Check in a vehicle and record visit details
Checking in a vehicle means creating its repair order. There is no separate check-in button or arrival step: the moment the repair order exists, the visit is active. The card lands in the first stage of the Workflow board (Dispatch, on the default board), and the visit's customer portal timeline starts with "Vehicle received." How the first stage anchors the board is covered in Workflow stages and operational defaults.
For a scheduled visit, you create the repair order from the appointment. For a walk-in, you create it directly. Either way you need the repair orders create permission; converting an appointment also needs the calendar events update permission.
The intake fields you record at check-in each have their own reference page, Set the Reason For Visit, Visit Type, odometer, and Promise Time, which explains what each field means and where it shows up later. This page covers where you enter them as the vehicle arrives.
Check in from an appointment
When a customer with an appointment arrives:
- Open Calendar and select the appointment.
- In the appointment details, click Create repair order. BayEngine creates the repair order and opens it.
The appointment's customer, vehicle, Reasons For Visit, Visit Type, Promise Time, and service advisor all carry over, so a well-built appointment checks in with two clicks. The appointment itself is linked to the new repair order, and marked Arrived unless the shop has turned Auto-Arrival off under Configurations > General > Hours and calendar; from then on, its details show a Go to repair order button instead, and clicking Create repair order again can never produce a duplicate.
Two things can block the button. It is disabled until the appointment has a vehicle ("Add a vehicle before creating a repair order"), so add one from the appointment editor first, as described in Create, reschedule, cancel, and manage appointments. And cancelled or no-show appointments cannot convert; for how those statuses work, see Manage online bookings, walk-ins, and no-shows.
Appointments do not hold an odometer reading. Read it off the dash and record it on the repair order with the odometer button described below. Shops that run auto-add inspection templates should also know that a repair order created from an appointment does not add them; start those inspections yourself from the Inspections tab.
Check in a walk-in
A walk-in visit starts on the Create repair order page. Three ways to get there:
- Workflow, then the Add repair order button.
- The plus button beside Search in the sidebar, then Repair Order. See Navigation, search, and basic concepts.
- New RO on a customer's page, which pre-fills the customer and vehicle.
The page is one form:
- Pick the customer. For a first-time visitor, click New customer; see Create and manage personal and business customers.
- Pick the vehicle, or click New vehicle to add it; see Add vehicles and correct vehicle information.
- Enter the odometer reading, in the shop's distance unit.
- Pick the Visit type: Drop off, Waiter, or Tow in. It defaults to Drop off.
- Enter one or more reasons for visit, in the customer's own words.
- Click Create repair order.
Only the customer and vehicle are required. Everything else can be filled in on the repair order afterward, but the odometer and reasons are easiest to capture while the customer is standing in front of you. Creating the repair order this way also creates any inspections your shop's auto-add inspection templates call for.
A visit does not have to start from this page. A quote built in advance as an Estimate converts into the repair order when the vehicle shows up; that path is covered in the Repair Order Workflow section of this knowledge base.
Where the visit details live on the repair order
The repair order opens on its Overview tab, with the odometer button in the page header. Three places hold the intake details:
The Visit Details card sits at the top of the Overview tab and shows the service advisor, technician, Visit Type, Promise Time, and Appointment. Change any field directly in the card; each selection saves immediately. Promise Time usually gets set here once you have looked at the day's workload and can commit to a pickup time; when one is set, the card shows it and flags it as it comes due.
The Reasons for Visit card, further down the same tab, is where you add, edit, reorder, or delete the customer's reported problems. Each reason becomes a concern group that the estimate is built around, which is why intake is the right time to get them down in the customer's words. Building the estimate itself is covered in the Estimates, Inspections, and Authorization section of this knowledge base.
The odometer button in the page header shows odometer in, or Set odometer. Click it to open the Edit odometer dialog, which has Odometer in, Odometer out, and an Odometer does not work checkbox for inoperable units. Record odometer in at arrival; odometer out belongs to pickup. Readings stay with the vehicle across visits, and vehicle cards use that history to estimate the current odometer.
Once these are recorded, check-in is done. The repair order waits in the first stage until someone picks it up, and moving it through the board is covered in the Repair Order Workflow section of this knowledge base.
What the customer sees
Creating a repair order sends nothing to the customer. The visit's customer portal exists from the moment the repair order does, and its timeline already shows "Vehicle received," but the customer typically first opens the portal when you Send an estimate or inspection. The portal and sending documents are covered in the Customer Communication and Portal section of this knowledge base.