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Learning paths by staff role

Everyone starts with the same page: Navigation, search, and basic concepts. It covers the sidebar, Search, the shop switcher, and the terms the rest of the documentation assumes. Read it first no matter what you do at the shop, then follow your role's path below.

Two things to know before you pick a path. BayEngine has three Shop Roles: Technician, Service Advisor, and Shop Administrator. A Shop Role is a descriptive label; your User Permissions decide what you can actually open and change, so if a page in your path is missing or read-only, ask whoever manages your users to check your permissions. And parts buying and bookkeeping are duties, not Shop Roles, so those two paths are for whoever carries the work, usually a service advisor or the shop administrator.

Most of this knowledge base is still being written. Topics named without a link are planned sections from the table of contents, not finished pages. When a topic you need has no page yet, contact support and we'll walk you through it directly.

Owner or shop administrator​

You set the shop up, keep the team's access right, and check the numbers. Start with New-shop onboarding and actually do the pass it describes, not just read it. It ends with your first Repair Order taken from estimate to payment, which is the fastest way to learn the product's spine.

Then read, in order:

  1. Users and Access: inviting staff, Shop Roles, and User Permissions.
  2. Shop Setup: the settings behind the onboarding pass, for when you need to change a labor rate or tax config later without redoing everything.
  3. Repair Order Workflow: what your advisors and technicians do all day, so you can read the Workflow board at a glance.
  4. Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting: Invoice Finalization, payments, and end-of-day work.
  5. Reporting and Analytics, once it exists. The Reports sidebar entry is a placeholder today.

You're done when the tax config shows Confirmed, every staff member is invited with permissions that match their job, and you've followed one Repair Order from creation through a collected payment.

Service advisor​

Yours is the longest path, because advisors touch everything the customer sees. Your daily pages are Calendar, Workflow, Inbox, Customers, and Documents.

Read, in order:

  1. Customers and Vehicles: creating customers, adding vehicles, Customer Contacts.
  2. Scheduling and Intake: appointments, check-in, Reason For Visit, and Promise Time.
  3. Estimates, Inspections, and Authorization: building an Estimate with Services, using Canned Services, sending to the customer, and recording authorizations.
  4. Repair Order Workflow: moving work through Workflow Stages and keeping the board honest.
  5. Customer Communication and Portal: texting, templates, and what the customer sees on the Customer Portal.
  6. The collection topics in Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting: taking a payment, deposits, and finalizing an Invoice.

Practice on a throwaway Repair Order; a mistaken or test Repair Order can be deleted afterward. You're done when you have booked an appointment, checked the vehicle in, built an Estimate that uses a Canned Service, Sent it, recorded the customer's authorization, finalized the Invoice, and collected the payment.

Technician​

Yours is the shortest path. A technician can be productive the first morning. Your daily home is the Workflow board and the Repair Orders assigned to you; Tasks holds work assigned to you or claimable by anyone with your role.

Read the inspection topics in Estimates, Inspections, and Authorization (performing an Inspection, recording Technician Concerns with photos), then Repair Order Workflow for moving stages and checking off work, then Staff, Time, and Shop Performance for how work time is tracked.

You're done when you have clocked in from the user menu, opened a Repair Order assigned to you, completed an Inspection with at least one photo, recorded a Technician Concern, and checked off your Labor Lines as the work finished.

Parts and inventory​

This path is for whoever quotes, orders, and receives parts. Your daily pages are Orders, Inventory, and Vendors, plus the Parts tab on each Repair Order, where part demand starts.

Read Parts, Orders, and Inventory end to end: Vendors, quoting and ordering, Purchase Orders, receiving (including partial and backordered receipts), and Inventory setup, counts, and pricing. Then read Returns, Cores, and Warranty, because sooner or later a part goes back. If you're bringing vendor or inventory lists from another system, the import section of New-shop onboarding explains what support can load for you.

You're done when you have added a Vendor, created a Purchase Order from a Repair Order's part demand, received it, and adjusted an Inventory quantity.

Bookkeeper​

Read Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting first, and get two concepts straight before anything else: Invoice Finalization is what makes a sale official, and the finalization date is the Revenue Date your accrual reporting uses. Then read Corrections and Recovery, so you know which mistakes staff can fix themselves and which need support.

Be aware that this path is ahead of the product in places. Reports and Billing in the sidebar are placeholders, and accounting exports are not documented yet. What you can work with today: payments and deposits recorded on Repair Orders and Counter Sales, Customer Credits, and finalized Invoice PDFs.

If you wear several hats​

At a three-person shop, one person is often the administrator, an advisor, and the parts buyer at once. Do the paths in that order: administrator first, because everyone else's path assumes the shop is set up, then advisor, then skim the parts path. Skip nothing in the advisor path; it is the one customers experience.