Book a demo

Work order

In a repair shop, the repair order once the customer has approved it: the authorized list of work the technician is cleared to do. California's Automotive Repair Act uses the word for the document the dealer gives the customer, and other states say estimate or repair order for the same thing.

Outside the trade a work order is any instruction to do work. Inside it the word has a place in the sequence: estimate, then work order, then invoice. The work order is what the customer authorized, so it is the document a dispute is read against, and the one a state's rule tends to name.

California's rule is the example. Its regulation for mobile mechanics refers to "the work order as required by Section 9884.7(a)(3) of the Business and Professions Code", and adds a duty to it. California's mobile repair rule makes the work order the carrier of a second document: every customer gets a copy of the official dealer's sign with the copy of the work order the statute requires. The same article subjects the mobile dealer to the state's estimate, work order and invoice rules as a set (16 CCR § 3351.7.3(e), (f)).

In Wrenchy the work order is a state of the repair order, entered when the customer's authorization is recorded, with the authorization kept as a snapshot of what they approved. The repair order template prints the same record.

Sources (1)

  • Written estimate

    The itemized price for labor and parts the shop gives the customer before the work, which the customer approves and the final bill is measured against.

  • Repair order

    The record of one vehicle's visit, from the customer's complaint through the estimate, the authorization, the work done and the parts fitted, to the invoice.

  • Authorization

    The customer's consent to the work and the price on the estimate, recorded with who gave it, when and how.

See it on your own cars.

45 minutes with the founder.

Book a demoRequest early access