KSI Logiciels E-invoicing compatible
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User guide

KSI Garage user guide

How to use the software, in the order you actually use it: from the appointment taken over the phone through to the invoice being paid. This guide can be read here without an account, and appears word for word inside the software, under ’Settings > User guide’.

Open the demonstration See the software page

What this guide covers

  1. Setting the workshop up: what to enter first
  2. Booking an appointment
  3. Booking the vehicle in
  4. Diagnosis
  5. The repair
  6. Documents and photographs on the repair order
  7. The customer’s signature and the audit trail
  8. Handing the vehicle back and closing the repair order
  9. Vehicle records and customer history
  10. Courtesy vehicles and test drives
  11. Invoicing, taking payment, and what makes your records tamper-proof

Setting the workshop up: what to enter first

You describe a workshop once, then it runs. The order matters: technicians first, because slots are assigned to them; the catalogue next, because it feeds quotations and repair orders. The rest — courtesy vehicles, technical documentation — is added when you have a use for it.

  • Enter your technicians: they are the people you assign to a job and whose availability you check.
  • Build your catalogue of parts and labour with your own prices: it serves quotations and repair orders alike.
  • Enter your courtesy vehicles if you lend cars out or offer test drives.
  • Store the links to your manufacturers’ technical documentation: the technician opens them straight from the workshop screen.
  • Enter your own company details — address, VAT, legal wording — this is what will appear on your documents.

Booking an appointment

An appointment is booked from the technician view, not from a blank form: you see who is free first, then place the slot. The record opened at that point becomes the repair order when the vehicle arrives.

  • Open the view by technician: each person’s workload is visible across the period.
  • Pick the slot on the technician’s line: the form opens with that person already filled in.
  • Enter the customer, the vehicle and the reason for the visit.
  • The schedule distinguishes work in the workshop, call-outs to the customer and returns to the supplier — choose the type that applies.

Booking the vehicle in

Check-in is the most important moment of the whole repair, because it is the only point at which the condition of the vehicle can still be established without being contradicted. Everything logged here — accessories handed over, photographs, the symptoms described by the customer — saves an argument at handover.

  • Create the repair order: customer, vehicle, registration or serial number, mileage, warranty.
  • Write down the symptoms as the customer describes them, in their own words: that is what will guide the diagnosis.
  • Tick off the accessories handed over with the vehicle (spare wheel, jack, aerial, parcel shelf and so on).
  • Take the photographs on a phone or tablet: they stay attached to the repair order.
  • Print the check-in slip, showing the name of the signatory, and have it signed.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis keeps apart two things that must never be mixed: what the customer will read, and what stays inside the workshop. The two areas are separate as you type, and only the first appears on the documents you hand over.

  • Record your findings in the customer-facing notes: they are written for the customer.
  • Keep workshop matters in the internal notes: doubts, the history of a part, anything that stays in-house.
  • Add the parts and labour lines you expect to need: they put a price on the work ahead.
  • If the work goes beyond what was agreed, issue an additional quotation before going any further.

The repair

As the work goes along, the repair order fills up: the operations carried out, the parts fitted and their quantities. What is recorded here is exactly what will be invoiced — nothing is keyed in a second time.

  • Describe the work carried out, in the order in which it was done.
  • Enter the parts replaced and the quantities: they come out of stock and go onto the invoice.
  • Update the vehicle’s technical details as you go — mileage recorded, anything that has changed.
  • A part that has to be ordered is tracked in the same software: the purchase order stays attached to the repair order.

Documents and photographs on the repair order

Everything to do with a repair order is filed with it: the check-in photographs, the check-in slip, the quotation, the invoice, and any attachments you add yourself. A repair order looked up six months later still carries its evidence.

  • Find the photographs taken at check-in in the documents tab.
  • Drag and drop the files you want to add: an inspection report, a subcontractor’s invoice, an email from the customer.
  • Preview the document before printing or sending it.
  • Every document produced stays available from the vehicle record.

The customer’s signature and the audit trail

The signature evidences both the check-in and the handover. It is stored with its date and its log, which can be consulted if the work is ever disputed. Alongside it, the history tab retraces the whole of the repair order, in the order in which things happened.

  • Have the check-in signed on arrival, and the handover signed on collection.
  • Consult the signature log if there is any doubt: it carries the dates.
  • The history tab shows everything — creation, quotation, order, invoice, work carried out.
  • That log is your evidence of what was agreed and when.

Handing the vehicle back and closing the repair order

Closing a repair order marks it as completed and takes you back to the customer record. A closed repair order is not sealed for good: it can be reopened if you need to come back to it, which happens more often than people expect.

  • Check that the linked documents are up to date before closing.
  • Have the handover signed and give the customer their documents.
  • Close the repair order: it moves to completed.
  • If the vehicle comes back for the same fault, reopen the repair order rather than creating a new one — the history then stays in one piece.

Vehicle records and customer history

Every vehicle has its own record, and the history of the work done stays attached to it. A registration number is not compulsory: a serial number is enough for a motorcycle, a quad bike, a bicycle or a machine. A vehicle can also hold others, so as to describe a combination — a lorry and its trailer, for instance.

  • Create the vehicle record: make, model, variant, first registration, mileage, owner, warranty.
  • See a vehicle’s full history from its record, however many visits there have been.
  • From a customer record, open every vehicle they own.
  • When a customer brings several vehicles in at once, create all the repair orders in one go from their list of vehicles.

Courtesy vehicles and test drives

Loans and test drives are two separate routes, and deliberately so: a customer trying a vehicle out does not sign the same document as one who is lent a car while their own is being repaired. A table tells you at any moment what is available and what is out.

  • Check the table: available to lend, available for test drives, currently out.
  • Create a loan: vehicle, customer, dates, condition on departure, printed form to be signed.
  • Create a test drive form when a customer is trying a vehicle with a view to buying: same principle, different document.
  • On its return, book the vehicle back in: it becomes available again.

Invoicing, taking payment, and what makes your records tamper-proof

Quotations, orders, invoices, payments, banking and accounts are all part of the software. Records are sealed and chained to one another — once saved, an invoice can no longer be altered, and any correction goes through an offsetting entry, as French law on the inalterability of accounting records requires.

  • Turn the repair order into an invoice: nothing to key in again.
  • Record the payment and track the balance outstanding; late payments are flagged.
  • A mistake is corrected with a credit note, never by editing the original invoice.
  • Reconcile your entries against your bank statement, then export your accounts.
  • French electronic invoicing is supported: receiving, issuing and reporting the data.

Frequently asked questions about using the software

Does everything have to be set up before the first repair order?

No. You need at least one technician and a few labour items in the catalogue. Courtesy vehicles, technical documentation and the rest are added when you have a use for them.

Does the software work for anything other than cars?

Yes. The way a job is tracked does not depend on the type of vehicle: motorcycles, scooters, quad bikes, bicycles, plant and equipment are handled in exactly the same way, with the same record and the same history. A registration number is not compulsory.

Can we work from a tablet in the workshop?

Yes. The screens adapt to the device being used. Check-in photographs are taken on a phone or tablet and go straight onto the repair order.

What do we do if the work goes beyond what the customer was quoted?

Issue an additional quotation from the repair order before going any further, and have it approved. The exchange stays recorded in the repair order’s history.

Where do we find this guide once we are a customer?

Inside the software, under ’Settings > User guide’. It is the same documentation, updated at the same time as the product.

The simplest thing is to try it

The demonstration is open to everyone, with no sign-up, using a fictitious workshop already full of data: you can follow this guide screen by screen, and there is nothing you can break.

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