Effective booking management is Auxo Workshop's forte; helping your workshop run smoothly, keep the bays full, and keep customers happy.
Whether you’re a seasoned mechanic or a workshop manager, this article will walk you through the essential steps for adding and editing bookings efficiently.
🗒️Note - Some features covered in this article are limited to users with the Workshop Administrator or Workshop Owner role.
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No time to read this whole thing? We've put together the key info in the video below!
Creating a New Booking
All jobs and invoices in Auxo Workshop start as a booking.
To create a booking:
Click New Booking button on the top right of the screen:
Then you'll be asked to select the customer & vehicle.
💡Tip: If you know the vehicle registration, type this into the search field provided as this is the most efficient way to get the job started; it will select the current vehicle owner and the vehicle in one action!
Start typing the customers name or the vehicle registration into the search box and Auxo will start displaying matching customers and vehicles as you type:
If this is a new customer click the New Customer button at the bottom and fields will be displayed to add a New Customer
Once the customer is selected any vehicles belonging to the customer will be displayed, you can click the one you're after or click New Vehicle, to display the required fields to create a new vehicle for the selected customer.
🗒️ Note: If your user role is Basic User, you will only be able to select from existing customers, other user roles will be able to add new customers during this step
Once the customer and vehicle are selected, click Next to open the Job Maintenance Screen , covered further below, where you can add and edit details of the job.
💡 Tip: When you have a customer or vehicle open in the Edit Customer or Edit Vehicle screen, click the dropdown on the New Booking button. You’ll see an option like “New booking for {name / rego}”—selecting this will automatically prefill the booking with the selected customer or vehicle:
✅ Best Practice: It is best to always link a vehicle to a job or invoice, even for items like lawnmowers, so you can track service history, set reminders, and use 'smart templates'.
If the item doesn't have a rego, use a serial number or make up your own unique ID for the rego field. For example "LM" (for lawnmower) + the customer's initials + the last 4 digits of their mobile number (e.g., "LMJR2522").
If there is genuinely no benefit in tracking the job against an vehicle (e.g. a cash sale of a basic part over the counter) you can create a "no vehicle" invoice by either:
Selecting (or creating) a customer with no vehicle when creating a new job
Ticking the "No vehicle for this booking" tickbox after selecting the customer when creating a new booking
If a customer has one vehicle, this vehicle it is selected by default, as it is assumed this is the vehicle you will be working on.
If a customer has more than one vehicle, the "No vehicle for this booking" option is ticked by default, but you can click any of their vehicles displayed to select one.
Editing Existing Bookings
You can open existing jobs from multiple places within Auxo, such as the Job List, the Diary and the Workboard, by clicking on the job number, to open the Job Maintenance Screen
The Job Maintenance Screen
In the very top left of the Job Maintenance screen you can see the Job Number (e.g. Job 3037).
Job Status shown immediately to the right of the job number, provides a dropdown menu where you can change the Job Status to any of the following:
Booked - this is the default status of a new booking
Arrived - To indicate the vehicle has arrived, this status is also reflected as a column on the Workboard
In Progress - To indicate work is currently under way, some tasks such as clocking in with the Auxo Workshop Mobile app can apply this status automatically.
Completed - To indicate the work is complete, this status can also be applied by the Auxo Workshop Mobile app.
Job Tags to the right of Job Status, will show any Job Tags currently applied to the job, or click Add Tag to add a tag to the job.
Expandable Job Details
Below the Job Number etc is an expandable top section that includes customer and vehicle information, booking date and time details, vehicle reminders, and internal job notes which may be minimised by default. Click the View More text at the bottom of this section to expand the full Expanded view.
Collapsed View:
Expanded View:
All areas of the Job Maintenance Screen are explained below...
Customer Section
In the top left is the Customer Section (or "Customer Card"):
In this section you will see the customer name, underneath this the customer's Terms of Payment, and further below are the contact number and email address for the customer.
Clicking the ellipsis icon in the top left of the Customer Card you can access the following options:
Edit Customer Details: This will open a pop-up window to edit customer contact details.
Change Customer: This will open a pop-up window to select a different customer for this job.
Send Email: This will open the Send Email screen.
Send SMS: This will open the Send SMS screen.
⬅️Go to Customer Page: This will open the full Edit Customer screen for this customer in a new browser tab.
Vehicle Section
In the vehicle section you can click the three dots to access any of the following features:
Edit Vehicle Details - Opens a pop-up window to view/edit full details of the current vehicle.
Change Vehicle - to select a different (existing) vehicle for the current job.
Go to Vehicle Page - Opens the full "Vehicle Details" page for the current vehicle in a new browser tab.
View Service History - Opens a pop-up window displaying recent service history, for the vehicle on this job, each listed job can be expanded to show more detail.
Outstanding Estimates - Opens a pop-up window displaying any estimates, for the vehicle on this job, that have not been converted to jobs. You can click an estimate to preview the details, and optionally click Add to Job to add this estimate into the current job:
Scheduling the Job
You can schedule in the booking, and modify the day and estimated duration of the job.
💡Tip: If you need to spread a booking across multiple days, you can do this using the Scheduler, read more in our Manage Multi-Day Jobs with the Scheduler article.
Internal Job Notes
These are notes for internal use only, and will not print on the customers invoice, these are useful to be printed on job cards.
The character count for the Internal Job Notes is shown in the bottom right corner. This field has a limit of 2,000 characters. Once you reach the limit, you won’t be able to enter any more text.
Readings
To record the odometer and other associated readings from the vehicle.
Vehicle Reminders
Here you can add or edit reminders for the current vehicle (e.g. service reminders):
More Actions
At the bottom of the Top Section (and above the Services section) there is a More Actions button, click this to access the following additional features:
Create Estimate - this will start a new estimate based on the current customer and vehicle
Print Job Card - will print the job card for this job
Cancel Booking - to cancel the booking - read more on cancelling bookings here.
Services
In the Services section you can search from a list of predefined Service Templates or previously used service templates to add them to the job:
💡Tip: Auxo Workshop has a feature we call "Smart Templates", that will recommend service templates in the services list that have been used for similar vehicles in the past. Make sure to add meaningful names to any services you add manually to get better Smart Template recommendations in the future!
To make use of Smart Templates - just click the "Apply Filters" option at the top of the search list when searching for job templates to add to the job.
At present you cannot create your own Service Templates, however auto-generated Smart Templates should make it unnecessary to create your own as the system will learn and suggest Smart Templates based on previous services you've added to jobs.
Templates remembered by the system are based on their service name when a job is invoiced, so if you have Service Templates you want to reuse, you can add an asterisk * to the front of the template name to make them easy to find, and whenever you add/edit these templates on a job, remove the asterisk from the service name on the job, so your original Service Templates (with the asterisk) remain as they were.
Once a service has been added to the Job you can edit the details of the lines added, such as the type (labour, outwork or parts, part number, description, qty and price. Depending on your User Role you may have restricted access to edit certain fields.
If there are no suitable "Services" to select from the list you can choose "Add Service Manually" to then manually add the parts and labour you require from scratch.
Type: In the Type field you can choose between Labour, Part or Outwork.
Part No/Code: When adding a line to the service that is the type Labour or Part, you can start typing into the Part No/Code field to search the labour rate or parts list respectively, to choose the specific labour rate or part you wish to add.
Description: You can edit the text in the Description field, but bear in mind that for labour the description that displays on the customers invoice is based on the Default Labour Description in System Configuration.
Qty/Hours: The Quantity/Hrs field is where you enter the Qty you are charging are entered. This should be a decimal, for example 1hr 45mins would be 1.75.
Cost & Actual Hours: You need enable the Show Cost & Margin toggle at the bottom of the Job Maintenance screen to see and edit the cost field for Labour & Parts added to the job.
📝Note: Costs entered for Labour are in the HH:MM format (and the monetary cost is then calculated based on the technicians labour cost in Staff Setup). You can click on the cost value and use the dropdown options provided to select the hours and minutes (in 15 min increments):
If you are using time clocking or timesheets the actual hours will display in a grey box within the Cost & Actual Hours field.
Delete or Remove a Service from a Job
Click the ellipsis button [...] at the top right of the service you wish to remove
Click the Remove Service option
📝Note: You cannot access the Remove Service option if the service contains labour that has come from time clocking (in the mobile app) or time sheets or if there is a timesheet allocated to this job but not a specific service on this job. You will need to edit the time sheet and associate it with a different job or service or delete the time sheet.
Removing Line Items from a Service on a Job
Select individual lines on the job using the checkbox to the left of the Type field or click the checkbox in the top header to select all lines.
When you have lines selected, click the Remove button at the top of the service/section to remove the selected part(s).
If the line item is for labour recorded via time clocking or a timesheet, you’ll need to either edit the timesheet to link it to another job or service, or delete the timesheet entirely.
📝Note: You cannot remove parts from an invoiced job that has been fully or partially paid.
Adjust the Order of Line Items on a Job
You can rearrange the order of postings / line items on a job as follows:
Click and hold your mouse on the six dot icon in the far left column of the job line item you wish to move.
Drag the line item up or down to move it to your desired position.
Invoice Note
Immediately below the detail lines for each service is an Invoice Note field. Here you can type notes and comments that will be printed on the customer's invoice:
⚠️Important Note - If you are using the Xero integration, it is recommended to avoid adding line items to the job with a zero dollar price, as Xero does not allow $0.00 price line items through the integration.
Payment & Invoicing Options
Depending on your Role you may have access to the settings at the bottom of the screen to process the invoice and payment related to the job.
Applying Freight Charges
To apply a freight charge to the invoice:
Click the dropdown arrow beside the Amount Due
Click Add Freight (shown in blue text)
Enter the freight charge you wish to add to your customers invoice:
Lastly, click the Apply Freight button
Adding a Global Discount to the Entire Invoice
Click the dropdown arrow beside the Amount Due
Click Add Discount (shown in blue text)
You can click the down arrow beside the % icon to change between percentage or dollar value (for the discount you wish to apply)
Enter the discount you wish to apply and click Apply Discount
Read more on discounting options our Applying a Discount to a Job/Invoice article here.
Preview or Generate an Invoice
Hover the cursor over, or click the Invoice button and click the Preview/Generate button:
This will open a full screen Invoice Preview.
On the Invoice preview you can click Generate to generate the invoice or click Cancel to go back to the job maintenance screen.
By default the invoice will be generated with today's date as the Invoice Date.
Once generated you can hover your mouse over the Invoice button and use the buttons provided to either Print or Email the invoice for the customer.
🧾 Editing the Invoice Date
At the bottom of the Invoice Preview, you can change the invoice date by following these steps:
Beside the text "Generate the invoice for another date?", click the "Click Here" link:
Enter a new date: A screen will appear where you can input your desired invoice date.
Click Generate to create the invoice with the new date or click Cancel to return to the previous screen without making changes.
📝Note: The invoice date cannot be edited after the invoice has been generated.
Show Cost & Margin (Margin Warnings)
The Show Cost & Margin setting is not available to users with the Basic User role. When this is enabled the Cost & Margin values and warnings will display for the job, additionally it will show the Cost column in the part search, and provide a Cost field when adding labour and parts to jobs.
Having this setting enabled will display a margin warning on the bottom of the job maintenance screen and provide a recommended total charge to achieve your margin targets (note - the recommended total charge excludes GST!).
💡Tip - The Cost and Margin feature is great for ensuring you maintain healthy profits. For the margins to work for labour, ensure you're allocating a technician to each job and that you've set up their cost price in Staff Setup.