Car Service Management ERP In Odoo
Auto Car Service is one of the emerging industry in the business world. The key factor pertaining to every service-based industries is to provide the best and quality service within the time frame. A Vehicle Service System or Auto Garage Management system functionality should rely on some basis of the functionalities so as to ensure service quality to their customers and also ensuring best reporting and workflow system. The ultimate aim of such a system relies on making a stronger relationship with customers, and deliver a high level of service and support, eventually improving the organizational sales and its goodwill.
Overview Of Car Care ERP
I would like to draw some outlines for such a system via enhancing the world’s best open source ERP, Odoo. As we know Odoo ERP is highly customizable as per our needs and requirements. Therefore it is seeked to be a best than ‘from scratch’ application or ‘ready-made’ software. The proposed system is built over the Odoo ERP, therefore one can use and customize Odoo’s basic apps/addons like CRM, Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Accounts, Mails, UI Dashboards, Reporting etc. Also, the user can get the full facility of an ERP.
Goals of Car Care ERP:
- User-Friendly UI system
- Automate Sales, Service & Costing Process
- Systemize entire business operations
- History of services and sales
- Live Dashboards of different operations
- Sales and Payment reports in PDF/XLS
- Automated Emails with Sales Reports
- Access levels for each user
- Simplify the business operations
Master Records & General Structure:
As we discussed, the system is not a basic service application, but a service-sales focused ERP which has some backbone master records as follows:
- Customers/Clients
- Vendors
- Products
- Vehicles
- Users
where the products may be man-power services with some consumable products or stockable physical goods. Mainly ‘Products’ are of three categories.
- A Stockable product is a product for which we manage stock. Eg: Steering Cover
- A Consumable product is a product for which the stock is not managed. Eg: Spray or gloves Used for Cleaning Vehicles while doing services.
- A Service is a non-material product you provide. Eg: Car Wash, Car Polishing.
Workflow of Auto Garage ERP:
The system has some sectors of operations. The combined workings of these sectors will give us an ideal system for an auto service ERP. These sectors are called “Apps/Module” in Odoo ERP’s perspective.
Let’s discuss the required apps/modules for the Car Service ERP.
Here I have listed the above customized Odoo modules with existing features.
The workflow of sales operations will be different based on whether it is a service sale or a stock product sale.
Sales Workflow:
Here there are two workflows based on the product nature.
A: Service Sales Workflow:
Customer will come along with their vehicles for a specific repair service request. We can provide a ‘quote’ to the customer with an estimate. Once the quote is approved, it will be converted as an ‘Order’ and the salesperson can take print out for the ‘JOB CARD’.
Let's see the one line description for each of them.
- Discuss: To share the data with users/Groups.
- Sales: To manage Customers, Products, Quotations, Service orders, Job Cards, Stock product sales, Sales configurations.
- Purchase: To manage RFQs, Vendors, Purchase Orders, Goods Receivals.
- Inventory: To manage Stock, Stock Adjustments, Stock reports, Stock movements.
- Accounting: To manage Customer Invoices, Vendor Bills, Payments and history, Accounts reports.
- Employees: To manage employees.
- Fleet: To manage vehicle make/model/attributes.
- Apps: To manage all modules.
- Settings: To manage system users and company master data.
- Related Services can be tracked vehicle wise. (See the super button ‘Services’)
- Related Invoices can be tracked vehicle wise. (See the super button ‘Invoices’)
- Vehicle Attributes in form view. (Fields: Owner, Colour, etc..)
- Stock availability is shown on every stockable product.
- Price and details & attributes of the product are there in form view of products.
Once you have created a quote, It will generate a sequence like ‘JCQ/Year/SEQ Number’ and you can either print/email it to your customer.
Customer can confirm/cancel the quote. Its sequence will change from ‘JCQ’ to ‘JC’ once we click “Confirm Order”. The system will display the orders with its stage(ie Draft / Quote Sent / Cancelled / Order).
If the customer approves the quote, JobCard can be printed from the same record by clicking “Print JC” button.
Once the service is done, the Invoice can be created with optional discounts (Fixed Amount Discount/Percentage) and validated against the payment.
B. Stock Sales Workflow:
Customer will approach with some product need for their vehicles or something related to our business, one can provide a quotation for them with an estimate. Once they approve the quote, it will be converted as an ‘Order’ and salesperson can process the invoicing (where the delivery process of the product will be automated by the system).
Buttons In Sale Order:
- Print Order: To print the quote/Order for customer
- Cancel: To cancel the order. If it is confirmed order, its delivery and invoice will cancel automatically.
- Print Invoice: To print its invoice PDF
The managerial reports (XLS/PDF)can be generated from the accounting part as follows.
Customized UI Dashboard Gives a spectacular view of on going business
The system also will give the total perspective on the sales and quotes with user-defined filters.
Accounts sector is clearly monitoring in a nice dashboard, Where accountant can see all the waiting invoices and invoices history.
All invoices of Stock sales, Service sales, and Vendor bills can be reviewed and payment/refund/cancel operation can be done in the accounts section.
Invoice form view will give you the entire information about related sales and customer reference. The system will produce a PDF Invoice print out for customers. Fixed/Percent discounts can be added into the invoice & payments can receive against the generated invoice(Refer the form view of the invoice below)
Accounting reports are mandatory for management purposes and legal existence. Following reports can be generated from the Accounts module.
1- General ledger
2- Profit & Loss
3- balance Sheet
4- Aged partner Balance
5- Sales/Purchase Report
6- Partner Ledger etc..
These are the detailed customized workflow of services and stock sales in the proposed industry ERP. However, the functionalities of purchase, inventory, human resource & accounts are the same as of Odoo ERP.
