Revenue

This month

$0▲ 12%

Booking

Booked

Tomorrow · 8:00 AM

D. Harris · Kubota U55

500hr service

Job card

In progress

J. Wilson · Hilux KLR482

WOF inspection$75.00
Oil + filter service$189.00
Total incl. GST$303.60

Service reminder

Sent
Hi Rachael, the Hiace HNV083 is due for its WOF. Reply YES and we'll book it in.

Invoice #1046

$412.50
Paid · synced to Xero

Everything your workshop needs, in one place

Everything that ships today, area by area. We update the product every week, so sometimes this page can’t keep up.

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Bookings and scheduling

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on bookings and scheduling

Job cards and estimates

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

  • Sent by text or email. They approve from a link, no login, and it becomes the job.

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

  • Work the customer puts off stays on the vehicle and comes up next visit.

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

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

More on job cards and estimates

Customers and vehicles

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

  • Make, model, VIN, WoF and CoF from official records. No plate? Enter the VIN or chassis number.

  • Anything with a plate, and plenty without. Kilometres, miles or engine hours, whichever it uses.

  • Spent, owing and every visit, with WoF, CoF and rego expiry on each vehicle.

More on customers and vehicles

Invoicing and payments

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

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

  • EFTPOS on the spot, or a pay link by text or email.

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

  • Retail, trade, wholesale and fleet, from one catalogue.

More on invoicing and payments

Reminders and messaging

Customers come back without anyone ringing around.

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

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

  • Texts and emails from the job or the customer file, with templates for the ones you send every day.

More on reminders and messaging

Parts and stock

Counts that stay right without anyone touching a spreadsheet.

  • 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.

  • Low and out-of-stock flags, and purchase orders drafted from what’s low.

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

Accounting and reports

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

  • Invoices and payments sync to Xero and back. You don’t need Xero to use Hoist.

  • Sales, receivables, GST, stock and team, over any date range you pick.

  • Revenue, margin and receivables on one screen.

More on accounting and reports

Also in the box

  • Time clock: clock on to the shift and on to each job
  • Timesheets with manager approval, exported to payroll
  • Roles and permissions per staff member
  • Google sign-in
  • Your data stored in New Zealand

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. Hoist runs in the browser on a phone or tablet, so 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 text or 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. There is one plan with every feature in it and three users included, 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 with no card required, so you can put a few real jobs through before committing.

Run it all from one screen

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