As technology advances and cars get more and more innovative it can get complicated. Customer expectations and operational demands will get more and more taxing. We want to help you get off on the right foot and future-proof your business. We have put together some easy tips for making sure your garage will be off to the races straight away! 

1. Choose digital over paper 

It’s important you start off how you mean to go on. Some garages have had struggles managing the transition from paperwork over to digital tools. That’s why it’s so important that you start off on good footing and integrate digital tools straight away.  

With the right tools, like VGM, you will be able to manage all aspects of your business quickly and efficiently. You’ll be able to do it from the garage or elsewhere thanks to cloud storage. This will save you time faffing about with piles of paper and mismatched records. 

Traditional paper processes can be expensive, cost valuable time, and cause more errors. This can lead to less profits, unhappy customers, and stressed-out technicians.  A streamlined digital system minimizes errors, improves customer communication, and lets your team focus on the work that really matters: getting cars back on the road. 

Bonus Tip: Choose software with customizable options, so as your garage grows, your system can adapt to meet new demands. 

2. Invest in long-lasting tools

Cutting corners sounds appealing at first. Sadly, it can really come back to bite you in the long run. Prioritise investing in high-quality tools and equipment that will last you and your team a long time. Being cheap and buying lower-quality tools will mean you will spend more and waste time. 

Remember, you and your team will be using these tools to fix hundreds of vehicles. You need to make sure they’re up to the job. 

Bonus Tip: Regularly review your equipment for wear and consider establishing a maintenance schedule to keep everything in top condition.

3. Build a customer-obsessed team 

A successful garage doesn’t just fix cars – it builds relationships. You should make sure your team are comfortable talking to customers and building a rapport with them. Your team’s ability to communicate effectively with customers, explain complex repairs in simple terms, and build trust. This can help turn a one-off customer into a customer for life. 

Most of the time your customers will come to you feeling stressed. Your team will need to be empathetic to their needs and give them stellar service. You don’t want bad customer service to add to their already stressful day! 

Bonus Tip: Implement regular training on customer service best practices to reinforce these values over time.

4. Create an inviting and professional space 

First impressions matter, especially when it comes to garages. Nothing is more off putting than a garage that is messy and unorganised. While it may be hard to stay clean, a bad space can make customers question your skills.  

Keeping your space tidy and organised will instill confidence in your customers. It will also mean that your team will be able to find things quickly and navigate around the space more easily. 

We’re here to help you on this journey

Setting up a garage takes more than tools and space. It requires a strategic approach that considers customer experience, efficiency, and adaptability. 

VGM can help you manage all aspects of your garage and can support you and your team from opening day and for many years to come. What’s more, it is commitment-free and costs start from only £50 per month. This means is an incredible solution to choose without breaking the bank.

Want to learn more? Book a free demo today! 

We will still be open throughout the festive period but will have fewer team members than usual. Tickets and queries during this time may take a little longer than usual to respond to. If you have any questions regarding these times, please feel free to get in touch. 

Support Team Opening Hours  

Our support team will be active throughout the festive period, offering you and your team help when needed. We will be prioritising critical and emergency issues during this time over less time-sensitive issues.  

• December 24th (Christmas Eve): Open until 1:00 PM 
• December 25th (Christmas Day): Closed 
• December 26th (Boxing Day): Closed 
• December 27th – 30th: Open until 1:00 PM
• December 31st (New Year’s Eve): Open until 1:00 PM
• January 1st (New Year’s Day): Closed 
• January 2nd onwards: Back to regular hours 

Sales Team Opening Hours 

With some time off, many find this the perfect time to start looking for new software ahead of the new year. Our sales team will be available at set times throughout the festive period. If you get in touch, we will aim to get back to you as soon as possible. 

• December 24th (Christmas Eve): Open until 1:00 PM 
• December 25th (Christmas Day): Closed  
• December 26th (Boxing Day): Closed
• December 27^th: Open until 1:00 PM
• 28th – 30th: Closed 
• December 31st (New Year’s Eve): Closed
• January 1st (New Year’s Day): Closed 
• January 2nd onwards: Back to regular hours 

From all of us, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to serving you this festive season and beyond in 2025! 

One important asset that can help you and your team is our automotive technical data. It helps technicians diagnose and repair vehicles quickly. Not only will this keep your garage running optimally, but it will also keep customers happy and returning. 

We created VGM, our garage management software, to simplify running a busy workshop. Keep reading to learn our top nine reasons why you and your team should consider using VGM’s technical data tools.  

1. Enhanced Accuracy and Efficiency  

Garages need to provide efficient service while ensuring the utmost accuracy. This is especially important when working on a wide range of vehicles from an endless list of manufacturers. 

Technical data for cars can give you instant access to precise vehicle specifications, wiring diagrams, and maintenance schedules. This data comes straight from the manufacturer. This means you and your customers can trust that you provide consistent and accurate services. 

This data helps eliminate guesswork and will allow you to service vehicles faster and more accurately.  

2. Commitment-Free Flexibility  

Many garages are wary of long-term service contracts, that’s why all our offerings are on one-month-rolling contracts. With our commitment-free vehicle technical data, your garage remains flexible. 

If your business needs change, you can cancel the package simply and re-add it when the need arises. This flexibility enables you to better manage costs while improving efficiency.  

3. Make Repairs Quicker  

Diagnosing vehicle issues can often be time-consuming. Having detailed automotive technical data at your fingertips simplifies the process. This data helps mechanics find problems quickly. 

It includes fault codes and repair procedures, reducing diagnostic time and boosting productivity. In turn, this enhances your garage’s reputation for reliability.  

4. Accurately Quote Work 

Remove the guesswork in pricing repair jobs. Use a complete list of repair times. This list includes mechanical, electrical, and body repairs.  

With automotive technical data, you can seamlessly add these repair times directly to quotes and jobsheets within VGM. This streamlines your admin processes for faster and more accurate pricing. 

5. Quickly Access Wiring Diagrams  

For electrical issues, having reliable and easily accessible diagrams is crucial. Solve electrical issues faster with precise wiring diagrams that offer a clear view of the vehicle’s electrical system. These diagrams show the layout of wires, parts, and connections.  

6. Step-by-Step Repair Guides 

Access detailed, vehicle-specific guides that walk your mechanics through the repair process. These step-by-step instructions make it easy to replace parts and do complex repairs. They help create smoother workflows, save time, and improve service quality. 

7. Manufacturer Service Schedules 

Maintain your customers’ vehicles to the highest standards by accessing manufacturer-specific service and maintenance schedules. This ensures your garage follows best practices for each vehicle, helping to preserve vehicle longevity and customer satisfaction. 

8. Better Customer Experience  

Expert knowledge can help you provide consistent and reliable service to your customers. Accessing automotive technical data ensures your garage offers transparent services, leading to improved customer confidence and retention. Your mechanics can confidently explain vehicle issues and will be able to offer realistic repair times and costs.  

9. Staying Competitive in the Industry  

As the automotive industry continues to evolve, keeping up with the latest technology is essential. Garages that don’t have access to car technical data risk falling behind competitors. That’s why we have created VGM – to allow you to stay ahead by delivering faster and more efficient service.  

We Come Customer-Recommended 

Customers across the UK use our technical data. Our technical data is essential for many companies, from small family-owned garages to large businesses with many locations.

“It’s great having all the information we need in one place. Everything is easily accessed, right-click a vehicle hit technical data and it’s right there. Every vehicle I’ve needed to find has been there. £30 is really reasonably priced. I’m really happy with the service.”

DCB Autos

Improve Your Garage’s Efficiency 

We created Virtual Garage Manager to give garages to tools they need to create an efficient and profitable garage. Alongside our technical data, we also offer tonnes of other tools including workshop diaries and a technician app. 

We can help you make your garage more efficient and successful. If you want to learn more about our technical data or other services and tools, our team is ready to help. Get in touch today for a free demo of VGM and our technical data.

What’s new?

Linking a part directly from a jobsheet or invoice: When adding a part to a jobsheet or invoice, you’ll find a ‘Purchase Details’ section at the footer, where you can search for and link a purchase order or invoice. Search results will display key information, including ‘Available Qty,’ showing how many parts are unallocated on the purchase document. If needed, pressing the tab key while in the search box allows you to create a new purchase document. If the part doesn’t exist or has no available quantity, a new line will be created.

Viewing linked purchase information: A new ‘Purchases’ tab is now available in both the jobsheet and sales invoice screens. When a part line is linked to purchases, they will appear in this tab, providing you with detailed information about the part, including profit. You can access this information by clicking the arrow to the left of each part in the ‘Purchases’ tab.

Linking GSF Car Parts Purchases: When you order a part through the GSF integration, the linked purchase document now appears under the Purchases tab on the jobsheet. This shows the ordered parts along with sales and purchase details. Expand the part entry to view the linked purchase documents.

Documentation

We’ve put together some new documentation to go through the new functionality:

• https://intercom.help/motasoft-vgm-classic/en/articles/9882468-linking-parts-to-jobsheets-sales-invoice

Join Our Beta Testing Program 

You can become a beta tester and use our newest features before anyone else. Your opinions and feedback will help shape the platform to be better for you and other garages. If you’re interested, drop us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started. 

We have also added more customisation to the scheduler, including context menus and more ability to control which headings and pieces of information are visible. 

What’s new with our scheduler? 

Additional Colour Customisation: 

• Personalize the scheduler with custom colours for easier identification of tasks, bookings, and appointments. 
• Highlight key jobs or statuses with distinct colours for quick visual reference. 
• Improve team collaboration with color-coded assignments and statuses. 
• Recreate the colour schemes and layouts of our existing planner and technician planner in VGM classic.

Live Updates: 

• Real-time updates ensure that changes in the schedule are instantly reflected for all users. 
• Immediate visibility of task reassignment, booking adjustments, and job completions. 
• Reduces communication gaps by providing up-to-date information across teams. 

Jobsheet Search and Features: 

• Lock the jobsheet search to only show results in the visible date range of the scheduler.
• Enhanced search functionality allows for precise filtering by status, technician, or custom criteria. 
• Group jobsheets by key data like registration or technician for clearer organization. 

Enhanced Context Menus: 

• Right-click options provide quick access to relevant actions for tasks, bookings, and jobsheets. 
• Streamlined task management by offering contextual functionality based on the selected item. 
• Reduces navigation time by keeping essential tools within easy reach. 

More Options to Control What is Visible in the Scheduler: 

• Customise the visible data to focus on tasks, jobsheets, or specific time frames. 
• Filter views to show only relevant information, such as unassigned tasks or completed jobs. 
• Tailor the scheduler layout for a clearer and more focused overview of current operations. 

Documentation

We’ve created a number of documents, including a helpful video to go through some of the core functionality available in the scheduler.

• Using the scheduler
• Creating and managing a scheduler

Become a Beta Tester 

Our beta testers play a crucial role in shaping the future of VGM. By providing valuable feedback, they help refine and improve upcoming features, while also gaining early access to new developments. If you’re interested in joining our beta testing team, simply message us in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk. Together, we can enhance your business’s efficiency and productivity.

With our latest update, creating receipts in VGM is simpler and quicker. We have massively simplified how you and your team can create receipts, allocate payments, and process payments via terminals.  

Sales Receipt Improvements 

The sales receipt form has been completely redesigned from the ground up to quickly be able to take payments and allocate them correctly to sales invoices, all with as few clicks as possible. Enabling the user to quickly create new sales receipts and allocate the amount of the outstanding invoices. The user will have full visibility of a customer’s available balances from existing sales receipts, making it much easier to allocate existing amounts to new sales invoices. 

Dojo Integration 

On top of these changes, we have also added our Dojo integration to our newer version of VGM. With this, you can receive an invoice payment, send it to a Dojo terminal, and allocate the payment to a receipt, creating accurate account reconciliation in under 5 clicks. 

Join us as a Beta Tester 

If you want to see and use our new features before anyone else, you can become a beta tester. You will be able to use the latest features and offer valuable feedback to shape the platform. If you’re interested, drop us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started. 

Booking appointments is arguably one of the most important features for garages. A clunky booking process can set a customer’s experience off on a bad foot,  while a positive experience can make every other step smoother.  

We have updated this process in our VGM successor with serval new features and improvements to help you and your team make booking appointments and managing existing bookings simpler, quicker, and more efficient.  

What’s new with bookings in VGM? 

We have listened to our users’ feedback and refactored our booking form to make it significantly quicker and easier to find available bays and technicians.

The latest update will make managing bookings easier with a dedicated tab for reminders and extras. A ‘New Booking’ button has also been added to the booking grid, reducing the number of clicks it takes to create a booking. You can also now delete all of the reminders at once, speeding up the process substantially. 

How it works

We’ve put together some documentation in our knowledgebase to show you how this works:

• Creating or inserting a booking
• Booking reminders tab
• Booking extras tab

Join our beta testers

Our beta testers are incredibly important to us. They offer feedback, shape VGM’s updates, and get advanced access to developing features. If you would like to join our beta testers, drop us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started. Let’s work together to make your business more efficient and productive. 

You and your team can manage jobs more efficiently with a clear, organized view of everything in one place. It’s now much easier to spot the details you need at a glance and keep everything on track. 

Giving you the tools you’ve been asking for 

Build your own reports 

Our customers have been banging down our door to build their own dashboards – so we’re thrilled that we can give you that ability with this update. Now your reports can include all the information you specifically need, without any of the bloat. 

Exporting 

You will now be able to export reports to CSV and other formats. This gives you endless flexibility in how you use your data and what you can export it into. 

Create your own charts 

Visualising your data is an important part of understanding the performance of your business. That’s why we have made it easier than ever in this latest update. Now you can easily create custom charts in just a few clicks, showing the information that is important to you and your team.

Documentation

To get to grips with all of the functionality available, you can check out the documentation here.

Join Our Beta Testers 

If you’re wanting to see our new features before anyone else you can become a beta tester. Your feedback is really important to us as we work to make our tools even better for you. Just send us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started. Let’s work together to make your business more efficient and productive. 

One of the standout features of this update is the new technical data overview, designed to streamline access and provide a clearer, more organized view of essential data. Now, you can effortlessly search for and access technical information directly from the main menu or within a specific vehicle, putting the details you need right at your fingertips. 

What’s new with Technical Data? 

We’re delighted to release a significant update to our VGM successor which includes access to Technical Data. Check out the video below for a tour of the new interface.

Improved UI: Our new UI is sleeker, easier to use, and more user-friendly. This covers lots of different information screens including: Adjustments, Maintenance, Lubricants, Drawings, EOBD Locations, Fuse Locations, Engine Locations, Stories, Wiring Diagrams, Cases and Recalls. 

Improved search: Access and search for technical data from the main menu or from within a vehicle. This has been added to VGM Classic and will be added to our VGM successor soon. 

Technical Data Roadmap

This release introduces the new UI for our Technical Data feature. In the next update, we’ll be adding searchable repair times, service schedules, and the ability to include repair times in jobsheets, quotes, and invoices. Stay tuned for more enhancements!

Learn more about our Technical Data tools

If you do not have Technical Data within your VGM package, there’s never been a better time to add it! From a simple registration lookup, you can access a vast array of vehicle-specific technical information directly through VGM. You’ll be able to take the guesswork out of pricing jobs, providing an incredibly efficient service for your customers. If you want to learn more, please message us directly in VGM or contact us.

Join our beta testers

If you’re already using our Technical Data and want to use this update before anyone else, you can join our beta testers. Drop us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started.  

Additionally, we’ve made it easier to transition from quotes to jobs, making you able to turn a quote into a job or booking in just a few clicks. These enhancements will make your workflow smoother, more efficient, and easier to use. 

Exploring the new Sales Quotations features 

Customisable Grid

By choosing which columns are shown, you can quickly assess key details, make informed decisions, and streamline your workflow, all within a single screen. Moreover, customised grids are saved against the user, so they can be quickly accessed across any device. 

Customizable Sales Quotation Details

Tailor your sales quotations to meet your specific business needs. You can now modify the details of your sales quotes, ensuring they align perfectly with your operational requirements.  

By selecting from a library of cards, you can customise the detail view of your sales quotations so you have easy access to the information that matters most. This feature provides greater flexibility, allowing you to present information in the way that best suits your customers. 

Create a Booking or Jobsheet from a Quote

Transition seamlessly from sales quotes to actionable tasks with the ability to create a booking or jobsheet directly from a quote within VGM. This new feature eliminates the need for manual data entry, reducing errors and saving time. It simplifies the process of turning a potential sale into a scheduled job, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. 

Join Us on the Journey Forward 

Excited to try out these new features or want to help improve our platform as a beta tester? We want to hear from you! Your feedback is really important to us as we work to make our tools even better for you.

Just send us a message in VGM or email us at support@motasoft.co.uk to get started. Let’s work together to make your business more efficient and productive.