Jobs and repair

A workshop takes something in, a phone, a car, a basket of laundry, or goes out to a customer’s site. The work takes hours or days: it is priced, approved, done by a technician with parts from the store, checked, and handed back when the customer pays. Kila follows each sale from the front counter to the gate.

How Kila works for a workshop

• The main screen is the job board. Every sale from intake to collection, in a column for each stage, with your technicians’ load above it. Each person also has their own page: the Front counter for advisors, My jobs for technicians, Quality checks for the checker and the Parts desk for the store. See The job board.
• Your day revolves around the job card. It holds what was taken in and its condition, the estimate and the customer’s answer, the parts and the technician’s time, the checks, and the payment.
• The words Kila uses: a sale is a job, a product is a part, staff are technicians and the receipt is a job receipt. A laundry calls them orders, items and attendants; a caterer, events.

Kila treats these kinds of business as workshops. Each has its own menu section and its own way of taking work in:

• Laundry & dry-cleaning
• Cleaning services
• Garage & auto repair
• Electronics & appliance repair
• Equipment repair
• Construction & contracting
• Installation & maintenance
• General job-based services
• CateringFood safety rules

A day in the workshop

1. Take it in. The customer leaves the item at the front counter; it is checked in with them and they take a collection ticket: Take a job in and Print a collection ticket.
2. Price it and get a yes. The estimate goes to the customer, who approves or declines each line: Get an estimate approved. Money ahead for an expensive part: Take a deposit on a job.
3. Do the work. A manager gives the job to a technician, who clocks their time and asks the parts desk for parts: Give a job to a technician and Add parts and labour to a job.
4. Check it and tell the customer. Someone else checks the work; when it passes, the customer is texted: Tell the customer a job is ready.
5. Hand it over. The customer gives the release code and pays what is left after any deposit: Hand a job over and take payment. If it comes back: Take back a job under warranty.
6. Watch the day. The owner’s home page shows the workshop today, the front counter, the checks waiting and the jobs by stage.

Zoom

For laundries and dry cleaners

A laundry takes orders in at the Laundry counter, a tap for each garment and a numbered tag for each piece: Tag garments at the laundry counter.

For businesses that work at the customer's site

Work at a site is booked for a crew on the Day board, and the customer is texted when they set out: Tell the customer you are on the way.

The home page’s cards

Kila arranges a workshop’s home page with these cards. Each shows when its feature is on and your role may see it, and some kinds of business leave out the ones they do not use (a laundry has no parts desk):

• The workshop today
• The front counter today
• My jobsNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning and Catering
• Waiting for the quality checkNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning and Catering
• The parts deskNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning, Cleaning services and Catering
• Jobs by stage
• Work in progress by age
• Jobs overdue against promised date
• Technician workloadNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning and Catering
• Ready for collection and unpaid
• Items not collectedNot for: Cleaning services, Construction & contracting, Installation & maintenance and Catering
• Parts to orderNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning, Cleaning services and Catering
• Labour and parts sales this monthNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning and Catering
• Follow-up calls due
• Payments waiting for confirmation
• Approvals and reviews waiting
• Licences, permits and returns due
• Services due and reminders

Who does what

Role	What Kila says it is for
Owner	Full access to the business, including billing.
Service manager	Runs bookings, job cards and service staff.
Service advisor	Checks customers’ work in, writes estimates, gets approval, and hands over and takes payment at collection. No assigning.
Technician	Delivers services and works on assigned jobs.
Quality controller	Checks finished work against the job card and passes or fails it before the customer is told it is ready. Works on no job of their own.
Parts clerk	Keeps parts: receives, issues to jobs, orders parts for jobs, counts and sells over the parts counter. Adjustments go to approval.
Cashier	Sells at the till and runs their own shift.
Workshop controller	Runs the workshop floor: assigns jobs and bays, clocks technicians, checks quality and road tests. No money or prices beyond the estimate.
Insurance claims clerk	Runs insurance repairs: claims, assessors, approved amounts, authority to repair, release letters, claim batches and what insurers owe.
Counter attendant	Takes in customers’ garments, tags each piece, and hands over and takes payment at collection.
Site supervisor	Leads crews at customers’ sites: assigns the work, records site visits and checks the work with the customer before hand-over.

A workshop has Kila’s standard roles plus the ones its kind of business starts with: a garage has a workshop controller and an insurance claims clerk, a laundry a counter attendant, an installer a site supervisor. The owner gives each person their roles under Users and roles.

Pages only workshops have

Each kind of workshop has its own menu section: Repairs at a repair shop, Workshop at a garage, Laundry at a laundry, Sites for installers, contractors and cleaners, Events for caterers. In it, besides the job board:

• Front counter: “Calls, promises and collections today.” Who to call about estimates, what is promised today and late, what is ready, and one box to find any job by ticket, phone, plate, IMEI or name.
• My jobs (My visits at a site business): each technician’s own jobs in order, on their phone.
• Quality checks: “Work the technicians say is done, oldest first.”
• Parts desk: “What the bench asked for, parts to issue on approved jobs, what is on order, and old parts to offer back.” See Parts clerk.
• Uncollected items: items ready and not collected. “The Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act lets you sell them after two written notices.” Kila keeps the dates.
• Follow-up calls: “A call a few days after collection: is the work right?”
• Labour rates and operations: “What labour costs on a job: an hourly rate per labour type, and standard hours per operation.”
• Technician efficiency: hours sold against hours clocked on the same jobs.
• Workshop settings: “How jobs move through the workshop. Starting values come from your business type; change them to how you work.”

For garages

A garage also has Vehicles (“Every vehicle the garage has worked on, by plate and VIN, with its owner and its jobs.”), Insurance claims (“Vehicles repaired on an insurer’s claim.”), Bays and lifts (“Which job is on which bay.”) and Gate pass check (“A vehicle leaves only on a pass issued at collection.”).

For installers

An installer also has the Day board, Regular visits (“Contracts with customers for work every so many days.”) and Equipment installed, every piece of equipment installed or looked after, by serial number.

Set up a workshop

Kila’s set-up list for a new workshop, in order. Kila ticks each step off from what you record:

1. Business details and KRA PIN
2. Branch and workshop
3. Services and prices
4. Labour rates and operationsNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning and Catering
5. Parts and materials
6. TechniciansNot for: Laundry & dry-cleaning
7. M-Pesa till or paybill
8. First job

Some kinds of business have their own steps too: a garage adds Bays and lifts and Insurers and fleet accounts, a laundry Garment price list and express service (and has no labour rates or technicians step), and installers, contractors and cleaners Regular site visits. Each kind of business’s page lists its own.

Tip

How your jobs work (approval before work, the second check, deposits, the ready text) is set in Job settings on the job board; the checklists, release codes and uncollected items in Workshop settings. See The job board.

Reports that matter here

All reports are under Money › Reports. For a workshop, start with these:

Report	What Kila says it shows
Job card profitability	What each job card earned against parts and labour cost.
Service performance	Bookings, completions, no-shows, staff utilisation and service revenue.
Sales by product or service	What sells: quantity, revenue and cost for every product and service.
Payment method summary	Cash, M-Pesa, card and credit received, and refunds paid out.
Customer debt ageing	What customers owe on account, by how long it has been due.
Cashier shift reconciliation	Every shift: expected cash, counted cash and the variance.

Common questions

Can work start before the customer agrees to the price? Not on a priced job: Kila asks for the customer’s approval first. See Get an estimate approved.

How do I stop someone else collecting a customer’s phone? Use release codes: set Release code in Workshop settings. Each ticket then carries a code that the person collecting gives at the till. See Hand a job over and take payment.

Does the customer really get a text when the job is ready? Kila sends it, but SMS is in test mode for now: it is recorded, and nothing reaches the phone until an SMS provider is connected. See Tell the customer a job is ready.

What if it comes back? Link it to the earlier job: inside the warranty, labour is not charged. See Take back a job under warranty.

Try it in the demo

These demo businesses run as workshops, with made-up data. Each link fills in the person’s email: add the demo password the Kila team gave you.

• FixPoint RepairsRepairs workshopSign in as Kevin Mutiso (owner) (opens in a new tab)
• IA MotorsGarageSign in as Victor Ochieng (service manager) (opens in a new tab)
• Safi Dry CleanersDry cleaner and laundrySign in as Josephine Atieno (owner) (opens in a new tab)
• Jua Power SolarSolar installer (contractor)Sign in as Kamau Waweru (owner) (opens in a new tab)