each. The tool that paid for itself in a month and made life easier. And then the one that got a lot of hype but now sits on a shelf.

What’s actually worked for people? A scan tool, a cordless torque multiplier, some software, whatever. What did you buy that you’d absolutely buy again, and why?

And what turned out to be a total headache? Cheap build, broke after a few months, never fit how your techs work, nobody got trained on it. What happened?

And who ends up answering? Service writer, owner, whoever's closest to the phone? I'd also like to know what a call costs you when it lands in the middle of a busy day.

I ask because, shamelessly, we built a tool called Claudia that answers calls for you. It's of course ideal to answer yourself, but it seemed like a no-brainer to have essentially a really smart voicemail available after hours or when you're just not able to pick up the phone.

I'd love to hear what kind of calls everyone is dealing with so we can make this feature more useful!

p.s. you can try what we built free for 30 days if you sign up before the end of the month.

Has anyone made the switch from quickbooks Desktop to quickbooks Online ?

Was anything lost in the transition swithing form QB Desktop to QB Online ?

Is there anything you can't import to QB Desktop that you can to QB online?

Please share the good, the bad and ugly.

We are a 5 technician shop looking to make our bookkeeping prossess better. We currently do not do any importing from Fullbay to Quickbooks Desktop for the last 10 years. Please share your oppration size so we can get a gage if QB online is for the small bussness or will it work for larger opprations.

For those of you running mobile service trucks with a central shop or warehouse, how do you handle clocking in and out?

I’m especially curious how you manage travel time, employees starting at the shop versus heading directly to job sites, and clocking out at the end of the day.

I’d love to hear what systems or policies have worked well for your companies!

1. B2B parts website. We launched ours back in April. So far its been pretty difficult to get customers to use it even though it can actually save them time. Who else has a B2B website and how do you get your customers to use it?

2. Sales rep how did you hire for this position? Did you promote within? Did you find someone experienced or did you hire and train?

3. Cash flow. Putting parts on the shelf is expensive and it ties up a lot of cash. Do you self fund this with the business or do you have a line of credit you use to add parts to inventory?

4. Last what are the biggest improvements Fullbay needs make to manage the parts side of the business easier?

• The truck that just...kept...coming...back.

• Ghostly voices over the CB (this is admittedly more driver-related, but maybe you heard something).

• Unexpected stuff found in engines.

• Zombies spotted during a road call.

Or, if you've honestly never dealt with a very scary truck, got any truck-related scary movies? Suz says Joy Ride is pretty scary.

We found an article that argues some engine issues span an entire generation, so building your parts shelves and PM plans around the generation, not the year, can cut unplanned downtime and roadside repairs.

Here's the article.

How do you handle it in your shop? Have you ever caught a repeat failure across a whole engine generation, and did it change what you keep on the shelf?

I will share some basic ones I put in place mainly related to service orders. Fullbay makes it very easy to see margin totals on a service orders by clicking on the profitability calculator.

1. Labor margin goal it set at 75%. Do we always meet that no, but the team at least knows what our target is.

2. Parts margin goal is set at 35%

3. Total service order margin is 55%

Let me know what your KPI's are and what your targets are.