Book a vehicle in

A repair order is the container for one vehicle visit. You create it once, then everything for that visit lives on it: services, parts, inspections, the quote, and the invoice. Booking-in happens at speed, whether it is a walk-in, a phone call, or a pre-arrival booking, and it holds at Booked In until the vehicle arrives.

Where you can start a booking

A new booking starts wherever the work finds you:

• Diary, Active Jobs, Arrivals, and All Jobs each carry a + next to the heading; pressing it opens a new booking.
• The Booking Inbox rail on the Diary has a Create booking button on each enquiry, which opens the form with that customer already filled in.
• The Customers tab works customer-first: New customer creates the person, and you can switch on a booking in the same form when they also want a visit.

Every path opens the same New Booking form.

Complete the intake

1. Find the customer. Type a name, mobile, or email into any customer field and pick the match. New customer? Just type their details.
2. Find the vehicle. Type the rego to match an existing vehicle, tap one of the customer's previous vehicles, or use Lookup to fill make, model, and registration status from the plate.
3. Add the booked services. Each row carries the service type, labour hours, and any parts; a fixed-price service becomes the row total.
4. Set the booking date, due-in, and due-out. Due-in is when you expect the drop-off; due-out is the planning slot it should be ready by, such as Wait or 4pm. These are planning buckets, not appointment times.
5. Create the repair order.

Create, or Create and Arrive

For a booking that arrives later, Create Repair Order is the whole job. For a walk-in standing at the counter, Create & Arrive creates the booking and processes the arrival in one step.

When your workshop runs intake authorisations, that arrival goes through the guided review so the customer signs the starting agreement; with authorisations switched off, the vehicle is simply marked arrived. Owners control this under Settings, in Authorisations.

One live vehicle, one repair order

If a vehicle already has an open, onsite repair order, Openhood will not let you create a second one. You get a prompt to go to the existing repair order, where you can add the next quote or job card instead. Picked-up, no-show, and cancelled records do not block a new booking.