Paintless Dent Repair Technologies for Building a Business

Managing and building a Paintless Dent Repair business is hard. Even if you are a very talented service technician yourself, how do you grow your business beyond your 24 hours in a day? It takes thinking about how to scale your business in advance of the need. There are a few things you can do to ensure your business can grow in the future.

1. Document the processes for estimating a job
2. Document the processes for scheduling work
3. Document the list and brand of tools that should be used with vendor contact information and costs
4. Document the processes for invoicing for work completed
5. Document how you will collect payment
6. Document hiring requirements
7. Document a marketing plan for attracting new business - list all marketing strategies and efforts so each can be reviewed
8. Learn from the large PDR franchises - how did they grow?
9. Automate and mobilize as much of business processes as you can.
10. Can work be dispatched to remote service technicians with a smartphone?
11. Can completed work be synchronized via a smart phone back to the office?
12. Can you complete your service orders on a smart phone and print on a mobile printer?
13. Can all dispatches and completed service orders be sychronized directly to your accounting software?
14. Can job estimates be completed on your smartphone?

These are just a few of the things you want to consider. Each help enable a business that can scale in size. I don't mean to suggest the above items are necessary to start a business on day one, but they will be quickly be needed if the business will grow profitably.

Let's spend a minute discussing the growth challenges. Soon after you begin hiring service technicians getting accurate and completed service orders back to the office in a timely manner will become a problem. Why? It just happens. Service technicians are not born administrators. Getting accurate and profitable job estimates out of your new estimator is also an issue.

Once paper work begins to stack-up in the office with incomplete fields, inaccurate information and missing job estimates you will begin to pull your hair out. Do you hire more managers? If you do - your profit disappears. What are your options? I would seriously encourage you to look for a mobile application designed specifically for Paintless Dent Repair businesses. One that will enable all the work to be completed accurately in the field and synchronized directly to your office accounting software.

Paper Forms & Paintless Dent Repair Businesses

When PDR (paintless dent repair) companies have a central office and remote service technicians in the field, the delivery of paper forms in a timely fashion can often become a big challenge.

As mentioned in an previous blog article, there are a number of common paper forms that often need to be filled out and submitted:

• Vehicle Inspection form
• Job estimate in a form acceptable to the customer
• Job estimate acceptance form and signature from the customer
• Work Order/Service Ticket assigned to a specific service technician
• Hiring a service technician and completing the hiring documentation
• Documenting the work (to the customer's standards)
• Submitting the completed work order to the customer for payment (in the proper format)
• Payroll and compensation paperwork for the service technician associated with a specific vehicle and work order

How do you keep all of this paperwork organized? It's not easy!!! This paperwork must be transported, submitted, signed, entered into a computer system, filed, etc. Multiply this effort by a dozen locations, or even hundreds of locations and it can be a daunting task.

This is one of the biggest justifications for automating and mobilizing these processes with rugged handheld computers that synchronize directly with the office.

If you would like to discuss automating and mobilizing your PDR business, or mobile automotive services business please email, or visit MobileDataforce's website.

Paper Processing and Growing Paintless Dent Repair Business

MobileDataforce has worked with many PDR (paintless dent repair) companies that have experienced challenges with processing paperwork. Why? Often the work is performed in remote and mobile locations by people without years of experience, far from the accounting systems, managers and administrative staff. Here is some of the paperwork involved:

• Creating a job estimate on a unique vehicle acceptable to the customer
• Getting the job estimate approved by the dealer/customer
• Assigning the work to a specific service technician
• Hiring a service technician and completing the documentation
• Documenting the work (to the customer's standards)
• Submitting the completed work to the customer for payment (in the proper format)
• Paying the service technician for the work associated with a specific vehicle

This process may happen hundreds or thousands of times per day across a wide geographic region. How does the central office collect, enter and review all of this paperwork to ensure accuracy? How do managers keep all of the correct business processes happening in the field? How do you ensure quality and professionalism when there is significant staff turn-over? How do you keep your customers happy?

Many of these issues can be avoided, or eliminated by using an automated system on a rugged handheld computer at the point-of-work. The handheld computer application can step each service technician systematically through the correct business processes. The handheld solution can inform the service technician how things need to be completed, provide additional audio and video examples, and alert when something has been done incorrectly. The information entered in the field, at the point-of-work, can be synchronized with headquarters and reviewed by management in near real time. This is how companies can ensure quality, consistency and the ability to scale up their business.

MobileDataforce has developed the FieldSync Automotive solution that addresses many of these issues.

Auto Lease Return Inspection Software

MobileDataforce regularly works with companies that need a mobile software application for inspecting vehicles that are returned after their lease contracts expire. These companies often need the following:

1. Identify the vehicle
2. Inspect the vehicle
3. Identify the location and describe any damage
4. Gain approval to repair the damage at the estimated levels
5. Schedule repairs
6. Complete repairs
7. Invoice the appropriate parties

Most often this work is completed in an environment that benefits from being able to complete these business processes on a rugged mobile handheld computer.

MobileDataforce has a variety of mobile software applications for the automotive industry designed to meet these needs.

PDR and Working with Auto Dealers

My team is developing a mobile software application for a large Toyota auto dealer. They want to track the status of all used automobiles in the following manner:

1. inventory each vehicle and apply a dealership barcode label to the window
2. inspect each vehicle
3. identify work that is needed to be performed
4. assign service technicians to complete the work
5. track each vehicle and its work status
6. Provide a management view of the work on a website
7. complete a quality assurance inspection of all work completed

One of the biggest challenges the dealership faced was the process of identifying the status of a large number of vehicles in a lot and keeping everything organized. My team (at MobileDataforce) developed mobile handheld software applications that allowed each of these processes to be completed using mobile handheld computers.

ROI for Mobilizing Paintless Dent Repair Businesses

This article, published in the May 2008 edition of Integrated Solutions magazine, discusses in detail the need and value of mobilizing paintless dent repair businesses.

Teph Seal identifies the following problems with using a paper based manual system for documenting field services:

This manual system posed several problems for Teph Seal. First, human error resulted in billing inaccuracies that cost the company thousands of dollars in revenue on a monthly basis. For example, an employee could easily record a VIN incorrectly on the log form. When this occurred, a dealer would deny ownership of the vehicle referenced and refuse to pay for the services provided. Similarly, employees would also accidentally record data for the same vehicle twice, causing the client to be double-billed.

Another problem resulted from the slow process of physically transporting data in paper form. “Between the dealership, the regional VPs’ desks, and the ultimate arrival of the service spreadsheets at the corporate office, there were multiple places where the data we needed to bill the customer could be lost, misplaced, or held up,” says John Tricoli, president of Teph Seal. “Corporate accounting employees used to make dozens of calls every week trying to track down paperwork we needed to bill our customers. This created delays in our billing cycle that negatively impacted our cash flow.”

A final weakness of the manual system was that it allowed individual Teph Seal employees to take liberties with company processes. For example, Teph Seal managers at individual dealerships would sometimes ignore the established corporate rates for services and negotiate their own pricing with the dealership. This practice often resulted in billing discrepancies and unmet customer expectations. Furthermore, since payroll was done by hand, dealership managers could easily fudge the number of hours an employee worked, enabling themselves and other employees to be overpaid.

MobileDataforce provided the mobile software solution for Teph Seal's large paintless dent repair business.

Hail and Paintless Dent Repair

My team at MobileDataforce has been very busy helping paintless dent repair companies mobilize their work order dispatch, inspection, estimate and invoicing processes for the "hail" season. Our mobile software solutions for the field service technicians are very useful when large numbers of vehicles must be identified, sorted and serviced in a short amount of time. The less paper work, the faster the process can be completed and the work invoiced.

Paintless Dent Repair and Service Estimates on PDAs

I attended the NADA (national auto dealers association) conference a couple of weeks ago and met with a number of large paintless dent repair franchises. They were very interested in our FieldSync Automotive software application for the PDR industry. This application runs on mobile handheld devices and allows the service technician to complete all of their inspections, service estimates and work orders on the handheld device and synchronize the data with the office accounting system or work order system.

While attending the NADA conference, I learned about some work flow processes that we are now adding to the FieldSync Automotive application. Often the service technician will inspect a number of vehicles at the sames time and create a list of estimates. Once the inspections and estimates are completed, the service technician will meet with the auto dealership manager and review the service time and costs estimates associated with each car and decide if the services are necessary and justified. We are adding a view that allows all of the estimates to be on one list and screen. Just tap the specific estimate and it opens. This allows you to quickly review all open estimates, edit them, approve them and move to the services phase.

MobileDataforce offers both customized and out-of-the-box mobile software applications for the PDR industry. These mobile applications synchronize with the software in your office called FieldSync Manager which integrates directly with QuickBooks and other accounting applications.

Paintless Dent Repair & Auto Interiors on Handheld Computers

My sales team just returned from the Mobile Tech Expo in Florida. We learned that our mobile software for paintless dent repair companies was very much in demand. There were many times when we would have a dozen companies surrounding our booth and asking questions about our mobile software solutions.

We also learned a few things that we need to add. We need to develop a version of our FieldSync Automotive that addresses the specific needs of mobile techs that focus on repairing the interiors of cars. My team is already working on that now. This image shows how you can click on a specific area of the interior and associate an inspection and service with it. Call us at 208-384-1200 or email us if you would like more information.

Mobile Tech Expo - Paintless Dent Repair Software

My team at MobileDataforce will be attending the Mobile Tech Expo2008 in beautiful Clearwater, Florida on January 17th-19th. We will have a booth and will be demonstrating our mobile and desktop software designed to manage paintless dent repair services businesses.

Our solution for paintless dent repair services companies is called FieldSync Automotive and more information is available here.

If you would like to speak to a representative please call 208-384-1200 or for email click here.

Paintless Dent Repair & Mobile Windshield Repair

There are a number of mobile automobile service businesses that can take advantage of mobile handheld computers and wireless sync technologies:

• Paintless Dent Repair


• Mobile Windshield Repair


• Auto Appraisals & Auto Inspections


• Mobile Bumper Repair


• Mobile Headlight Restoration


• Mobile Auto Detailing or Smart or Valet services in Europe


• Mobile Auto Interior Repair

All of these businesses could benefit from having a desktop application in the office that is used to enter new service requests and synchronize the work orders out to the service technicians' rugged handheld computer in the field. Once the work is completed, the information can be instantly and automatically wirelessly synchronized back to the office using a rugged PDA phone or a handheld computer with a data card where it is automatically imported into QuickBooks or other accounting systems.

Although the businesses above focus on different kinds of services, the underlying data and and business processes are very similar.

• Receive a request for service


• Schedule and wirelessly dispatch the service request to a specific location and/or service technician
• Inspect the vehicle
• Provide a cost estimate to the customer and document approval
• Document the work (labor time and parts)
• Get customer's signature to approve the work completed
• Synchronize the completed service order, payment methods and parts or materials used back to the office
• The data is automatically integrated with the accounting system (most in the USA use QuickBooks)
• The service order information is stored both in the accounting system, and in the desktop work order management software

MobileDataforce's FieldSync Automotive software application includes both the desktop work order management component, and the mobile handheld computer application.

VIN Decoding for Paintless Dent Repair Services

MobileDataforce has developed a technology that allows most any bar code scanner to capture the VIN (vehicle identification number) of an automobile. The significance of this technology is that you can easily capture the 17 digit number, uniquely identify the vehicle, automatically bring up the description of the automobile on your handheld PDA, inspect it and get approval from your customer to work on it.

One of the biggest complaints auto dealers have against PDR companies is duplicate billing. For some reason auto dealers do not like paying twice for work done. They want accurate billing that can be verified by using the VIN to uniquely identify vehicles, approvals and work completed for invoicing.

Growing and Scaling a Paintless Dent Repair Business with Mobile Technologies

One of the biggest challenges a small paintless dent repair business has is growing beyond the a single owner/manager. The owner/manager has a passion for building the PDR business and providing the very best services possible to please the customer and grow the business. The owner/manager paces the floor at night thinking through all the business processes, customer service issues, sales, marketing and accounting processes. Often times an employee does not have this same level of commitment.

As the PDR owner/manager begins to hire additional service technicians to expand the number of customers and locations that can be serviced, quality assurance, and effective business processes quickly become a problem. How do you ensure that you aren't immediately buried in paper, duplicate billing disputes, late payment issues, customer complaints, payroll confusion, etc. These are the problems that often stop small PDR businesses from expanding.


Deploying a field services management application in the office that synchronizes with a mobile handheld computer is a very effective tool for helping to ensure a quality and controlled growth pattern. One can answer calls, dispatch work orders and synchronize completed work orders for instant invoicing all from a PDA. New services can be dispatched, work completed and invoiced, again from the handheld computer. When the handheld computer is synchronized all of this information is immediately imported into the accounting system in the office.

The key to managed quality and growth is to automate the business processes. Take out the uncontrolled human factors. Mobile handheld applications can direct the user to complete the forms correctly. They can alert managers when incomplete processes or data is submitted. There are all tools for assuring quality in the field.

MobileDataforce's FieldSync Automotive is a good example of this kind of solution in action.

Mobile Work Orders for Paintless Dent Repair Services

Many owner's of small paintless dent repair services companies ask me how a paper based work order or service request document can be condensed to fit on a small handheld computer screen. Good question! Let me explain some of the ways the team at MobileDataforce would layout the screens in an easy to use manner.

Most automotive service or work order documents are divided into common sections:

• Date, Service Technician name, service ticket number


• VIN number of the vehicle


• Customer Name, address, phone number


• Auto inspection


• Work Performed and description


• Identify equipment that was serviced


• Cost of work performed


• Cost of parts used


• Status of Work (complete, incomplete, outstanding)


• Payment information


• Customer and Service Technician signatures

We use the ability to pre-load the mobile work order application with all the dispatched customer information from the office. Most of the data the service technician enters into the mobile application can be done using:

• Check boxes


• Pick lists


• Radio buttons


• Pull down menus with multiple choice


• Digital signature capture


• Pre-determined labor rates


• Pre-determined parts' pricing


• etc.

We are able to automatically compute the cost of labor and parts and you can even swipe a credit card from many of the handheld PDAs. What is the value of mobilizing a work order or service request service?

• Faster dispatch from the office


• VIN scanning and decoding for unique identification of automobiles


• Prevention of duplicate work orders


• Competitive advantage over paper based competitors


• Pre-populated work orders synchronized to the handheld PDA


• Less data to fill out on work orders


• Instant invoicing for work complete


• Faster collections


• Complete and accurate work orders synchronized back to the work order or accounting system in the office


• Less admin work in the office


• Less dispatch work in the office

The benefits list is very long. If you would like to discuss your business requirements with a mobile solutions expert, please contact MobileDataforce by email or by visiting http://www.mobiledataforce.com/.

Here is another article on mobilizing work orders/service requests using handheld computers.

Optimizing a Paintless Dent Repair Business

Once a service technician is proficient at paintless dent repair services, the next issue is how do they grow a profitable PDR business. There is a finite amount of time and energy in a day, and one service technician can only do so much. As the service technician gets busier with more dealerships and customers, they will need someone to help provide additional services, process invoices, schedule work and market/sell services into more dealerships, etc. This is when the question generally arises as to what technologies should be used to optimize the business.

Since PDR, by its nature, is a mobile business - mobile software and mobile PDA devices are good places to start. Customers/dealerships need to schedule work. MobileDataforce has developed an application called FieldSync Automotive with a desktop FieldSync Manager and a mobile software application called FieldSync Mobile. This is a solution designed for paintless dent repair specialist to optimize their business, provide instant invoicing, document all services and inspections, and develop quality processes that enable you to expand your business and integrate with your accounting software in the office.

The purpose - grow and scale the business. Develop business processes that allow you to efficiently grow the business, ensure quality services and project a professional image.

PDR companies that show up at a dealership with a water stained paper form, don't present the same quality and credibility as a professional PDR service technician that is carrying a rugged handheld computer that is syncing wirelessly with the office scheduling and accounting system.

Paintless Dent Repair & Mobile Automotive Services Software

In a blog article I wrote earlier, I discussed a mobile work order software application called FieldSync Automotive that is designed to run on ruggedized handheld computers and to be used by automotive service technicians. They can bar code scan the VIN of a car and then create a work order. Once the work order is approved they complete the work, invoice the customer and synchronize the data with the office. In the image above you see the desktop application used in the office. This application allows work orders to be created and dispatched to the automotive service technicians in the field. Reports can be generated and the work orders can be loaded into QuickBooks for invoicing.

If you operate an automotive inspection service, paintless dent repair, detailing or other automobile services business then you may find this very interesting. If you would like more information please contact MobileDataforce by email or visit our website.

Paintless Dent Removal - Mobile Software Solution

I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about the paintless dent repair (PDR) business in 2007. Through many conversations with paintless dent repair technicians and managers I have come to learn a few things about how to automate and improve the operations of a PDR franchise, sole proprietorship and/or corporate owned locations. The following articles summarize many of these lessons.

• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/10/review-of-paintless-dent-repair.html


• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/10/paintless-dent-removal-mobile-software.html


• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/10/paintless-dent-repair-mobile-automotive.html


• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/10/mobile-automotive-inspection-software.html


• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/04/paintless-dent-repair-handheld.html


• http://www.mobiledataforce.com/ceoblog/2007/11/mobiledataforce-announces-fieldsync.html