Use the Setup & Readiness Center to prepare every shop

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1. Open the readiness center

Sign in as an owner, company administrator or staff member with Settings permission. Select the Settings gear in the upper-right corner. On the Settings Hub, select Setup & Readiness. The top card shows an overall percentage, completed areas, total areas, required completion and the scope being evaluated. Treat the percentage as a navigation aid, not a certification or a reason to configure a feature the business does not use.

• Navigation: Settings gear → Setup & Readiness.
• Needs attention shows incomplete and deliberately dismissed areas.
• All shows the full operating picture, including completed evidence.
• Complete is useful when an administrator needs to verify what the system actually found.

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2. Understand required, optional and dismissed status

Required areas establish the minimum foundation for reliable operation. Company and shop identity, team responsibility, taxes and numbering, and commercial pricing require deliberate configuration and cannot be dismissed merely to improve the percentage. Optional areas represent real capabilities that may not apply to every business on day one. A consumer-only shop may postpone fleet setup; a shop that does not text customers may leave SMS unconfigured. Select Dismiss optional item only after making that business decision. VMOTEK retains the dismissal on the server, shows it as dismissed rather than complete and allows it to be restored later. Logging out, changing browsers or using another device does not erase it.

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3. Read the evidence before changing anything

Every readiness row shows why the configuration matters, current evidence, a recommended starting point, scope and the last recorded update when available. Pricing & documents reports taxes, numbering, matrices, labor rates, expired active exemptions and whether a fee or discount policy is present. Team & workflow reports staff and bays. Repeatable service reports services, inspection templates and invalid published package links. Payments & communications distinguishes a saved connection from operational health by checking Stripe charge readiness, connected Gmail senders, failed email or SMS records, the Twilio sender and the latest QuickBooks synchronization. Fleet evidence includes preventive-maintenance reminders and accepted portal memberships—not merely invitations. Evidence is intentionally concise: use Configure to inspect the detailed record rather than assuming a count proves the content is correct.

• A nonzero count means records exist; an accountable owner must still review rates, names, permissions and applicability.
• A timestamp identifies the underlying update, not the time someone viewed the readiness page.
• Recommended defaults are rollout guidance. A documented business or jurisdictional requirement may justify a different policy.
• Configuration affects future workflow; finalized estimates, work orders and invoices retain their saved pricing and tax evidence.

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4. Resolve the business foundation first

Start with Company profile and Shop profiles. Confirm the legal or trading company name, monitored email, address, country and currency. Then confirm the customer-facing name, address and currency for every active shop. These values appear throughout documents, receiving, taxes and reports. In an All shops view, VMOTEK identifies locations with incomplete address or currency evidence. Open the configuration link, save the underlying shop and return to Setup & Readiness. Select Recheck to calculate the status from the newly saved record.

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5. Configure people, dispatch and commercial policy

Add individual staff accounts, assign roles and limit each person to the shops where they work. Then configure bays and the dispatch method used by each location. Pricing should be policy-driven before live estimating begins: create the normal parts pricing matrix, standard labor-rate class, sales tax and document numbering. Preview representative costs and hours. A shop override should exist only for an approved location difference. Customer tax-exemption evidence belongs on the customer record; a one-job exception belongs on that transaction with the responsible actor and reason.

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6. Prepare repeatable service and operating data

Create inspection templates and publish the services the shop performs repeatedly. Vehicle-aware service packages can link inventory items, labor, measured consumables and checklist tasks; define vehicle applicability; include a base quantity; and calculate an explainable overage. Import or create customers, vehicles, vendors, catalogs and company-wide inventory item definitions. Quantities remain location-owned when opening stock is loaded, a purchase order is received or inventory is transferred. Readiness reports whether foundational records exist, while the implementation owner verifies sample records and complete workflows.

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7. Validate procurement, payments and communication

A single shop can operate purchasing through purchase orders, approvals and receiving. Connected multi-shop operations can add purchase requests, consolidated demand, centralized approval and inventory-transfer policy. Configure Stripe when the shop will collect connected payments, Gmail for customer-facing email, Twilio only when SMS consent and account setup are ready, and QuickBooks Online when accounting synchronization is part of rollout. Readiness may recognize configured integrations or operating evidence, but the administrator must still send a test email, complete a test payment in the appropriate mode and reconcile a test accounting result.

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8. Use company and shop scope correctly

An all-shops administrator can review the company scope, see location exceptions and select an individual shop. A shop-scoped manager sees only authorized location work; the readiness API fails closed if a person requests another shop directly. Company-wide master data and policy appear where they apply, while bays, dispatch, local profiles and legitimate overrides stay location-aware. Do not grant all-shops access merely so someone can clear a setup task. Correct the employee's role and shop assignment first.

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9. Perform the final operational proof

A high readiness percentage is not the final test. Use representative non-production records to complete the real lifecycle: create or find a customer and vehicle, make an appointment or intake, create an estimate, apply pricing, obtain approval, open a work order, apply a service package, assign or claim it according to shop policy, reserve or order a part, receive it, complete labor and inspection tasks, invoice, email, collect payment and mark the vehicle Delivered. For a multi-shop account, also test one authorized transfer and one denied cross-shop action. For a fleet account, test portal access, preventive-maintenance creation, approval and the intended billing mode.

• Sign in as an advisor, technician, manager and restricted shop user—not only as the owner.
• Confirm calculated price, tax, authorization, parts movement and invoice totals after reopening each record.
• Confirm another shop cannot see or mutate restricted records through a direct URL.
• Return to Setup & Readiness, select Recheck and assign an owner to every remaining exception.

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10. Keep readiness as an operating habit

Review Setup & Readiness when a new shop opens, a manager changes, pricing policy changes, an integration is replaced, fleet service is introduced or implementation ownership changes. Reopen dismissed optional items when the business adopts the related workflow. In Reports, open Setup & Readiness Exceptions for one operational list of incomplete and dismissed work; review Pricing, Margin & Tax Controls, Service Package Performance and Inventory Transfer Performance during the normal management cadence. Because status is computed from current application state and configuration persists across devices, the next responsible person has a shared starting point instead of relying on the memory of whoever originally configured the account.