Finding a vehicle at the door

What this does

Find vehicle, reached from the Sales → Work Orders page, is the fastest way from a car in the lot to its record. Scan the plate with the camera, scan the VIN barcode, or type either. A match opens the vehicle and its customer; no match offers to start a new customer with the scanned details already filled in.

Steps

1. From Sales → Work Orders, open Find vehicle, on a phone or tablet at the door or on the counter machine.
2. Scan the plate, scan the VIN barcode on the door jamb, or type the plate or 17-character VIN.
3. Match found — the vehicle and customer open. Start the estimate from there.
4. No match — choose to create a new customer. The intake wizard opens with the VIN or plate (and the plate photo, if scanned) already on the vehicle step. Fill in the customer, confirm the vehicle, capture SMS consent, and finish; you land on the new customer with the vehicle attached.

What the plate lookup does and doesn't do

Plate lookup searches your own shop's records. It does not query a state registry, so a plate the shop has never seen returns no match even if the car is well known elsewhere. VIN entry and VIN decode work for any vehicle.

Common problems

"Couldn't read the plate — type it manually." Glare, angle, or a dirty plate. Type it.

"Couldn't reach the plate reader." The camera scan service didn't respond. Type the plate; nothing is lost.

The scan matched the wrong car. Two vehicles share a plate in your records, usually a plate that moved between cars. Fix the old vehicle's plate.