The Installer App: one app for the people doing the work.
I run a PPF shop. My crew clocks in from the bay, times every panel, and never sees what I charge. Installers, detailers, technicians, shop crews — call them what you want, the app fits your label. They clock in from the bay, run a stopwatch on every item, and watch their pay add up live, capture the photos the job needs, and register the warranty — all from a phone, and never once seeing customer pricing.
Installs on Android, iOS & desktopNo app store, no new downloadCustomer pricing stays hidden
Clocked in
since 8:02 AM · Bay 3
Active job
#1043 · 2024 Tesla Model 3
Full-front PPF · Priya S.
Hood & fenders
Front bumper
Mirrors
One app · your shop picks the label
What it does
Everything the bay needs, nothing it shouldn't see.
The Installer App is the worker-facing half of Service VIN — the same jobs, vehicles and schedule your office runs on, reshaped for a phone in a busy bay and walled off from anything a worker doesn't need.
Clock in from the bay
Start and end a shift with one tap on a phone — optional geolocation on the clock-in, one open shift at a time, hours totaled for the week. No paper timesheet, no back-office guesswork.
A stopwatch on every item
Run a per-item timer as you work and see it against the expected minutes the shop set. Actual time is logged on the job, so real labor finally shows up next to the estimate.
Pay that adds up live
Flat rate the moment an item or package is done, plus hourly while the clock runs — the worker watches today's and this week's earnings climb in real time. Admins set every rate.
Guided photo capture
Before and after, defects, completed panels and a VIN shot — each a big tile that opens the camera. The VIN photo reads the VIN and updates the customer's vehicle automatically.
Guardrailed customer messages
"On my way", "running late", "job complete" — canned, shop-approved messages a worker can send without free-texting a customer or ever seeing their number.
Dispatch & route optimizer
Managers assign jobs to eligible workers, move them bay to bay on a live board, and hand mobile crews a distance-optimized run of the day with a one-tap maps link.
The worker's day, one screen
Open the app and it's all right there.
The Today screen leads with the one thing that matters next: the active job and its running timer. Below it, the shift banner, the item checklist with per-item stopwatches, the photo tiles and today's other slots — big touch targets, one-column, built for a phone held in a gloved hand.
- Open-shift banner with a full-width clock button
- Active job card with a live, running stopwatch
- Per-item timers scored against the expected minutes
- Vehicle and job notes — never the customer's price or number
- A bottom tab bar: Today · Schedule · Clock · Pay · Alerts
Clocked in
since 8:02 AM · Bay 3
Active job
#1043 · 2024 Tesla Model 3
Full-front PPF · Priya S.
Hood & fenders
Front bumper
Mirrors
Illustrative: paper timesheets tend to round and drop short tasks, so billable time slips; a clock-in plus a per-item stopwatch logs the minutes actually worked.
| Item | Guessed on paper (%) | Clock + stopwatch (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Billable hours | 80% | 100% |
Pay, in real time
Watch the day's pay add itself up.
Finish an item and the flat rate lands on the ledger. Stay clocked in and the hourly keeps ticking. The worker sees a running today / week / period total and every line that built it — no month-end mystery, no arguing over the timesheet. The whole rate card is admin-controlled, and a worker only ever sees their own.
- Flat rate per completed item or package, by vehicle size
- Hourly accrual that follows the clock
- A ledger line for every dollar — item, package or shift
- Own view-only rate card — never another worker's pay
- Append-only records; adjustments are logged, not overwritten
Today
$184.00
This week
$742.50
Period
$1,318.00
Ledger
Accruing nowHourly — active shift
5h 12m @ $26/hr
Flat — Full-front PPF
Item complete · #1043
Flat — Ceramic top-coat
Item complete · #1039
Hourly — morning shift
3h 30m @ $26/hr
Your pay only. Rates are set by the shop; you can't see anyone else's.
Proof, captured in the bay
The photos the job needs, tile by tile.
Every capture is a big dashed tile that opens the camera — before, after, defects and completed panels, each filed to the right job under its own phase. The VIN tile is special: snap the VIN plate and it reads the number, checks it, and writes it straight onto the customer's vehicle. Register the warranty from the same screen.
- Before / after, defect and completed-panel photos, phase-tagged
- A VIN shot that OCRs and updates the vehicle record
- Warranty registration without a trip to the office
- Uploads run on the same secure document pipeline as the rest of the shop
VIN shot
Reads the VIN, updates the vehicle
5YJ3E1EA7PF #### 12
For the manager
A dispatcher that knows who can do what.
Assign the unassigned, move a worker bay to bay, and hand a mobile crew a route that isn't a guess. Eligibility is built in — only workers cleared for a job's services get offered it.
Unassigned
#1052 · Ceramic
Audi Q5
Ceramic#1054 · Full wrap
Model Y
Wrap · PPFBay 1
Marcus
#1043 · PPF
On the clockBay 2
Dana
#1049 · Detail
On the clockBay 3
Open
Eligible for #1054
Mobile route · Dana
4 stops ordered by distance · 32 km · open in Maps
Bay board
See every bay, who's in it and what they're running. Move a worker bay to bay in a tap.
Eligibility-aware
Only workers cleared for a job's services are offered it — set the skills matrix once.
Service areas & route
Draw the areas you cover, then hand mobile crews a distance-optimized run of the day.
Give the crew the app. Keep the numbers yours.
A shop app that shows installers what you charge is a raise negotiation waiting to happen. We're all installers before we're owners, so I built the app I'd have wanted on the floor — with the pricing walled off. The privacy is enforced in the database queries, not bolted on. Workers get exactly what they need to do great work — and nothing that's none of their business.
No customer pricing, ever
The worker surface never loads a quote, an invoice, a line-item price or a job's margin. It's not hidden with CSS — those columns are never queried for a worker in the first place.
Limited customer info
A worker sees the customer's name, the vehicle and the job notes — not their email, phone, address or lifetime value. Enough to do the job, nothing to misuse.
Canned messages only
Customer comms are shop-approved templates — "on my way", "running late", "complete". A worker can't free-text a customer or see their number.
Own pay, own rows
A worker sees only their own pay and their own rates, and can only clock, time and complete work assigned to them — every write checks the caller against the row.
How it works
From clock-in to paid, all on one phone.
Clock in and pick up the job
The worker opens the app on their phone, clocks in, and the Today screen surfaces the active job with everything it needs — no office trip, no paper.
Time it, shoot it, finish it
Run the per-item stopwatch, capture before/after/defect/VIN photos, mark items done. Flat-rate pay accrues on completion; hourly follows the clock.
The office sees it all
Actual times, photos, warranty and pay flow back into the shop. An AI tip compares the week's real times to expected and nudges where it helps.
4 titles
One app
Installer, detailer, technician or worker — your label
Flat + hourly
Live pay
Accrues as items finish and the clock runs
$0 prices
Shown to workers
Customer pricing never reaches the worker surface
Install-free
Android · iOS · desktop
Runs as the existing PWA — no app store
Questions
Frequently asked.
Is this a separate app my crew has to download?
No. The Installer App is part of Service VIN and runs as an installable web app (PWA) — your workers add it to the home screen on Android or iOS, or just open it on a desktop, and it behaves like a native app with big touch targets and a bottom tab bar. There's no app store, no separate login and nothing extra to keep updated.
Do my installers see what we charge customers?
Never. Customer pricing is walled off at the query level, not just hidden on screen — the worker surface never loads a quote, an invoice, a line-item price or a job's margin. Workers also don't see a customer's email, phone, address or lifetime value. They get the name, the vehicle and the job notes: enough to do the work, nothing to leak or negotiate against.
How does the live pay actually work?
You set the rates — a flat rate per item or package (optionally by vehicle size) and an hourly rate per worker. When a worker completes an item, the flat rate posts to their ledger; while they're clocked in, the hourly accrues. They see a running today / week / period total and every line behind it, and only ever their own. Pay records are append-only, so an adjustment is logged rather than quietly overwriting history.
What does the stopwatch compare against?
Each service or package can carry an expected number of minutes that you set in the admin rate matrix. The worker runs a per-item stopwatch as they work and sees it against that expected time — over or under — and the actual time is written back to the job. It's honest labor data next to your estimate, and it feeds the AI improvement tips that compare a worker's real times to expected across the week.
Can workers message customers from the app?
Only through canned, shop-approved messages — "on my way", "running late", "job started", "job complete". They tap to send; they can't free-text a customer or see the customer's number. It keeps the customer informed without handing a worker an open channel or exposing contact details.
How does the VIN photo update the vehicle?
The VIN capture tile opens the camera; the shot is run through OCR to read the number, the check digit is validated, and on a confident read it's written straight onto the customer's vehicle record — no manual typing in the office. From the same job screen a worker can register the warranty, so the paperwork is done before the car leaves the bay.
What do managers get that workers don't?
A dispatcher. Managers assign unassigned jobs to eligible workers (the app only offers workers cleared for a job's services), move people bay to bay on a live board, define the service areas you cover, and hand mobile crews a distance-optimized route for the day with a one-tap maps link. Managers can also open the worker app themselves to see exactly what their crew sees.
More of Service VIN
Explore the rest of the shop.
Put the app in your crew's hands.
Start Service VIN free, add your team, set your rates, and your installers are clocking in, timing work and watching their pay add up — all without ever seeing what you charge. No card required.