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The Hoist dashboard: a good morning greeting with the day in one line, then cards for cars booked, jobs on the floor, work waiting and hours, with the latest activity below

Bookings and scheduling

The whole day across every bay and tech, and easy to move.

  • One calendar, every tech. A column per bay or tech, by day or week, plus Unassigned for jobs not yet allocated.

  • Drag to reschedule. Drag a booking to a new time or tech. The job card updates with it.

  • Capacity by month. How full each day is, a month at a time.

  • Online bookings. Customers book from your own website, into the slots you allow. Confirm each one yourself, or let Hoist confirm them.

  • Booking reminders. A text the day before. Auto-send on or off, and you can always send one yourself.

More on bookings and scheduling
The Hoist calendar for Wednesday 14 October with a column for each technician: the hours booked against their day, and bookings showing the customer, vehicle, rego, job and work order

Job cards and estimates

Enter the job once. Everything after that is already on the card.

  • Estimates customers approve online. Sent by email. They approve from a link, no login, and it becomes the job.

  • Work authorisation, job by job. Find more on the hoist, send that job for approval, carry on when they say yes.

  • Deferred work, saved for next time. Work the customer puts off stays on the vehicle and comes up next visit.

  • Status moves itself. A tech clocks on, the job is in progress. Every job done, the work order is ready.

  • Inspections, templates, margin. Photo inspections on your own templates, job templates for everyday work, live margin on every line.

More on job cards and estimates
A Hoist work order: the customer, their Hilux with its WoF expired, and a pending front brake job with its labour and parts

Customers and vehicles

Type a rego and the vehicle is on file, with every visit after it.

  • Type a rego, get the vehicle. Make, model, VIN and the WoF date from official records, and the CoF date is entered when it is renewed. No plate? Enter the VIN or chassis number.

  • Cars, trucks, bikes, boats and machinery. Anything with a plate, and plenty without. Kilometres, miles or engine hours, whichever it uses.

  • The whole history on one file. Spent, owing and every visit, with the WoF and CoF dates on each vehicle.

More on customers and vehicles
A vehicle file in Hoist: identity with rego and VIN, mechanical details, odometer, and WoF expiry

Invoicing and payments

Invoice straight off the job card, then take the money now or later.

  • Invoice from the job card. Parts and labour carry across on their own. One click makes the GST invoice, nothing retyped.

  • Paid at the counter, or later. EFTPOS on the spot, or a pay link by text or email.

  • Account customers. Payment terms, statements, deposits, part payments, and several invoices paid at once.

  • Split invoices. Charge part of a job to an insurer or another payer, and each payer gets their own invoice.

  • Insurance excess. Enter the excess once and it comes off the insurer’s invoice and onto the customer’s.

  • Four price levels. Retail, trade, wholesale and fleet, from one catalogue.

More on invoicing and payments
The Hoist invoices list: each invoice with its customer, vehicle, paid or unpaid status, when it was sent, the total and what is still owing

Reminders and messaging

Customers come back without anyone ringing around.

  • WoF and CoF reminders. Hoist watches the date on every vehicle and sends the text or email itself.

  • Service reminders. Set the date and it goes out. Works for anything you service.

  • Two-way texting. Texts and emails from the job or the customer file, with templates for the ones you send every day. Replies land in a thread against the customer.

  • Connected mailbox. Workshop email lands beside the job it is about. One mailbox is included and you can add more.

More on reminders and messaging
The reminders tab on a vehicle in Hoist: scheduled service and WoF reminders, the status of each and the channel it goes out on

Parts and stock

Counts that stay right without anyone touching a spreadsheet.

  • Stock counts keep themselves. Put a part on a job and it’s held for that job. Start the job and it comes off the shelf count. Take it back off and the count goes back up.

  • Never caught short. Low and out-of-stock flags, and purchase orders drafted from what’s low.

  • Suppliers and stocktake. Several suppliers per product with a preferred one, supplier bills, and a stocktake with a printable count sheet.

  • Markup rules. Set your markup once and every part on a job prices itself.

Hoist inventory: parts with codes, categories, cost and retail price, stock on hand, and low and out badges where stock has run down

Accounting and reports

Xero and the reports, kept current as the work happens.

  • Xero, both ways. Invoices and payments sync to Xero and back, and approved timesheets go to Xero Payroll. You don’t need Xero to use Hoist.

  • Reports. Sales, payments, receivables, stock and team hours, over any date range you pick.

  • Day dashboard. The day at a glance: what is booked, hours, what is on the floor, what is waiting, and your to do list.

More on accounting and reports
The Hoist reports library: financial, operations, staff, inventory and customer reports, each with a one-line description of the question it answers

Also in the box

  • Hoist mobile app for iOS and Android
  • HoistPay: collect payments online and have them reconcile automatically
  • One clock: tap a job or an activity and your day is one timeline
  • Timesheets with manager approval, exported to payroll
  • Roles and permissions per staff member
  • Google sign-in
  • Microsoft sign-in
  • Your data stored in New Zealand
  • Pay for Hoist by card, or bill it through Blackfern

What workshops ask before they switch

What should workshop management software actually do for a NZ workshop?
At minimum it should carry a job from the first phone call to the paid invoice without you re-typing anything: booking and bay scheduling, a digital job card the technician updates from the floor, parts and labour priced on that job, a GST invoice that lands in your accounting system, and an automatic reminder that brings the customer back. Anything that makes you enter the same detail twice is costing you time every single day.
Can my technicians update jobs from the workshop floor?
Yes. With the Hoist mobile app for iOS and Android, or Hoist in any phone or tablet browser, technicians can create a job, add parts, clock on and off, and update progress at the vehicle without walking back to a desk.
Does Hoist send WOF and service reminders automatically?
Yes. Hoist tracks every vehicle’s WoF, CoF and service dates and sends reminders by text or email on its own. Auto-send can be switched on or off per reminder rule, and you can send one yourself at any time. This matters more from 1 November 2026, when longer WoF periods stretch the gap between visits.
Can I send a quote and get the customer to approve it before work starts?
Yes. You send an estimate by email, the customer approves it from a link without logging in, and the approved estimate becomes the job. Extra work found during the job can be sent for approval the same way, so there is a record of who said yes to what.
Can I tell whether a job actually made money?
Yes. Job cards show live margin as parts and labour go on, technicians clock on to each job so real hours are recorded against it, and the reports compare hours on jobs with hours clocked on, per technician, over any date range.
Does Hoist handle parts, stock and supplier ordering?
Yes. A part is held the moment it goes on a job, comes off the shelf count when the job starts, and goes back if it comes off the job, all on its own. You can raise purchase orders by hand or have them drafted from low stock, keep several suppliers per product with a preferred one, record supplier bills, and run a stocktake with a printable count sheet. A price matrix works the sell price out from cost.
Can I run digital vehicle inspections instead of paper checklists?
Yes. Build your own templates with pass, fail or warning items, yes or no questions, measurements, dropdowns, checklists and free text, and attach photos to any item. Flag severity on anything that fails, then print or download the finished inspection as a PDF for the customer.
Is Hoist suitable for a one-person workshop, or only larger shops?
Both. Every feature is in the one plan, so a solo operator gets the same job cards, reminders and Xero sync as a multi-technician shop. Job templates for the work you repeat daily, a WoF or a standard service, save the most time when you’re the one doing everything.
Can I control what each of my staff can see?
Yes. Role presets for Owner, Manager, Technician, Receptionist and Staff set the permissions in one go, and you can adjust any of them per person. The calendar has a technician view, so the floor sees its own day rather than the whole system.
How do I move off paper job cards or spreadsheets?
You don’t have to move everything at once. Most workshops start by running new jobs through Hoist while existing work finishes on the old system, and we can bring your customer and vehicle records across for you. There’s a 14-day free trial, so you can put a few real jobs through before committing.

Try it on your own jobs

Every part of Hoist is free for 14 days, or we can show you around first.

Start free trialBook a demo

Or call us on 04 242 0451