Every fault, every fix. Indexed to the rego.

Auto-electrical work is the trade most punished by lost information. The fault you found six months ago, the wheel-speed sensor with the dodgy plug, the parasitic drain that only showed up overnight, gets scribbled on a job card or a Post-it on the scanner trolley, and by the time the car comes back it's gone. So you re-run the same parasitic-drain test, re-chase the same intermittent ABS light, and bill the customer for an hour you've effectively already done. Meanwhile the diag codes from your Autel or Snap-on reader live on the tool's screen until it's wiped, the photos sit in your phone's camera roll unattached to anything, and the invoice gets re-keyed into Workshop Software or MYOB at the end of the day. The customer doesn't understand what “P0420 catalyst efficiency below threshold” means, so the bill becomes an argument.

OneBookPlus rebuilds the shop around the vehicle's diagnostic history. Scan the VIN once and make, model, year, engine and transmission auto-fill; from then on every diag, dash-warning photo, scanner readout, inspection and invoice is indexed to that rego. Photograph the warning lights or the OBD-II readout straight into the digital inspection, no losing the code between visits. Each inspection item shows as a customer-friendly label (“battery weak, charge held only 9.8V”) with the photo of the gauge, not a raw code, so the bill explains itself. And when you find the deeper-than-booking fault, the harness chafe behind the dash feeding a parasitic drain, a one-tap SMS approval with photo proof rolls the variation into the invoice before there's any argument about it.

Your Daily Workflow

The day runs vehicle to vehicle. A no-start ute arrives; you scan the VIN, photograph the dash and scanner readout into the inspection, and the fault history (yours and any prior shop's) is right there. Returning fault? Skip the first hour of guesswork. Build the quote with photos, send the customer a tap-to-view link, and when extra work surfaces mid-diag, the SMS approval keeps the job moving. Parts come off stock as they're fitted, batteries, alternators, starters, relays, wiring, and when a SKU drops below minimum a purchase order fires straight to Repco, Bursons (GPC) or Bapcor. Every completed job converts to a GST-compliant invoice with your ABN, a Pay Now link, and an automatic Google review request timed for when the customer is happiest, and because the fault was explained in plain English, the reviews read warm.

Expenses & Accounting

Photograph a supplier receipt or drag in a PDF bill and the supplier, date, GST and total are read off it, so parts purchases from Repco and Bursons land as job expenses without retyping. Fuel, scan-tool subscriptions and tooling are coded the same way. Customer payments are recorded against the open invoice and reconciled there. Fleet accounts and insurance jobs (failed alternators, harness damage, battery replacement through IAG, Suncorp or AAMI) carry their own claim threads and SLA timers. Come BAS time, the GST summary is already prepared, GST collected on labour and parts, GST credits on purchases, net owing, exportable in one click (direct ATO lodgement is coming soon via the Tax Lodgement app).

Getting Started

Sign up free, no credit card, no lock-in. Choose “Auto Electrician” as your business type and OneBookPlus pre-configures auto-electrical job categories (no-start diagnosis, parasitic-drain test, alternator/starter replacement, harness repair, accessory install), an AU chart of accounts, and invoice templates with your ABN. Import your customers and vehicles via CSV from Workshop Software, MechanicDesk, Tradify or a spreadsheet. Most sparkies scan their first VIN within ten minutes and have a real diag logged against a vehicle by the end of the day.