Feature lists all look identical — every product "has tickets" and "has a POS". The differences that decide whether you'll still be happy in a year only show up under specific questions. Here are the seven that work, each with the demo test that can't be faked.
Not seven modules — one trail. Online booking becomes a ticket, ticket becomes an invoice, invoice sets the warranty, warranty claim finds the original job. If the demo jumps between screens that don't reference each other, you're buying separate tools wearing one logo.
Buying a used phone from the public and reselling it falls under margin schemes across the UK and EU: VAT on the margin, and an invoice that must not show a VAT amount. Ask to see that exact invoice. Vendors who treat used devices as normal products will show you a receipt your accountant would reject.
Deposits are the daily reality of special-order parts and expensive repairs. The test: deposit today, balance at collection split card/cash. Count the workarounds.
Name your actual site. If the booking tool only works as a plugin on one CMS, your website platform now controls your shop system — and a future site redesign silently becomes a shop-system migration too.
Count it with them: base + booking + SMS + users + branches + webshop. Entry prices are marketing; the configured total is the truth. Insist they write it down.
The most revealing question in the room. You want to hear: full data export, anytime, in a usable format. Hesitation here tells you how the relationship will feel in year two. (Our answer: export anytime, including if you leave us — a vendor confident in the product doesn't need an exit toll.)
Not "do you have support" — who, when, in what time zone, and have they ever stood at a repair counter. Saturday morning is your busiest hour and every vendor's quietest.
Scoring: no vendor aces all seven — including us on any given day. But a vendor who fails questions 2, 3 and 6 will cost you real money and real freedom. Those three are disqualifiers; the rest are trade-offs.
a1RepairFlow is the full platform for repair shops — POS, tickets, invoicing, inventory, online booking and webshop sync, from €59/month. Try everything free for 14 days, no credit card.