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Complete, cancel, restore, print, or prepare a Repair Order for invoicing

Every Repair Order ends one of three ways. Most finalize into an Invoice, which is the normal ending even when the customer declined everything. A legitimate visit that never became a transaction is closed without sale. And a Repair Order that should never have existed (a duplicate, a test, a mistake) is deleted. This page covers all three endings: how to get an RO ready to invoice, how to close or delete one, what can be undone afterward, and what you can print. Everything after Invoice Finalization, including collecting payment and reopening or correcting the Invoice, is covered in the Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting section of this knowledge base.

The statuses a Repair Order moves through​

A Repair Order has six statuses: Open, Invoiced, Partially Paid, Paid, Fully Refunded, and Closed No Sale. The path is one-way:

  • An Open RO can finalize to Invoiced or close to Closed No Sale.
  • A finalized RO becomes Partially Paid and then Paid as payments cover the total. A paid RO becomes Fully Refunded when Invoice Refunds reduce its active Invoice to zero.
  • Paid, Fully Refunded, and Closed No Sale are terminal. The RO leaves the Workflow board on its own, from whatever stage it was in, and accepts no further payments.

Deletion is not a status. A deleted Repair Order disappears from the product entirely, and only a never-finalized RO can be deleted.

Note what "complete" means here. Marking every Service done and dragging the card to Ready for Pickup is operational progress, covered in Track Service progress and work time and Move work through Workflow Stages; none of it changes the financial status. The one action that completes the visit financially is Invoice Finalization, and the sale is reported on the finalization date (the Revenue Date), not the date the work finished or the date it was paid.

Prepare a Repair Order for invoicing​

Finalizing happens on the RO's Payment tab. While the RO is Open, the Repair Order Summary card there has a Finalize Invoice button.

Before it will go through, the Repair Order has to be decided and the shop has to be ready:

  • Every visible Service needs a customer decision. If any Service is still undecided, the button is disabled with "Services are still awaiting a customer decision". Recording decisions is covered in Record authorizations, declines, and deferred work.
  • Authorized work that totals $0 is blocked: add pricing or decline the services. A visit where the customer declined every Service does finalize, as a $0 Invoice that lands directly at Paid, keeping a posted record of what was recommended and declined. Closing without sale is not the right ending for that visit. Whether declined recommendations also print on ordinary paying Invoices is the Include declined services switch described in Payment methods and customer-document settings.
  • The shop must be launch-ready (public name, phone, address, timezone) and its tax config confirmed, as described in Shop identity, contact information, hours, and closures. A part with an unresolved core also blocks finalization; see the Returns, Cores, and Warranty section of this knowledge base.

Clicking Finalize Invoice first checks the authorized Services on the Work tab. If any are incomplete, Complete services? lists them before you continue. Completing them stops any active Service timers and checks off every remaining Labor Line and Part Line. Use Edit time log beside a Service to leave finalization, open that Service's Activity Timeline on the Work tab, and correct its recorded time.

Once every listed Work-tab Service is complete, confirm the odometer out reading (or mark the odometer inoperable), then finalize.

Finalization creates the Invoice, freezes its financial facts (customer, vehicle, tax treatment, every line and total) as an immutable snapshot, stamps the Revenue Date, and sets the payment terms and due date. A deposit collected earlier applies to the Invoice immediately: the RO lands at Partially Paid with the remaining balance, or straight at Paid if the deposit covered the whole total. Deposits are covered in Collect deposits and revise previously authorized work.

From there the Payment tab switches to collecting: recording payments, Send invoice, and Print Invoice. Sending is covered in Send Estimates, Inspections, and Invoices; collecting, reopening, and correcting are the Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting section's topics "Collect partial, split, remote, and deposited payments" and "Finalize, reopen, or correct an Invoice".

Close a Repair Order without sale​

This is the cancel action, for a real visit that ended before any transaction: the customer declined and left, no work was needed, or you could not service the vehicle. Open the Repair order actions menu on the Visit Details card of the RO's Overview tab and choose Close without sale. The same button appears on the Payment tab when the RO has no Services. The dialog asks for a reason (Customer declined, No work needed, Unable to service vehicle, or Other) and an optional note; a note is required for Other. Both are kept in the RO's activity history.

Closing without sale requires an Open RO with nothing on it that belongs on an Invoice:

  • A completed Service must be invoiced, not closed away.
  • An authorized Service must be declined first, so the record shows the authorization was withdrawn.
  • Any active payment, such as a deposit, must be voided or refunded first.
  • If every Service was declined, closing is blocked; finalize the $0 Invoice instead, as above.

The RO leaves the board and its status becomes Closed No Sale (a gray badge on the Documents page). It creates no Invoice, no revenue, and no balance. The visit stays visible in the customer's document list, but because no Invoice exists it adds nothing to the vehicle's service history; see Understand vehicle ownership, service history, and historical invoices.

Delete a Repair Order​

Delete is for a Repair Order that should not exist at all: a duplicate, one created by mistake, or a test record from training. It is the same Repair order actions menu, the red Delete Repair Order item, with the same reason-and-note dialog. A deleted RO disappears from the Documents list, the Workflow board, and the customer and vehicle pages. Its number is not reused. The deletion itself is retained for audit as a shop activity entry carrying the reason and note.

Two things block deletion. A Repair Order with finalized invoice history (Invoiced, Partially Paid, Paid, or Fully Refunded) cannot be deleted; a finalized record that should not stand is a Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting problem, not a delete. And active payments must be voided or refunded first, same as closing.

Closing without sale needs the repair orders update permission; deleting needs repair orders delete. A menu item you lack permission for is disabled with a tooltip saying so; see Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions.

What can be undone​

  • A finalized Invoice can be reopened. Invoice Reopening is a permissioned reversal that returns the RO to Open for editing and re-finalizing, available until accounting export or closeout locks the Invoice. It is covered under "Finalize, reopen, or correct an Invoice" in the Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting section.
  • A Repair Order closed without sale cannot be reopened. If it was closed by mistake and the vehicle is still in the lot, create a new Repair Order for the visit.
  • A Fully Refunded Repair Order stays Fully Refunded. Its original Invoice and Refunds remain part of customer and accounting history.
  • A deleted Repair Order has no in-app restore. The record is kept, so contact support if one was deleted in error.

The print output is the Printable Invoice. Once the RO is finalized, Print Invoice on the Payment tab opens the finalized Invoice as a PDF in a new tab, ready to print or save. The PDF renders the frozen Invoice snapshot, so it shows the same numbers no matter when you print it.

Before finalization there is nothing to print: BayEngine has no printout of an un-finalized Repair Order and no paper work order for technicians, who work from the RO's Work tab on screen. If the customer wants the numbers before finalization, send the Estimate from the RO's Estimate tab instead.