Oct 23, 2020

What Does Fullbay’s Software Do?

What Does Fullbay’s Software Do?

What is Fullbay?

Well, it’s an end-to-end repair shop management software, built specifically for the heavy-duty industry, designed and built out in an active repair shop that we used as a laboratory to test our ideas.

The short version of that is we know Fullbay works in the real world. And although it already does quite a bit, we are just getting started.

How We Got Started

Like many great stories, ours began almost by accident.

CEO and Co-Founder Jacob Findlay was no stranger to software designed for underserved industries—businesses without a solution built just for them. When he stumbled upon the various administrative and efficiency problems diesel repair shop owners faced, and how much time they took up, he realized he might be able to help. Scratch that; he knew he could help. This was the twenty-first century; he could create a program that would solve those problems and make life for repair shop owners and their staff much easier.

He believed so much in his plan that he left behind a well-paying, secure job and started working at a diesel repair shop. To build out the kind of software shops needed, he needed to see for himself what kind of pain points shops faced.

Jacob spent a year working in a shop and noticing where they were hurting. He watched techs wasting tons of time waiting for assignments and work authorizations. He watched everyone lose time and money transferring information from scraps of paper to computers while building invoices. He watched techs trying to track preventive maintenance through spreadsheets. He watched owners spend hours and hours in the shop instead of with their families as they tried to catch up and get ahead.

Fullbay was the answer to those pain points.

Our Company Values

For ages, companies have adopted core values to define what makes them unique and why they exist. Even before Fullbay got off the ground, we knew what principles we wanted for our foundation. We wanted to create a useful heavy-duty repair shop tool that met needs no one else was meeting, including promoting a life/work balance.

We knew that creating such a tool required dedication, a diligent work ethic, and accountability. These things may seem simple on the surface, but the four Fullbay core values are what drives the company and guarantees our software and service exceeds expectations every time.

  • Build Quality Tools: Providing shop owners and managers with a tool to make their lives easier and their businesses more profitable is the entire reason Fullbay exists. Exceptional craftsmanship continues to be a high priority as we add features. We know that the tools that are simplest to use are the best ones. Doing our job right means you can accomplish more with less work while using Fullbay.
  • Be High Performing: We are high-performing, low-maintenance people. We’ve successfully merged intelligent creativity with the blue-collar work ethic that helped build this country. In other words, we get after it! We know it’s one thing to have a great idea, and something else entirely to execute that idea. We go all-out looking for more ways to make life easier for shop managers and owners. Then we go even further to make those ideas a reality.
  • Run Into The Fire: We’ve found the best learning comes from doing, and that knowledge is why we shun our comfort zone. Knowing we’ll learn something from every experience has given us a bias for action and, good or bad, we willingly own up to the results. We don’t shy away from making upfront agreements, so you always know where we stand and what to expect. What’s more, we value the customer’s voice, so we listen more than we talk, giving us another way to learn even more.
  • Promote Balance: We seek balance in our own lives and aim to help our customers bring balance to their lives, too. Work can be fulfilling, but an out-of-control-shop can eat you alive. Fullbay puts control of your shop back in your hands so you have more time for family, friends, and taking care of yourself. When you have that kind of balance in your life, work is no longer a cause of stress – instead, it’s a source of happiness.

How Fullbay Works

So, now you know what Fullbay is. But how does it work?

Service requests come in one end, and hyper-accurate invoices come out the other. Here’s a snapshot of the features that will impact you the most.

Tech Efficiency & Productivity

Your techs each have their own logins.You can use Fullbay to assign work or technicians can self-select jobs, even when they’re not at the shop. Once they’re in the system, they can clock in and out, and document their work on a phone or tablet.

Fullbay lets you track tech productivity in real-time, from anywhere in the world. Plus, you can see which techs are producing as well as hold them accountable for their returns.

Vendor & Customer Portals

All of your customers and vendors get their own portal. These portals are free, created instantly whenever you add a customer or vendor and they work beautifully.

Vendor portals save time for you and the vendor. You use it to submit price inquiries and vendors use their portal to give you the quotes. They can fill orders and invoice you through their portal. Additionally, vendors can use their portal to view payment summaries and see the status of invoices at a glance.

The customer portal saves time and offers remarkable value by bringing customers into the process. They can use the portal in many ways to manage their fleets, including:

  • Creating a service request
  • Monitoring repairs in real time
  • Accessing service history from anywhere, even the side of the road
  • Authorizing repairs
  • Viewing and paying invoices

QuickBooks Syncing

Fullbay syncs effortlessly with the online and desktop versions of QuickBooks, making sure everything from customer invoices to credits to payments posts automatically. Plus, thanks to a secure connection through QuickBooks encrypted API services, all the accounting-related info you enter into Fullbay syncs instantly with QuickBooks Online.

With all the accounting tasks automated, there’s no need for double-entry. That means one person in the back office can do the work of three.

Inventory Management

Fullbay keeps track of inventory in all your locations, including service trucks, warehouses, and retail bins. It accommodates multiple parts matrix scales for marking up parts both by type and vendor and uses a cost floor to set a minimum markup starting point. That feature is particularly useful for managing bulk buys.

Fullbay will alert you when your inventory hits the reorder thresholds you set. Plus, a few clicks of a button is all it takes to order or reorder parts. You can even tell Fullbay which vendors are preferred, making reorders even quicker.

Facilitating Order to Cash

Fullbay integrates with all major credit card providers, including Worldpay. If you already have a credit card service, we will help you connect it into Fullbay.

Once a job is complete, a service order or estimate is instantly converted to an invoice and sent to customers. The customer completes the transaction through the customer portal, reviewing the invoice and entering their credit card information. You can even do this on the side of the road when mobile techs are deployed for emergency repairs or on-site PMs. And just like that, you’re paid.

Life in the Cloud

Residing in the Cloud means reliable uptime and access from anywhere, either on a desktop computer or any Internet-enabled device such as a smartphone or tablet. It also allows Fullbay to tie into other cloud-based tools, like QuickBooks Online and satellite tracking devices.

No more nightly backups, expensive servers, or ridiculous license fees, and support is free – forever. What’s more, all your information is stored in Fullbay. Customers, units, contacts, service history, PM programs – it’s all in there. No more having crucial customer information scattered in different software, spreadsheets, notebooks, etc. We make it easy to keep everything in one place.

Industry-Leading Integrations
On its own, Fullbay is a remarkable value for any shop. But pair it with one of the many available integrations and it turns into even more of a revenue booster. Here are some of of our most popular integrations:

  • FleetCross by MOTOR: Get access to labor times, parts cross-reference, and wiring diagrams from across the industry.
  • QuickBooks: We mentioned this up top, but Fullbay blends seamlessly with the online and desktop versions of this accounting software.
  • FleetNet America: Fullbay lets you receive FleetNet emergency roadside notifications right through the app.
  • Interstate Billing Service: Send invoices to IBS with the click of a button.

If you find these integrations intriguing, learn more about them here!

How to Get Started

Do you like what you’ve heard about Fullbay so far? We’d love to show you even more! Get in touch with us today and we can show you our free demo. We’d love to show you everything we can do!

Suz Baldwin