This guide walks you through setting up your account and getting familiar with Pistonlog. You'll be up and running in about five minutes.
Creating your account
Sign up
Head to the sign-up page and enter your name, email address, a password, and your company name (plus an optional name for your first workshop).
Verify your email
Check your inbox for a verification email and click the link. You'll be taken straight into the app.
Complete the onboarding wizard
The wizard walks you through your company and workshop details, pricing defaults, optionally inviting team members, workflow statuses, opening hours, and choosing a plan.
Home
When you log in, you land on Home. It's the assistant page: a box asking "What do you want to work on next?" where you type a question in plain English, with a few suggested prompts underneath to get you going ("what's booked in tomorrow?", "show me unpaid invoices"). Ask it something and it opens a conversation.
Early on, Home also carries a Next steps checklist of the setup jobs you haven't done yet, each linking straight to the page that finishes it. Once you're set up those disappear and the page is just the assistant and a row of figures for the day.
The workflow board
Open Workflow from the sidebar for your workshop at a glance:
- Kanban board — all jobcards organised by status, drag between columns to update
- Calendar — upcoming appointments across the garage, on its own page in the sidebar
The sidebar itself is in three parts: the top holds Home, My Work, Messages and the Diagnostic Library; the Workshop group holds Workflow, Calendar, Estimates, Invoices and Reviews; the Records group holds Jobcards, Customers, Businesses, Vehicles and Parts. Workshop Settings sits at the bottom. You only see the entries your role has permission for, so a shorter sidebar than the one described here is normal.
Creating your first jobcard
A jobcard is a work order — every repair, service, or inspection starts with one.
Click New Jobcard
From the sidebar, open Records and click Jobcards, then New Jobcard in the top-right corner.
Add a vehicle
Start typing in the Vehicle field to search by registration. If it's new, click New +.
Add a customer
Start typing in the Customer field. Select an existing customer or click New + to create one.
Set an appointment date
Pick the date the vehicle is expected in. This shows on the calendar for the whole team.
Auto-title
Leave the title blank and Pistonlog auto-generates one from the descriptions of the jobs you add to the card, keeping it in sync as jobs change.
Inviting your team
Invite your team from Workshop Settings → Team. Enter their email and choose a role:
- Manager — full access to everything
- Reception — front-desk: bookings, customers, payments, communications
- Technician — workshop floor: assigned jobcards, inspections, parts
- Accountant — an outside bookkeeper. Financial reports and nothing else: no jobcards, no customers, so customer contact details are out of reach by construction
For the full picture see Inviting your team.
Next steps
- Creating a Jobcard — the full walkthrough
- Managing Customers — customer records and history
- Managing Vehicles — vehicle records and service history
- The Inspector Panel — quick-view any jobcard without leaving the page