Running a multi-site garage group requires clear visibility across individual workshops while keeping processes and data consistent. A central garage management system can bring scheduling, technician time tracking, stock, customer records and reporting together across locations. TechMan’s multi-site functionality provides both site-level and group-level information, helping garage groups maintain operational control as they expand.
To see these features in action, book a demo today.
A second garage is a major leap for your business. More workshop capacity means access to more customers and a chance to grow revenue. But it also means another team to manage, more stock to handle and another set of numbers to track. It may also mean the operations that worked perfectly on the workshop floor become much harder to manage across two or three locations.
Expanding your business is almost always a positive sign, but the challenge is seeing what’s happening across your garage group as it grows. This is where the right workflows and a garage management system such as TechMan, designed for multi-site operations, can make a real difference.
In this guide, we discuss the challenges of managing multiple garage locations and what it takes to run a multi-site garage group.
A multi-site garage group runs multiple workshops under the same brand or ownership. Each garage location has its own team, ramps, technicians, stock and daily workloads, operating on its own but also as part of your wider business.
To understand how each location is performing individually, you may want answers to questions such as:
When you store data across separate spreadsheets, paper records and disconnected systems, answering these questions can be time-consuming.
With multiple garage locations, you can only be physically at one location at a time. When at an individual workshop, you can check what technicians are doing and investigate an issue in person. But with multiple locations, you may rely on phone calls, emails, spreadsheets and individual site managers to understand what is happening across the business. By the time you receive the information, it may already be outdated.
Another challenge with managing multiple garage locations is inconsistent processes between branches. It becomes difficult to compare sites if one records data differently.
Creating reports can become another challenge if each workshop maintains data in separate sheets that must be manually combined to understand your business’ performance.
The crux of the problem isn’t having too much information but having no clear way to manage and view it together.
The first step to get real-time visibility across multiple garage sites is to create a central source of information. You can use a multi-site garage management system to access operational data across the group.
For instance, TechMan’s multi-site functionality offers one central interface with a top-down view of all your locations, so you can drill down into individual sites.
It offers:
With the technician time-tracking feature, TechMan records job assignments and progress, helping managers understand how workshop time is used. This means you don’t need to ask every site for an update because you can rely on the information recorded in the system.
Here are some key features to look for in multi-site garage group software.
Your system should let you manage multiple locations without turning each workshop into a separate data silo. With TechMan’s dedicated multi-site functionality, you can manage every location from one central interface and drill down into individual garages.
More garage locations mean co-ordinating more technicians, jobs and bays. Use TechMan’s workshop calendar to manage jobs and schedules digitally and filter events by technician and job type. It also shows available hours to help your sites manage workshop capacity and avoid under- or overbooking.
TechMan’s reporting suite includes KPI dashboards for sales, profit, turnover, estimates and bookings. Technician reporting helps managers examine individual and team performance.
More bookings don’t always mean workshop time is being used effectively. TechMan tracks the time technicians spend on each job, monitors their performance and shows how workshop time is used.
Managing stock and parts across multiple locations can get harder. Use TechMan’s stock control functionality to maintain supplies and products, track inventory quantities and record purchase costs and selling prices. Make better purchasing decisions with complete stock information.
As you expand to new locations, you also need to find a better way to manage customer and vehicle information. TechMan’s customer management functionality covers vehicle history, scheduled jobs, automated reminders, SMS and email communication and a customer portal. These features help in delivering a complete customer experience.
Your system should also work with the other tools your workshop uses. With TechMan as your garage management system (GMS), you can integrate with accounting platforms (Sage, Xero, QuickBooks and KashFlow), parts suppliers and technical data providers.
TechMan has hands-on experience with helping garages manage their multi-site operations. Take CCM Garage in Surrey and Sussex.
We helped them move from an outdated paper-based management system when they faced significant operational challenges across their three garages. We implemented an online booking system for scheduling and automated email and text reminders for MOTs and services. We also helped them transfer their data and provided comprehensive on-site training to their staff.
Through its partnership with TechMan, CCM Garage improved workshop management, increased invoice value, reduced paper waste and improved customer service.
Read more TechMan case studies.
Adding new sites should create more opportunities, not force you to spend time collecting data from different locations.
With TechMan’s GMS, you get one central platform to manage all your locations and keep data consistent across individual sites and the wider group. Alongside multi-site management, you can bring together workshop scheduling, technician time tracking, stock control, customer management and more within the same system.
Whether you already operate multiple garages or plan to expand soon, learn how TechMan can help you maintain control as you grow.
With TechMan’s advanced features, you can better manage your multi-site garage workshop operations and keep things running smoothly.
Click here to see every TechMan feature, or contact us to request a demo now.
Explore TechMan in real-time in a working garage and see how our extensive integrations can simplify your operations and save hours of time every day.
