Setting your shop up

Signup asks for the shop name, your name, email and password, then opens Get started. It detects the browser timezone and starts in USD, except an en-CA or fr-CA browser locale starts in CAD. Change the timezone under Hours if needed; correct billing currency in Profile before the first stored price locks it.

Get started is seven short steps, one open at a time: Set your labor rate, Add your address and phone, Set sales tax, Write your first estimate and Send it to your customer, then two you can skip: Invite your team and Set your opening hours. Each step's button opens the screen that already does that job. A step ticks itself when the work is done, on any screen and in any order, so the list remembers where you are without you checking anything off.

The labor-rate step starts with a sensible default: pick your shop type and press Use a starting rate. That loads the starter pack, which adds common jobs, an inspection sheet, a starting labor rate and pre-return checks; or press Type my own rate. The sales-tax step has a one-press We don’t collect sales tax beside Set sales tax. The page also shows whether texting is on; Torqix turns texting on for you, so there is nothing to set up there. Sample data, below the list, adds three test-stamped customers and cars that stay out of reports and totals.

Until every step is done or skipped, the board and each step's own screen show one line: how far along you are, the next step and its button, and All steps. On the board, Hide takes the line off your board; Get started keeps the list. Labor rate and Hours are separate. Saving a positive default labor rate finishes the first; saving the weekly schedule finishes the second.

Two of them are worth doing before you quote anything, because a repair order takes a copy of your labour rate and your tax rates at the moment it is created and keeps them. Fix a rate later and open orders keep what they were quoted at. That is correct behaviour — you should not silently reprice work a customer already approved — but it does mean a wrong rate on day one follows you around for a week.

Shop info — who and where your shop is

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   Step 1: Open Shop info

   Go to Settings › Shop info.

   
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   Step 2: Fill in who you are

   Type your Shop name, Email, Phone and address, and add your logo.

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   Step 3: Press Save shop info

   Press Save shop info. One button saves the whole page.

One form, at Settings > Shop info, and one Save shop info button saves all of it: your Shop name, the Name on documents if your customers should read a different one, your Legal name and DBA, your Email and Phone, your logo, your address, your Time zone and your certifications. These used to be spread over three screens.

Press Shop logo to open it larger, and Download Shop logo saves it.

Type your address once. It prints at the top of your estimates and invoices, and it is what your phone agent tells a caller who asks where you are — the two used to be different fields and only one of them could be edited. Getting here is optional and is spoken rather than printed: what you would tell somebody on the phone who cannot find the entrance.

The separate Language block on Settings > Shop info holds Default customer language. A language saved on the customer's own record still wins.

Two things on that page are values with a link rather than boxes, and deliberately. Your text-messaging number and your Forward calls to number are provisioned with a carrier rather than typed, so the profile shows what each one is and sends you to the screen that sets it. Your billing currency can be corrected here until the shop stores its first price or money figure; after that it stays visible and explains why changing the label would restate history rather than convert it.

Shop settings

The gear at the bottom of the rail opens Settings, which lists the settings you can open in eight plain sections, with less common setup at the foot of each. Shop settings is where follow-up and invoice gates still share one page, beside a line that says your default labor rate. Its Save settings button, on a bar that stays at the foot of the screen while you scroll, saves that page at once.

Labor pricing

Your default labor rate prices every estimate, in your own currency, so a Canadian shop reads CA$ on every total the rate feeds. This page shows it; Settings > Labor rates is the one place a rate is typed, and it holds your named rates too. The calendar's capacity is set separately. If another tab changes a named rate before you save, Torqix keeps the newer name and amount, shows their current values and asks you to review them instead of overwriting them.

Sales tax

Shop settings shows the taxes new repair orders charge — each one's name, rate and what it applies to — and the Rounding choice, which its Save settings keeps. Tax rounds once per tax at the invoice level, which is what keeps a total from landing a penny out. The taxes themselves are changed in one place: Edit sales tax opens Settings › Sales tax, a list with one row per tax, its rate, what it applies to and what it adds to a sample repair order. Each row's Edit changes that one row; Add tax adds one; a Canadian shop can Load preset for its province's current rates; and a shop that collects none says We do not collect sales tax. Saving Shop settings never changes a tax, so a page left open in another tab cannot put an old rate back.

Customer follow-up

A Review link and a Service reminder interval. Both build worklists. Neither sends anything on its own.

Workflow gates

A QC checklist — one check per line — and Required before invoicing. Leave either empty and nothing changes.

Hours

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   Step 1: Open Hours

   Go to Settings › Hours and find Opening hours.

   
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   Step 2: Set each day

   Choose Open or Closed for each day and type the times. Lunch is optional.

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   Step 3: Save

   Press Save hours.

Open Settings > Hours for the shop timezone, bay capacity, slot length and each day's opening hours. Closed time is hatched on the calendar, and online and phone bookings outside those hours are refused; you and your staff can still book any time. Bays mean concurrent appointments, not technicians. Name your bays in Settings > Bays and the count of active bays there becomes the capacity.

Tightening hours or capacity previews appointments that would conflict. Saving does not move or cancel those existing appointments; it marks the conflicts and applies the new rule to later bookings.

What you make compulsory before an invoice

Nothing is required by default. Under Required before invoicing you tick what your shop refuses to invoice without: Mileage in, A customer phone number, A customer email, The vehicle VIN (counter sales excepted).

An advisor who is missing one is told which, by name, before the invoice exists. An owner or manager can still push it through by typing why, and that reason goes on the record with their name on it. That is the shape most of the gates in Torqix take: a rule with a documented way past it beats a rule people work around.

What the customer's invoice says

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   Step 1: Open Estimate & invoice look

   Go to Settings › Estimate & invoice look.

   
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   Step 2: Work down the page

   Check Letterhead, Customer text, Footers and Invoice display.

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   Step 3: Press Save template

   Press Save template.

That lives on its own page — Estimate & invoice look, linked from the top of Shop info. The name, address, phone, email and logo at the top of the page come from your Shop info; this screen is where the rest of the document is written. Under Customer text you set your Message to the customer, Payment terms and Warranty. Two switches control whether the invoice shows technician names and part numbers.

There is no switch for outside work, and that is deliberate. A sublet line reads Outside work on the customer's estimate, invoice and PDF, and never names the vendor you sent the job to — the same rule that keeps what the vendor charged you off the document. If you want to credit a specialist by name, write it into the line's own description or the note you leave on the job; both print word for word, and both are you choosing to say it.

Sample data

Welcome offers Load sample data — three practice customers and their cars. Each row is marked as test data, so it never reaches reports or totals. Remove sample data takes them back out unless you attached later work; then Welcome says how many were kept.

Add your legal name and licenses

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   Step 1: Open Legal identity

   Go to Settings › Legal identity.

   
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   Step 2: Type the names on your papers

   Fill in Legal name, and DBA if you filed one. Copy them from your registration; never guess.

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   Step 3: Add each license

   Under Licenses, fill in Jurisdiction, Credential type and Number. Clear a row to remove it.

4. 4

   Step 4: Save it

   Press Save legal identity. Estimates, invoices and printed copies use it from then on.