GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Running a Garage Door Business

Choosing Garage Door Business Software: What to Check Before You Switch

Choosing software is one of those decisions owners put off because it feels big. It is big, in the sense that the company will run on it every day. It does not have to be complicated. A garage door company needs a short list of things done well, and most of the decision comes down to whether a program does those things the way your techs and office actually work.

Start With How You Work

The mechanics of moving your customers over are covered in Switching Software Without Losing Your Customer List: CSV Import for a Garage Door Company. This guide is about choosing what to move to.

Before looking at any software, write down how a typical week goes: how calls come in, who books them, how many vans, how you quote installs, how you handle tune-ups, how property managers want to be billed. Then check each program against that week, not against a feature list.

1. Does It Know What a Garage Door Is?

Generic field-service software gives a job an address and a notes box. A garage door company needs more. Check whether the software can save the doors and hardware on each house: the door, opener, torsion or extension springs, cables and drums, keypad, remotes, sensors and commercial doors, with brand, model, serial, size, material or drive, year installed and bay. Check whether the tech sees it on the job card, and whether changes on a job flow back to the house.

Check for a door safety inspection checklist on the tech's phone and a printable report for the homeowner. Tune-ups depend on it.

2. Can It Run One Van and a Few?

Look for a dispatch board by day and van, auto-routing from the shop, and a tech app where each tech sees their own calls in route order. Each tech should have a personal login. The tech app should run on the phones your techs already carry. Ask whether it needs an app store download or special devices.

Make sure it also works for a solo owner. If you are one van today, you should be able to quote, schedule, run the job and bill from one phone.

3. Quotes, Recurring Work and Accounts

Check the money side of the work:

• Estimates built from your own service list, approved online, that become the scheduled job, with follow-up emails.
• Recurring work for yearly tune-ups and commercial maintenance that comes due on its own, with a clear view of what is due and overdue.
• One client with many addresses, and monthly statements for property managers, HOAs and commercial accounts that list every address.
• Website request and sign-up forms that land somewhere the office will see them.

4. Getting Paid and Talking to Customers

The software should create the invoice when the job is completed, charge a card on file, take online payments and follow up on past-due invoices. It should send reminders and on-the-way and arrived texts on its own, and give the office two-way texting with customers. A customer app where they can see invoices, pay, update their card, request service and sign up for a plan saves the office a lot of calls.

5. Price and Commitment

Look at the full monthly price for the number of users and vans you have, and what is included, such as texts. Watch for setup fees and long contracts. GarageDoorBossPro plans are Start $59, Pro $89 and Crew $199 per month, with a monthly text allowance of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 texts sent and received, and a 14-day free trial with no credit card.

6. Try It Before You Decide

Never pick software from a sales page alone. Click around a demo. GarageDoorBossPro has a live demo of a fully stocked sample garage door company you can explore with no signup. Then start a trial, import a handful of real customers by CSV, and run a real week through it: book a repair, quote a door, put a tune-up on the schedule, have a tech complete a job on their phone, and send an invoice. Ask your techs and office person what they think. They are the ones who will use it every day.

Making the Call

The right software is the one your team will actually use, that keeps the customer, the house, the doors and the money in one place, at a price that makes sense for a company your size. If it does that, the rest of the guides in this series, from hiring to tune-up plans to monthly accounts, get much easier. Every guide on running the business is on the GarageDoorBossPro garage door business software page, starting with Running a Garage Door Business: The Complete Guide for Owners With One to a Few Vans.