For garages

Garage rota software: a technician on every ramp, a tester in the MOT bay, the Saturday morning covered

A garage sells hours on ramps, so the rota is the diary turned round: three ramps need three technicians on every day the bookings fill them, the MOT bay needs an authorised tester on every slot, the desk opens before the first key drop at eight, and Saturday morning is the busiest five hours of the week. InShift puts the ramps and the bay on the rota as shift types, offers the bay only to the testers, and shows the hours and the overtime of every technician as they add up.

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Ramps, the bay and the Saturday morning: the rota is the diary turned round

An independent garage with three ramps and an MOT bay runs a team of eight: four technicians, two of them authorised testers, an apprentice, a service advisor on the desk, a parts and valeting hand, and the owner, who is on a ramp more often than in the office. The workshop is open from eight to half past five Monday to Friday and from eight to one on Saturday; the bay takes a test every forty-five minutes and cannot take one without a tester; the desk opens at eight for the key drops and stays until the last collection, which from Tuesday to Friday means a late shift until seven.

The rota goes wrong in the same places every month. Both testers book the same Friday off and the bay loses a day of tests. A technician who was on the late shift on Thursday is booked on the early ramp on Friday. The apprentice is on the rota, but nobody wrote down which ramp he is with. Overtime is counted from memory on payday, and the technician who stayed until half past seven twice that week remembers it better than the owner does.

Below is how a garage of eight looks in InShift: the ramps and the bay as shift types, a week as a table with the bay row covered every day, the hours and the overtime in payroll, and the month’s money on the owner’s phone.

Ramps and the bay

Each ramp and the MOT bay is a shift type, and the bay is offered only to the testers

The garage is one location with its shift types: “Ramp 1”, “Ramp 2” and “Ramp 3” from 08:00 to 17:30, “Late 10:00–19:00” on Tuesday to Friday for the collections, “Desk 08:00–17:30” for the advisor, and “Saturday 08:00–13:00” for the Saturday morning only. “MOT bay 08:30–17:30” is created under the “MOT tester” position rather than among the “General shifts”, so the planner offers it only to people who hold that position: the two testers, one of whom is a technician with “MOT tester” added under “Add positions for cover”. A type carries the days it runs on, so the Saturday type is never offered on a Tuesday.

  • “General shifts” for the ramps, the desk and the late; the bay as a type under the “MOT tester” position
  • A type carries its days of the week, its times and a price per shift
  • A technician who also tests: “Primary position” technician, “Add positions for cover” MOT tester
  • The planner offers a type only on its days and only to the positions it belongs to
The admin panel screen by screen

A week in the workshop: the bay covered every day, the ramps to the bookings

Eight people, three ramps and the bay. One letter per shift type, the way the planner colours them.

WhoMonTueWedThuFriSat
Tester 1MM·MMS
Tester 2RRMRR·
Tech 1RRRRR·
Tech 2·LLLLS
ApprenticeR·RRRS
AdvisorDD·DDS
OwnerR·D··S
PartsDDDDD·

M is “MOT bay 08:30–17:30”, a type under the “MOT tester” position; R is a ramp, “Ramp 1”, “Ramp 2” or “Ramp 3” from 08:00 to 17:30; L is “Late 10:00–19:00” for the evening collections; D is “Desk 08:00–17:30”, the hours of the advisor and of the parts and valeting hand; S is “Saturday 08:00–13:00”, on Saturday only, with Tester 1 in the bay. The bay has a tester every day: Tester 1 four days and the Saturday morning, Tester 2 on Wednesday, when Tester 1 is off, and on a ramp the rest of the week. The apprentice works alongside Tech 1 and takes the third ramp on Wednesday; the owner covers the desk on the advisor’s day off.

Hours and overtime

The collection that ran to half past seven is counted on the day it happened, and overtime is a column

“Payroll” counts the month from the published shifts. On the “Pay” tab every technician has an hourly rate or a monthly salary from a date, and the owner is “Unpaid”, so no money is counted for them. The “Accruals” tab shows per person the shifts, the scheduled hours, the rate, the premiums, and the amount accrued, paid and owed. “Over the daily norm” on the “Premiums” tab pays the hours past your norm at a multiplier, or “Flat overtime pay” pays them at a fixed amount, and either way the overtime hours have a column of their own. A shift that ran late is corrected in the planner, and the month follows.

  • “Pay”: “Per hour”, “Monthly salary”, “Per shift” or “Unpaid” for the owner, from a date
  • “Over the daily norm” at a multiplier or “Flat overtime pay” at an amount; “Holiday work” for bank holidays
  • “Accruals”: shifts, scheduled hours, rate, premiums, night, holiday and overtime hours, accrued, paid, owed
  • “Export to Excel” for the accountant, “Close period” to lock the month

The owner’s phone

The month’s money on the owner’s phone: what is owed to each technician, and “Pay” from the same screen

“Payroll” in the InShift app shows the owner the period with “Owed to the team” at the top, then every person with what they have earned and what has been paid, grouped “By position” or “By location”, with a search by name. A person’s row shows the night, holiday and overtime hours and the “Bonuses and deductions” with their reason; “Pay” records a payment with the amount and “Paid on”, and a “Settlement” closes the days through that date. The owner does it from the ramp on the last Friday of the month, and the panel shows the same numbers on Monday.

  • “Owed to the team” for the period, then every person: earned, paid, “Owed now”
  • Night, holiday and overtime hours per person; “Bonuses and deductions” with the reason
  • “Pay”: the amount, “Paid on” and a note; a “Settlement” closes the days through that date
  • Periods “This month”, “Last month”, “First half”, “Second half” and “Custom dates”
The app screen by screen

Moving a garage onto InShift

An hour for a team of eight, the invitations included.

  1. 1

    Sign up and the positions

    Email or Google. The garage is one location; positions such as technician, MOT tester, service advisor and apprentice; a technician who tests gets “MOT tester” under “Add positions for cover”.

  2. 2

    Ramps and the bay as shift types

    “Ramp 1”, “Ramp 2” and “Ramp 3” from 08:00 to 17:30, “Late 10:00–19:00” on Tuesday to Friday, “Desk 08:00–17:30”, “Saturday 08:00–13:00”; “MOT bay 08:30–17:30” under the “MOT tester” position.

  3. 3

    The team and the pay

    “Add multiple” pastes the eight with positions; hourly rates or salaries on the “Pay” tab, “Unpaid” for the owner; “Over the daily norm” on “Premiums”. “Invite team” prints a code and a QR for everyone.

  4. 4

    The first week and publish

    The bay first, then the ramps to the bookings, the late shifts, the Saturday morning, then “Publish”. Next week is “Copy last week”, with the testers’ days off swapped.

Frequently asked questions

Does InShift connect to the garage booking system?▾

No. Bookings stay in your garage management software; InShift is the rota, the requests and the pay of the people. What the rota gives you is a technician on each ramp and a tester in the bay for every day the diary is full, and the shifts each technician actually worked for payday.

How do I make sure the MOT bay always has a tester?▾

Make “MOT bay” a shift type under the “MOT tester” position: the planner offers it only to people who hold that position, and a bay slot without a name is an empty cell in the week and a gap in the “Week ahead” on the “Dashboard”. When both testers ask for the same Friday off, both requests sit in “Requests” with their dates, and you approve one and reject the other. There is no rule that blocks the second approval: the rota shows the empty bay, and you decide.

Can a technician be both on the ramps and in the bay?▾

Yes. Their card has “Primary position” technician and “MOT tester” under “Add positions for cover”, so the planner offers them the ramp types and the bay type, and the search for a replacement on a bay shift finds them too. In payroll they are one person with one pay model; if the bay should pay more, the “Shift price” model takes the price from the shift type, so a bay shift and a ramp shift can carry different prices.

How is overtime counted?▾

From the published shifts, by rule. “Over the daily norm” on the “Premiums” tab has the norm in hours and a multiplier; “Flat overtime pay” has an amount instead. The hours are the scheduled ones: a shift that ran late is corrected in the planner, and the overtime hours of that day land in their own column in “Accruals”, with the premium in the amount.

What does a technician or the apprentice see in the app?▾

Their own shifts with the ramp in the shift name and “Who else is working”, a push before the shift and on every change, a “Day off” request with the balance, a swap with a colleague that goes to the owner for approval, “Stats” with the hours and the pay of the month, and the chat. Joining takes the invite code and their own email; the app is on the App Store and Google Play.

What does it cost for a garage of eight?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that it is a subscription per active person on the “Employees” list, with locations, payroll and the team app included. The numbers are on the pricing page.

Get the whole workshop on one rota

Positions, the ramps and the first week take an hour, and every technician sees the rota in the app the same day.

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