Tyre fitting software

The registration gives you the vehicle, not the tyre

A registration lookup returns the make, model, derivative, engine and fuel. It does not reliably return the tyre size on the car, and treating it as though it does is the single most common way a wrong tyre gets ordered.

The reasons are mundane. A model is offered with several wheel sizes, the car has been on aftermarket wheels since 2019, the previous owner fitted a staggered set or the vehicle has run flats and the customer does not know it. The plate cannot see any of that.

So use the lookup for what it is good at, which is identifying the vehicle and its history, then confirm the size from the sidewall or the placard in the door shut. A quoting flow that asks the customer to read the sidewall, with a picture showing where to look, gets it right far more often than one that assumes.

Record the full designation rather than just the size. Width, profile, rim, load index, speed rating and whether it is run flat, extra load or has a specific manufacturer approval marking. A tyre that is the right size and the wrong load index is the wrong tyre, and on a van it is a serious one.

Stock is the business

Every tyre on the rack is cash sitting still, and the sizes that sell are a small fraction of the sizes that exist. The question the system has to answer instantly is whether you have it, and if not, who can get it today and at what buying price.

Price changes underneath you. Tyre buying prices move with supply in a way that brake pads do not, so a price list typed in last March is a price list that is losing money on some lines and losing sales on others. Whatever system you use needs updating to be quick enough that somebody actually does it.

Watch the slow lines rather than the fast ones. The fast movers look after themselves. What quietly costs a fitter money is the set of four ordered for a job that was cancelled, which has now sat on the rack for eleven months in a size nobody else asks for.

Be realistic about what a general workshop system will do here. Most hold parts against a job and a supplier, which is useful, and few hold the kind of live tyre stock a fast fit centre wants. Ask directly rather than assuming, and ask what happens on the day of a stock count.

Booking by registration, and quoting a price that holds

Booking a tyre job is a different shape from booking a service. The customer wants a price before they commit, the job takes half an hour rather than half a day, and if your page is slow or asks for too much they are on somebody else page within the minute.

The price has to include everything. Fitting, a new valve, balancing and disposal are not optional extras, and a headline price that turns into a larger figure at the counter is the fastest way to lose a customer who will tell people. Show the all in price per tyre and itemise underneath it.

Alignment is the honest upsell and it belongs in the flow rather than at the till. Somebody buying two front tyres because the insides are worn has a problem the tyres are a symptom of, and saying so before fitting is better business than mentioning it afterwards.

Take a deposit on a special order. A set of four in an unusual size, ordered in for somebody who then does not appear, is money on a rack for a year. This is the part of a tyre business where deposits earn their keep most clearly.

Mobile fitting

Mobile fitting changes the constraint from bay availability to travel time, and a diary that does not understand where the jobs are will cheerfully send a van across a town and back twice in an afternoon.

The simplest workable approach is to group by area and by half day rather than to promise precise times, then confirm a narrower window the morning of the job. It asks less of the software and it survives contact with traffic.

Take payment at the roadside rather than invoicing afterwards. A card taken on the driveway, or a payment link sent the moment the work is done, removes the awkward follow up entirely, and a mobile job billed on terms is the one most likely to still be unpaid a fortnight later.

Stock in the van is its own problem. Loading for the day against confirmed bookings is straightforward. Carrying a speculative range is how a van ends up with eleven tyres nobody has asked for and no room for the job that came in at eleven.

Part worn tyres and disposal

Selling part worn tyres is legal and heavily conditioned. They must be marked PART-WORN in the prescribed way, they must meet a minimum tread depth greater than the legal minimum for use, and they must be free from specified damage and correctly inspected before sale. Trading Standards enforce it and prosecutions do happen.

The legal minimum tread for a car tyre in use is 1.6mm across the central three quarters of the breadth and around the entire circumference. The requirement for a part worn tyre at the point of sale is higher than that. Read the current regulations rather than working from what the trade says, because the details matter and this page is not a legal source.

Keep the record either way. What was sold, what it was inspected against and who inspected it. If you do not want that burden, the simplest answer is not to sell them.

Disposal is a duty of care, not a courtesy. Waste tyres must go to a licensed carrier and you should hold the transfer documentation. Charge for it as a named line on the invoice rather than absorbing it, because absorbing a real cost invisibly is how a per tyre margin disappears.

Where a general workshop system still fits

Plenty of tyre businesses are not only tyre businesses. A fast fit unit doing tyres, exhausts, brakes and air conditioning has a workshop with a tyre bay in it, and the general system is the right base with the tyre specifics bolted to it.

The dividing line is roughly how much of your money is sitting on the rack. If stock depth and live buying prices are the thing that decides your month, look hard at how the system handles them and be prepared to buy something specialist. If the tyres are one of five things you sell, they usually are not.

Youzse covers the workshop side: registration lookups with MOT history, online booking by registration, customer facing booking links, job cards, a parts catalogue, purchase orders and suppliers, deposits, card payments and payment links. It does not hold live tyre stock the way a dedicated tyre system does, and a fitter whose business is stock depth should know that before starting a trial. Garage plans start at £59 a month, with 30 days free and no card required.