Set up shop fees, discounts and customer terms

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1. Find the setup page

Sign in as the owner, an administrator or another employee allowed to change company settings. Click the Settings gear, choose Company, open Financials and select Fees, Discounts & Documents. Use this page for charges added after parts and labor have been priced, discounts staff may offer, and standard wording customers see. It is not where you set the normal hourly labor rate or parts markup.

• Go to: Settings gear → Company → Financials → Fees, Discounts & Documents.
• Set normal parts and labor prices under Pricing & Profitability.
• Return here for shop fees, discount choices and wording printed for customers.

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2. Add a fee your shop charges regularly

Open Fees and start with Company default so every location can use the same charge. Name the fee in language your employees understand. The Customer label is especially important because that wording appears to the customer. Choose Fixed amount when the charge is always the same, Percentage when it changes with the job value, or Per quantity when it is charged for each item. For example, a tire shop could create Tire disposal at $4 per tire. A general repair shop could create Shop supplies at 2.5% of the order, with a $25 maximum. Choose whether the charge applies to the whole order, a service, parts or labor. Only mark it taxable after confirming the rule with your accountant or tax adviser. Use Preview to enter a sample job amount and make sure the result is what you expect.

• Example 1: Tire disposal — $4 per tire; customer sees “Tire disposal.”
• Example 2: Shop supplies — 2.5% of the order, never more than $25.
• Example 3: Environmental fee — fixed $8 when your shop actually uses that charge.

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3. Add discounts staff may offer

Open Discounts and create choices that match how your business actually sells. Examples include Courtesy discount, Fleet discount, First responder discount or a fixed manager-approved adjustment. Choose a fixed dollar amount, a percentage or an amount per item. Set a minimum sale amount if the discount should apply only to larger jobs, and set a maximum so an unusually expensive repair does not receive an unintended reduction. Turn on Manager approval required when an advisor may propose the discount but should not make the final decision. The customer total does not decrease while that discount is waiting for approval. The manager opens the document, chooses Approve or Reject and enters a short business reason.

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4. Decide whether every shop uses the same amount

If the business has one shop, choose Company default and continue. If it has several shops, Company default means every location uses the same fee or discount. You do not need to create the same item again for each shop. Create a separate shop version only when one location truly charges a different amount. For example, if one county charges a higher tire-disposal cost, that shop can have its own Tire disposal amount while the other locations keep the company amount. When an advisor works on a document, VMOTEK automatically uses the amount for that document's shop. If that shop has no special version, it uses the company amount.

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5. Set the standard words customers will see

Open Customer document terms and choose where the wording belongs: Estimate, Work order or Invoice. Customer notes can explain payment expectations or helpful service information. Warranty text states the warranty your shop offers. Disclaimer text contains limitations your business has reviewed. Signature text explains what the customer agrees to when approving or signing. Internal instructions are reminders for employees and are not printed for customers. Save as a draft while the wording is being reviewed. When the owner is satisfied, choose Make active. From then on, new customer documents use that wording. Changing it later affects future documents only; it does not change an estimate or invoice already sent to a customer.

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6. Use a fee or discount on an estimate, work order or invoice

Open the customer document and scroll to Fees & discounts. Choose Fee or Discount, select one of the choices your company created and enter the quantity if needed. For a four-tire disposal charge, enter 4. VMOTEK shows the added fee, the discount and the new customer total. If the discount needs a manager, it is clearly marked Pending and is not deducted yet. After approval, VMOTEK recalculates the total and open balance. The same customer-friendly label appears in the document and PDF so the customer can understand why the amount was added or reduced.

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7. What VMOTEK saves automatically

The advisor does not need to understand or manage an audit system. VMOTEK automatically saves which fee or discount was used, how the amount was calculated, who approved a discount and what customer wording was active. It locks that record at the normal business milestone: when the customer approves an estimate, when the work order is completed, or when the invoice is sent. This simply means that if the owner changes a fee from $4 to $5 next month, last month's invoice still shows the original $4 charge. A document cannot be completed while a required discount decision is still pending.

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8. See whether fees and discounts are helping

Go to Reports → Commercial Controls to see how much the shop collected in fees and how much it gave away in discounts. Review unusually frequent discounts by shop or advisor and confirm they support a real business reason. Compare a fee with the cost it is meant to recover. Retire choices employees no longer use so the service-counter list stays short. Setup & Readiness also tells the owner when no fee, discount or customer wording has been configured.

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9. A simple way to introduce this to your team

Start small. Set up only the two or three fees your shop truly charges and the discounts employees already understand. Decide which discounts an advisor may use without asking and which require a manager. Review the exact wording the customer will see. Then create one test estimate, apply a fee and discount, approve it as a manager, complete the work order and open the invoice PDF. Confirm that every label and amount would make sense to a customer before using the setup on live work.

• Use customer labels such as “Tire disposal,” not accounting abbreviations.
• Do not create a negative fee when you mean discount.
• Require manager approval for discounts that can materially reduce margin.
• Keep employee-only instructions out of customer notes.
• Review warranty and disclaimer language with the appropriate business adviser.
• Let VMOTEK save the history automatically as the job moves forward.