The terms below come up across the help center. Use this page as a quick reference when an article uses a word you're not sure about.
The big four entities
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Jobcard | A work order. The central record for any visit. Links a customer to a vehicle and holds the jobs, parts, labour, inspections, payments. |
| Job | A line item on a jobcard. "Full service" or "MOT" or "Front brake pads". Each job owns its own labour and parts. |
| Customer | A person you do work for. Company-scoped. |
| Vehicle | A car. Company-scoped. May have many customers over time as ownership changes. |
The four actors
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Owner | The user who created the company. Bypasses all permission checks. |
| Manager | Default seeded role with every permission. |
| Reception | Front-desk role — bookings, customers, payments, communications. |
| Technician | Workshop floor role — jobcards, inspections, parts. PII-restricted on outputs. |
Statuses
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Workflow status | The kanban column a jobcard sits in. Customisable per garage. |
| Authorisation status | A per-job flag — not_authorised, authorised, complete, declined, postponed, recommended. |
| Part order status | A per-part flag — pending, ordered, arrived, fitted, return_required, return_sent, credited. |
| Invoice status | A per-jobcard derived value — unpaid / partial / paid. Calculated from manual payments. |
| Inspection status | A per-item flag inside an inspection — Acceptable / Advisory / Rectified / Failure / Not Applicable. |
Money
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Manual payment | Cash / cheque / bank transfer recorded against a jobcard. Drives invoice status. |
| Square payment | Card payment via Square — PENDING → COMPLETED. Separate from manual payments. |
| Platform fee | 0.5% of every Square transaction (minimum 1p), retained by Pistonlog. |
| Unit cost | What the garage paid for a part. Hidden from technicians by default. |
| Unit price | What the customer pays for a part. Always visible. |
Inspections-specific
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Template | A reusable form definition. Designed once per garage. |
| Submission | A specific fill of a template on a jobcard. Snapshots the template's schema at creation. |
| Inspection matrix | A grid field type — multiple inspection items in one component. |
Reminders
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Reminder template | Definition of an automated communication (type + body + intervals + channels). |
| Interval | How many days before a due date a reminder fires. Multiple intervals = multiple sends. |
| SMS credit | One unit of SMS sending capacity. Bought separately from the plan. |
Multi-tenancy
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Company | The top-level tenant. One company has many garages and many users. |
| Garage | A workspace within a company. Has its own statuses, templates, suppliers, branding. |
| Multi-garage scoping | The model of what's shared (customers, vehicles, users) vs per-garage (jobcards, statuses, templates). |