Repair order
RO · work order · job card · job sheet
A repair order is the document that opens a workshop job: it identifies vehicle and customer, describes the accepted work, and forms the basis for invoicing. It is what authorises the work — no job is meant to start before it is signed.
Director of publication : Florian Précigout
For a distributor it is the missing context, almost every time. A parts request arrives bare — a reference, a plate — while on the workshop side it belongs to a file holding the symptom, the mileage, the accepted work and the return date promised to the customer.
That asymmetry explains most counter back-and-forth. The salesperson tries to rebuild through questions a context that already exists in the repair order; the workshop feels it is repeating what it already knows. Every question asked is information that failed to travel.
The repair order also carries the time constraint. A return date promised to a customer turns a commercial lead time into a commitment made in front of a third party — which is why a workshop turns inflexible on an availability lead time it would have accommodated the day before.
The trap
Treating a parts request as an isolated act. It belongs to an open workshop file with a deadline: the same reference does not carry the same urgency depending on the job behind it.
Frequently asked
Is a repair order mandatory?
It is established professional practice and protects repairer and customer alike: it records agreement on the work and its price before the job starts.
What is the difference between a repair order and a quote?
A quote proposes and prices work before a decision. A repair order records the accepted work and opens the job. One precedes the other and they do not commit the same way.