Pistonlog ships with sensible defaults — you can create a jobcard the second you sign in. But a 15-minute pass through these settings up front makes everything downstream smoother. Set these once and the rest of the system aligns to how your garage actually runs.
The setup checklist
Garage info
Garage info — name, logo, address, phone, VAT number. These appear on every customer invoice, estimate, and email. Set them once, never set them again.
Pricing defaults
Pricing — your default hourly labour rate, parts markup, and VAT rate. Sets the autofill on every new jobcard.
Working hours
Working hours — when your workshop is open. Drives the calendar's bookable slots.
Workflow statuses
Workflow statuses — the columns on your kanban board. Eight are created for you: Booked In, Vehicle On Site, In Progress, Awaiting Authorisation, Awaiting Parts, Quality Control, Ready for Collection and Completed. Edit, rename or rearrange them to match how your garage thinks about stages of work.
Invite your team
Inviting your team — add the people who'll work here.
Switch on a reminder template (Pro/Group)
Reminders — a starter set of templates is already there (appointment confirmations, MOT, service and timing belt), but they are all created switched off. Your job is to edit the wording you want and turn one on, starting with MOT. Automatic reminders are a Pro feature; reminders are scheduled at jobcard completion and sent by a daily cron.
What you can skip for now
- Custom roles — the seeded defaults (Manager / Reception / Technician / Accountant, plus the Owner) cover almost everyone
- Vehicle spec fields — useful but not blocking
- Inspections setup — if you're on the Pro or Group plan, you'll come back to this once you've used the basics for a week or two