Adding a vehicle or asset

What this does

Every job is done on something: a vehicle for an auto shop, a device, an aircraft, a boat. The app calls these assets and labels them by your shop type (this manual says vehicle). An asset belongs to one customer and carries its own service history.

Before you start

Adding and editing assets needs assets.manage, held by Owner, General Manager, Service Manager, and Service Writer. Office Managers can view but not add. Have the VIN if you can; it saves typing and errors.

Steps

1. Open the customer and add a vehicle, or add one from the vehicle picker on an estimate or work order.
2. Asset Type — vehicle by default. Non-vehicle types swap the vehicle fields for a Name plus the fields that type defines.
3. VIN — enter the 17 characters and choose Decode VIN. Year, Make, Model, Trim, Engine, Transmission, and body details fill from the national vehicle database. Check them; decode data is occasionally thin for older or imported vehicles.
4. Without a VIN, enter Year, Make, Model, Trim yourself.
5. License Plate, Color, Mileage, Engine, Transmission, Notes.
6. Save. The vehicle appears on the customer and in the picker.

If the customer came through the front-door plate or VIN scan, the vehicle fields are already filled from the scan; see Finding a vehicle.

Common problems

"Enter a valid 17-character VIN." VINs never contain I, O, or Q. Re-read it from the door jamb or windshield.

"No data returned from VIN decode." The VIN is valid but the database has nothing for it. Fill the fields by hand.

The vehicle was added to the wrong customer. A vehicle can't be moved between customers from the edit form. If it has no history yet, delete it and re-add it under the right customer; if it does, contact support.