Create Repair Steps
A repair step is one stage of multi-stage work — disassembly, paint prep, structural repair, quality control. Steps are the unit BayWise plans, so a vehicle can move between bays and technicians as it progresses.
Who can do this: Location Managers, Org Admins and Account Owners.
What ships by default
BayWise comes with a working set covering body and major mechanical work: Disassembly, Estimate, Parts Order, Structural Repair, Paint Prep, Paint Application, Reassembly, ADAS Calibration, Quality Control, Final Detailing, Diagnosis and Repair.
Each carries a default duration and a default skill.
Most workshops start from these and adjust rather than building from nothing.
Adding a step
Open Settings → Catalog → Repair Steps & Presets
Enter the step name
What your shop calls that stage.
Choose a category
Body, Mechanical, or Both. The category groups steps when you build a preset; it does not restrict where a step can be used.
Choose a default skill
The skill a technician needs for this stage. Leave it as no default skill if anyone available can do it — parts ordering and final detailing usually qualify.
Set the default duration
The initial estimate when this step is added to a job. It is adjustable per vehicle.
Save
A step name that already exists is refused rather than creating a duplicate.
Getting the defaults right
Default durations behave exactly like service durations: too optimistic and every multi-stage job reports as running over.
The shipped defaults are reasonable industry starting points, not your shop’s numbers. After a quarter, use your estimation accuracy figures to correct the ones that are consistently wrong — paint and structural work are usually the first two to need adjusting.
Completion tags
Steps carry tags recording what was actually done — panels removed, primer coats applied, welds complete, calibration verified, function tested.
Tags become part of the vehicle’s record and are what makes a repair auditable months later, particularly for insurance work.
Resetting to defaults
Reset returns the step catalogue and presets to the shipped defaults. Use it if a setup has drifted into a state nobody understands — but be aware it replaces your customisations.
Removing a step
A step referenced by past or current jobs cannot be deleted. Remove it from your presets instead, so it stops appearing on new work while the history stays intact.
Common questions
How many steps should a job have? As many as there are genuine hand-offs. A stage exists because the vehicle moves, the person changes, or the work waits. Splitting a single technician’s continuous two hours into four stages produces administration, not visibility.
Should every job use steps? No. A wash or a bulb is one thing done once. Steps are for work that genuinely runs through a sequence.
What is the difference between a step and a service? A service is something you sell. A step is a stage of doing it. A collision repair is one job made of many steps.
Can a step be sublet? Yes. A stage can be marked as done by an outside vendor, and holds its place in the sequence.
Can two steps run at once? Steps run in sequence. Work that genuinely happens in parallel is better modelled as one step with more than one technician.