Vehicle intake app for workshops: check-in and hand-back on record

Half past seven in the morning, five customers at the counter, each of them wants to drop off the key and get to work. Intake then means a job card, a tick next to "scratches present" and maybe a photo on the workshop phone that nobody can find later. That works until a customer points at a dent at pick-up and says it wasn't there before.

A digital intake takes hardly longer than the job card, but it produces a record that holds up in that moment.

What a vehicle intake has to capture

The vehicle, unambiguously. The licence plate is enough. If it is typed in fresh on every visit and the car is created again each time, there are ten entries for the same car after a year. A good workshop app recognises the vehicle by its plate, however it is typed.

The condition, in photos. Four sides, plus the spots where disputes start: wheels, bumpers, windscreen. Existing damage is marked on the photo itself, not described in a text field. "Scratch rear left" can mean many things, a dot on the picture cannot.

Mileage and fuel or charge level. Two numbers that customers often ask about at pick-up, and that nobody can prove without a record.

What is in the car. Number of keys, service book, locking wheel nut adapter, valuables. A short checklist, so nobody hunts for the second key at the end.

The job. The order number from your workshop system and one sentence on what the customer wants. That ties the record to the job later.

The customer's signature. With it the customer confirms the condition in which they left the vehicle, existing damage included. Without a signature the photos are just a collection of pictures.

The hand-back is the second half of the same record

The real benefit shows at pick-up. The hand-back builds on the intake: the damage noted back then is already marked, new damage stands out immediately, and mileage and fuel level sit side by side. If intake and hand-back use the same photo positions, the PDF puts the pictures of the same spot next to each other. The car leaves as it came, and you can show it.

A tablet at the counter instead of paper

Intake is fastest on a tablet: enter the plate, walk round the car taking photos, tap the damage, the customer signs with a finger. The customer gets the record as a PDF by email, you have the same document in your history and find it again by order number. There is no second version and no slip of paper lost in a folder.

RentalHandover has a workshop mode for exactly this: intake and hand-back instead of rental handover and return. The vehicle is created by its plate at intake and recognised on the next visit, together with its customer. Order number and the customer's request appear in the PDF, and customer vehicles take no place in your plan. If you also rent out vehicles, you switch between rental and workshop in the same account.

What it looks like in practice: The handover app for the workshop.