Vehicle profiles help you organize your bookings and other transactions by allowing you to create secondary profiles for your client’s (i.e., vehicle owner) vehicles. These profiles don’t have contact or payment information and are stored under your client’s profile. Vehicles can have their own forms and contracts, assigned bookings, team members, tasks, notes, and custom fields.
In this article learn how:
- To set up vehicle profiles
- To schedule and track vehicle appointments
- Clients create and schedule vehicles
- PocketSuite can set up the feature for you with our Fast Feature offering
Setup vehicle profiles
To get started, head to Settings > Features to turn the feature, called “Sub-accounts,” on. Once turned on, you will be able to create vehicle profiles for any client.
Before creating any vehicle profiles, we recommend setting up your vehicle fields to properly track vehicle information separately from client information. To do so, head to Settings > Client fields to create client and vehicle fields and determine who completes them and when. We’ve simplified the creation of these fields, so we recommend reading our full article on Client Fields if you have any questions. To create vehicle profile fields, tap on an existing field or tap ‘+’ to create a new field. After selecting the title and type, tap “Show field” to see detailed setup options. To create a field for a vehicle profile, toggle “Vehicle record” on. If you also want this field to appear on a booking when you view it from the calendar or the dashboard, toggle “Booking record” on.
Show during checkout will then appear, determining where clients complete the field. “Lead checkout” adds the field to your Online Leads form, “Booking checkouts” adds the field to your online booking and appointment confirmation flows, and “Product order checkouts” adds the field to your online ordering and order confirmation flows. You can also have clients complete the field when paying for a package or subscription or when paying an estimate or invoice with a relative attached by toggling “Other checkouts.” Note that clients will not be prompted to add a vehicle or complete vehicle fields when purchasing a package, subscription, or gift certificate through the online booking site.
You should use vehicle fields to collect information specific to one vehicle, such as make and model or year. That way if clients have multiple vehicles, the field will be filled out for each vehicle rather than just once for the client.
You can use dynamic fields to call the name of a vehicle or all vehicles associated with a client using syntax specifically for vehicles. Read our updated article on dynamic fields which includes dynamic fields for vehicles here. Note that if you're using a custom dynamic field in a contract, saved message, or smart campaign, if you change the field from a client to a vehicle field, you'll need to adjust the custom dynamic field as well. The new syntax for vehicle custom dynamic fields is {subaccount.custom_}.
Once you’ve created your vehicle fields and adjusted your client fields, you’re ready to start creating vehicle profiles. It’s useful to set up the fields properly first so you do not have to do more work to transfer data in the future, especially if you are importing your vehicle information from another system or file.
To create a vehicle profile, head to the Clients tab and tap ‘+’ in the upper right corner, tap Vehicle, and complete the fields to create a new vehicle profile.
If you are an existing Pro looking to add all of your vehicle profiles in bulk, or a new Pro importing your vehicle profiles for the first time, our team can import them for you! Read more information on the imports process for vehicle profiles here. Want us to do it all for you, including setting up your fields and compiling your imports template? Check out our Fast Feature offering here!
Note that we cannot retroactively add vehicles to bookings that have already been scheduled or packages, subscriptions, and products which have already been purchased in bulk. You can do this manually by heading to any upcoming appointment, incomplete product order, or unpaid invoice or estimate, tapping Edit, then tapping “Client / Vehicle” and selecting the vehicle. Note that the client cannot be updated or a vehicle added if the booking or other item has already been paid for. Once the feature is turned on however, clients will be prompted to create a vehicle profile when booking online or confirming an appointment you book if one has not already been created for them. See the end of this article for more!
Scheduling and Tracking Vehicle Bookings
Once a vehicle profile is created in PocketSuite, you can add them to bookings for services, classes, and reservations. When scheduling, select the vehicle from your client list. The vehicle's name will then appear on the calendar. While you cannot book two vehicles at the same time, two vehicles owned by the same client can be booked into the same class or reservation while properly deducting from your capacity. See an example of the calendar below:
Likewise, when you go to your bookings dashboard or a class roster, you will see the vehicle's name.
You can add vehicles to packages and subscriptions. Keep in mind, any booking made by the client for an eligible service, for themselves or any vehicle, will be covered by the active package, even if it’s a different vehicle than was added to the package or subscription.
Vehicles can also be added to POS charges, invoices, estimates, and product orders so that your client transactions can be tracked at a granular level if desired. Vehicles cannot be added retroactively once paid.
You can add vehicles to Gift Certificates as well for record keeping purposes, but the gift certificate can be applied for any purchase made by that client, even for appointments for a different vehicle.
Adding vehicle profiles works exactly the same as a client being added to an appointment, it just adds an extra level of detail. The client is also always included on booking and transaction records. Furthermore, viewing an individual client’s history allows you to view the history for all vehicle profiles at once. There’s no limit on the number of vehicle profiles a client can have. When viewing the income dashboard for one particular client, you can review the income by vehicle as well.
You can also attach vehicles to forms and contracts. When you send a form or contract to a client from the Forms or Contracts dashboard, you can add a vehicle to that form or contract and, once completed, will be attached to that vehicle profile and available under the vehicle's history. Likewise, when a client completes a form or contract attached to a booking for a specific vehicle, the form or contract will be attached to that vehicle profile. Every item or transaction, including forms and contracts, can be accessed at the client level even when a specific vehicle is attached.
Vehicles can have their own notes as well. You can create a note for a vehicle by heading to the Notes section of a Vehicle's profile, just like you would for a client. This update also allows you to filter between profile notes and appointment notes, helping you more easily keep track of your notes! When you’re viewing notes from the client profile, you can even filter between notes for different vehicles!
You can also add vehicles to tasks! You can view tasks assigned to a specific vehicle on the tasks dashboard or under the History tab of any vehicle profile. You can also see the tasks assigned to all the vehicles owned by a single client under the History tab for that client.
Whenever a vehicle is attached to an item, whether a booking, invoice, contract, receipt, and so on, the vehicle's name will be reflected on what the client sees online so they know which vehicle the transaction is for.
Creating and Booking a Vehicle Profile as a client
When your clients book you online or confirm a booking you create, they will be able to create a vehicle profile and attach it to the booking.
When you book a client and do not select a vehicle profile, your client will be prompted to add a vehicle or choose from their existing vehicle profiles. During this process they will also complete any required booking fields. Clients do have the ability to skip creating a vehicle profile in order to reduce drop off. If you do select a vehicle profile, they will be prompted to complete any of the vehicle fields that are incomplete, in addition to any booking fields you’ve created.
When your clients book online, if it’s their first time they’ll be prompted to add a vehicle and complete the booking fields. If it’s a returning client, they will see a list of their vehicle profiles as well as an option to create a new one. If they select an existing vehicle profile, they will be prompted to complete any of the vehicle fields that are incomplete, in addition to any booking fields you’ve created. Unlike with client contact information, any information on the vehicle profile can be changed by you at any point. Keep in mind that if you change the vehicle's name or any of their vehicle fields (other than internal fields) the client will be able to see that change.
Unlike with bookings (services, classes, and reservations), when you send a client a package, subscription, gift certificate, order, invoice, or estimate, the client will not be able to add one if you did not select a vehicle when creating the transaction. If you do select a vehicle however, they will need to complete any vehicle fields that are required, incomplete, and set to appear with other checkouts. Likewise, when clients purchase packages, subscriptions, gift certificates, and standalone products online, they will not be prompted to add a vehicle. This is in order to reduce any potential confusion amongst clients and to ensure the checkout process is as quick as possible.
Currently, clients cannot edit their vehicle profiles, only you and your team can, but we’re working on an improvement to allow them to do so through the client app. Only you and your admin level team members can delete vehicle profiles. If you delete a vehicle profile, all of the vehicle's history will still be available under the client history except for the notes and the vehicle fields. Once you delete a vehicle, the client will no longer see the vehicle's name when booking future appointments.