This guide walks through the full lifecycle of a job in Pistonlog — from quoting the work as an estimate, through to completing it and handing the customer their invoice.

1. Create the estimate

Start by creating a jobcard with an estimate status.

Open New Jobcard

From the sidebar, click Jobcards, then New Jobcard.

Set the status to Estimate

In the Status dropdown, select your estimate status (e.g. "Estimate" or "Quoted"). This tells Pistonlog it's a quote, not live work.

Give it a title

Type a descriptive title like "Full service and MOT". If you leave it blank, you can fill it in later.

Creating a new jobcard with an estimate status

2. Assign a customer and vehicle

Link the jobcard to the customer and their vehicle.

Select or create a customer

In the Customer field, start typing to search. Select an existing customer or click Add New Customer to create one — they're saved for next time.

Select or create a vehicle

In the Vehicle field, search by registration. If the vehicle isn't in the system, click Add New Vehicle and enter the details.

Once you select a customer, their linked vehicles appear automatically.

Linking a customer and vehicle to the jobcard

3. Add jobs and pricing

Now fill in the work you're quoting for. Each piece of work is a job on the jobcard — for example "Full Service" and "MOT Test" would be two separate jobs.

Add a job

Click Add a Job on the Jobs tab. A new job card appears.

Add labour lines

Under the job, add labour lines with a description, hours, and hourly rate. The rate pre-fills from your garage's default. The line total calculates automatically.

Add parts

Add any parts the job needs. Enter a description, quantity, and price. If you enter the cost price, the sell price auto-calculates using your garage's default markup.

Adding labour lines and parts to a job

Job templates

If you do the same type of work regularly, create a job template in Settings. You can then add a job from the template with labour and parts pre-filled.

Repeat for each piece of work. The jobcard totals update in real time as you add lines — you can see the subtotal, VAT, and grand total building up.

4. Send the estimate to the customer

At this point you have a fully priced estimate. You can:

Print it — click the Print button to generate a customer-facing document with your garage branding, the quoted work, and totals
Share it — print to PDF and email it, or discuss it with the customer over the phone

Once the customer approves, you're ready to promote it to a live jobcard.

5. Promote to a live jobcard

When the customer gives the go-ahead, move the jobcard out of the estimate status.

Change the status from Estimate to your first active status (e.g. "Booked In" or "In Progress"). You can do this two ways:

Click the status badge on the jobcard and select the new status from the dropdown
Drag the card on the kanban board from the Estimate column to the target column

That's it — the jobcard is now live and visible in your active workflow.

Changing the status from Estimate to Booked In

Stagnant estimates

If an estimate sits untouched for too long (14 days by default), Pistonlog automatically moves it to a "Stagnant Estimate" status. You can adjust this in Settings → Statuses.

6. Complete the jobcard

When the work is finished, move the jobcard to your completion status (e.g. "Complete", "Done", or "Finished").

Pistonlog detects completion statuses by name and shows a confirmation dialog where you can:

Record mileage — enter the odometer reading if it wasn't captured earlier
Update vehicle dates — if the jobcard includes an MOT, service, or timing belt job, you'll be prompted to set the next due date. MOT dates auto-fill from the DVLA
Record payment — mark the jobcard as paid if the customer has already settled up

Moving to a completion status and filling in the completion details

7. Print the invoice

The final step — print the customer their invoice.

Click Print

On the jobcard, click the Print button to open the print dialog.

Review the invoice

The preview shows the full customer invoice: your garage details, the customer and vehicle info, every job with labour and parts, and the totals with VAT.

Print or save as PDF

Click Print to send it to your printer, or use your browser's "Save as PDF" option to email it.

Printing the customer invoice from the jobcard

The invoice includes:

Your garage name, address, phone, VAT number, and logo
Customer name and vehicle details
Each job with labour and parts broken down
Subtotal, VAT, any payments already received, and the amount due
Your bank details for payment

Technician copy

You can also print a technician copy from the same dialog — this strips out pricing and shows just the vehicle and job details for the workshop floor.

The workflow at a glance

Create estimate → Add customer, vehicle, jobs, and pricing → Send quote to customer → Customer approves → Change status to live → Work is completed → Move to completion status → Record mileage, dates, payment → Print invoice