GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Garage Door Software

Moving a Garage Door Company Off Paper Tickets, Whiteboards and Sticky Notes

Paper has kept plenty of garage door companies running for years. A ticket book, a whiteboard in the shop and a few sticky notes on the dash will get you through a week. The trouble is that paper only remembers what is written on it, only where it is sitting, and only for as long as nobody throws it out.

Why Paper Stops Working

If you want to see the whole call cycle software replaces, it is laid out in What Garage Door Software Actually Does, From the First Call to the Paid Invoice. Here the focus is on getting from paper to that cycle.

Most owners do not switch because paper fails all at once. They switch because of a handful of familiar problems:

• The equipment is lost. The opener model and door size from last year's ticket are in a box somewhere. The tech measures again and looks up the model again.
• Tune-ups slip. Customers who said “come back next year” are on a list nobody checks until they call to complain or call someone else.
• The whiteboard is out of date. It changed three times before lunch, and the techs only see it when they are back at the shop.
• Invoices wait. Tickets go in a pile on the passenger seat, get typed up at the end of the week, and some never get paid.

What Replaces Each Piece

It helps to map the paper tools you have now to what takes their place in GarageDoorBossPro:

• The ticket book becomes the job, with equipment filled in from the house record and photos attached.
• The whiteboard becomes the dispatch board, showing jobs by day and van, and the tech's phone shows the same order.
• The tune-up list becomes the Waiting List, where every yearly visit comes due on its own on a map.
• The sticky note with the gate code becomes an access note on the address, shown on the job card every visit.
• The pile of invoices becomes an invoice created when the tech taps Complete, with the card on file charged right there.

Start With the Customer List

Whatever you have now, whether it is a spreadsheet, an export from an old system or a phone full of contacts typed into a sheet, it can come in through a CSV import. Imported addresses are placed on the map automatically, so the Waiting List and dispatch board have real pins to work with from day one.

Do not wait until every record is perfect. Bring in names, phone numbers, emails and addresses. The equipment can be added as you visit each house. The details of what to put in each column are in CSV Import: Bringing Your Garage Door Customer List Into New Software.

Run Paper and Software Side by Side for a Few Days

Nobody needs to burn the ticket books on day one. A gentle switch looks like this:

1. Day one: every new call goes into the software, even if the tech still gets a paper copy.
2. Day two or three: one tech runs the day from the tech app. Everyone else keeps their routine.
3. End of the week: every tech is on the app, and completed jobs create invoices instead of tickets that need typing up.

The whiteboard can stay on the wall for a while. Most shops find it stops getting updated on its own once everyone is looking at the dispatch board instead.

Get the Tune-Up Customers In Early

The biggest win in moving off paper is usually the yearly tune-up list. On paper, those customers depend on someone remembering. In the software, each one gets a tune-up plan set to 365 days between visits, and they come due on the Waiting List map. Pins are colored not due yet, due now, or overdue past a 7-day grace, so the office can see at a glance who is waiting.

If you have last year's tune-up dates on paper, use them to set up the plans so this year's visits land in the right weeks.

What Your Techs Notice First

Techs tend to notice three things right away. They no longer have to call the office for the door size or opener model, because it is on the job card. They no longer have to write a ticket, because Complete creates the invoice. And the homeowner already knows they are coming, because the on-the-way text went out automatically.

None of this changes the actual work. Springs and cables are still a job for a trained tech with the right tools. The software just takes the writing, remembering and phoning off their plate.

The Box of Old Tickets

Keep it, at least for a while. When a customer from three years ago calls, a quick look at the old ticket gives you the equipment to add to their house record. Over a season, the important history moves into the software on its own, one returning customer at a time.

For the rest of what replaces the paper, from equipment records to monthly statements, see the GarageDoorBossPro garage door software page.