Shop setup — first work order, adding staff, connecting QuickBooks

A clean Shop Starter or Shop Pro account takes about 20 minutes to wire up. Do these five things and you're operational.

1. Configure your shop profile

Your shop profile populates every form, invoice, and customer-facing PDF — so it's the first thing to get right.

1. Sign in and open Shop → Settings.
2. Fill in shop name, address, phone, email, hours of operation, and tax rate.
3. Upload your logo (PNG with transparent background is best). It appears on all customer-facing documents and — on Shop Pro — on white-label reports.
4. Click Save.

2. Create your first work order

The fastest way to learn TemplateVault is to ticket a real job — even a small one.

1. Click Work Orders → New Work Order (or visit /shop/work-orders/).
2. Search a customer by name, or click + New Customer and enter name, phone, and email.
3. Add the vehicle by VIN. TemplateVault decodes year/make/model/trim and pre-fills the work order.
4. Add the customer complaint, then add line items (labor lines and parts lines). The AI Repair Estimator can suggest realistic labor hours and parts ranges if you type a symptom.
5. Save and click Run Work Order Narrator to generate a plain-English customer summary you can paste into the invoice or text to the customer.

3. Add staff with the right roles

TemplateVault supports unlimited staff on all Shop plans with five role-based permission sets. Pick the narrowest role that lets the person do their job.

1. Open Shop → Staff and click + Invite staff.
2. Enter their email, name, and select a role.
3. Click Send invitation. They receive an email to create their password and accept the invite.
4. Repeat for each team member. You can change roles or revoke access any time.

4. Turn on the Staff Time Clock

The Staff Time Clock is built into the Shop Dashboard. Once staff are added, they can clock in and out from the dashboard — no separate time-tracking app required.

1. Each staff member signs in to /shop/dashboard.html.
2. On the dashboard they'll see a Time Clock card with their name and a single Clock In button.
3. They tap it at the start of shift; tap Clock Out when they leave. Today's hours and weekly totals roll up automatically.
4. Owners and Managers can export weekly time totals for payroll from Reports → Staff Hours.

5. Connect QuickBooks Online (or FreshBooks)

Sync customers and invoices to your books so you stop double-entering data.

QuickBooks Online

1. Open Shop → Settings → Integrations.
2. Click Connect QuickBooks and sign in to your QuickBooks Online company.
3. Authorize TemplateVault. You'll be redirected back to settings and the integration status will say Connected.
4. On any invoice, click Sync to QuickBooks. The customer is created or matched and the invoice posts to QBO.

FreshBooks

1. Same path: Settings → Integrations → Connect FreshBooks.
2. Authorize, and the same one-click sync flow works on every invoice.

6. What to do next

• Set up your parts catalog at Shop → Vendors so line items price themselves on every work order.
• Connect Square in Settings → Integrations to send payment links straight from any invoice.
• Read Understanding Your Tiers if you need to know what Shop Pro adds (AI Wiring Assistant, I-CAR-referenced guidance, collision tools).
• Watch your Shop Intelligence Dashboard after a week of real jobs — it surfaces job throughput, technician efficiency, and parts margin.