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.

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.

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 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