Integration
Automated estimating inside Shopmonkey
Mechanica works inside Shopmonkey. The tech finishes the inspection, the priced estimate lands on the same repair order, and the advisor reviews and sends it.
Shopmonkey at a glance
- Connection
- Live today
- Reads
- The completed digital inspection, including every technician finding
- Customer concerns as written on the repair order
- The shop's own canned jobs, labor rate and parts markups
- Writes
- Drafted jobs onto the same repair order the technician was working
- Labor lines carrying published book time for that year, make and engine
- Parts lines carrying the price provenance behind each number
- Vendor
- Shopmonkey
Mechanica works inside Shopmonkey. When the technician finishes the inspection, the priced jobs land on the same repair order, and the advisor opens a ticket that is already built.
Key takeaways
- Mechanica works inside Shopmonkey today.
- The trigger is the technician marking the inspection complete.
- Drafted jobs land on the existing repair order, priced from the shop's own pre-built jobs wherever one matches.
- Nothing reaches a customer without a person sending it.
What does Mechanica do inside Shopmonkey?
A technician finishes the inspection and marks it complete. Mechanica reads the findings and scopes them into jobs. Labor comes from the shop's own canned jobs where one matches, and from published book time where none does. Parts are quoted at the shop's own suppliers and marked up the shop's way. The draft lands on the repair order and waits for an advisor.
Where does an estimate get built in Shopmonkey?
On the estimate screen, with the lookups pulled in beside it. Shopmonkey's estimates page describes "built-in parts & labor lookups" and tells shops to "use pre-built jobs and pricing for quick estimate creation." Vehicle identification comes off a plate or VIN scan in the mobile app.
So the walking has already been taken out. What is left is the sequence underneath: read the findings, decide which jobs they call for, look up the time, price the parts, apply the markup, key every line. Six steps, one screen, one person. Without a draft that person is your advisor, and the phone is ringing while they do it. With Mechanica the six steps are done by the time the advisor opens the ticket.
What happens on the inspection side?
Shopmonkey's own material describes sending detailed vehicle inspections to customers by email or text from its app. That inspection is what Mechanica reads.
The trigger is the technician marking it complete. Nothing changes in the bay: same checklist, same photos, same notes. Cleaner findings produce better drafts, because there is less to interpret, and that is true whether a person or a piece of software is doing the reading. What a clean note looks like is covered in the write-up on inspection notes.
What does the profitability view change?
Shopmonkey shows "projected profitability in real-time as you create estimates." Useful number. It is also only as honest as the parts prices sitting under it, which on a half-built estimate means it is a guess wearing a percentage sign.
A draft that arrives already priced from the shop's own suppliers makes that figure worth reading the moment the ticket opens. An advisor sees the margin before they have typed anything, which changes what they do with the phone call rather than changing what they type. The gross profit entry covers what the figure is measuring.
How does the customer approval step fit?
It stays where it is. Shopmonkey supports customers authorising an estimate with an e-signature and sends the shop an approval notification.
Mechanica writes a draft onto the ticket and stops there. The advisor reads it, changes what they want and sends it through Shopmonkey's own approval flow. Nothing about that step moves, and nothing reaches a customer without somebody at the shop deciding to send it. Verbal authorization covers why the record of who approved what is worth protecting.
Why does every line carry its source?
Because the first question a customer asks about a big ticket is why. Open any drafted job and each line names where its number came from. Most labor traces back to the shop's own pre-built job or to published book time for that exact vehicle. Parts carry the live supplier quote they were priced from, and some lines rest on what the shop has charged for this work before. An advisor can read that off the line while the customer is still on the phone, without opening a parts catalog to rebuild the answer. How an estimate gets priced walks through the order those sources get tried in.
What does setup ask of a shop?
Two things. A Shopmonkey login with the permissions a new advisor would get, and a conversation about how the shop quotes: labor rate, parts markups, canned job library, preferred brands. The second one is the work. Running the canned job audit worksheet first makes that conversation shorter.
On Shopmonkey specifically, the pre-built job library is the piece worth preparing. Shopmonkey leans on those jobs for speed and Mechanica matches a shop's own jobs before it looks anything up, so the library is doing double duty. A current library means more of the draft comes out of your own pricing and less of it comes out of a lookup. The canned job entry covers what makes one worth matching, and auditing your canned jobs is the afternoon that fixes it.
Where should you read next?
Mechanica works the same way inside Shop-Ware and Tekmetric, and the integrations hub lists every system it works with. The pricing workflow is in how an estimate gets priced, and the vocabulary is in the glossary.
Sources
Questions shops ask
- Does Mechanica work with Shopmonkey today?
- Yes. The technician finishes the inspection in Shopmonkey, Mechanica drafts the priced estimate on that same repair order, and an advisor at the shop reviews it before it goes anywhere.
- Where does the drafted estimate appear?
- On the repair order the technician was already working. Drafted jobs belong on that ticket. Put them somewhere else and you have added a copy step between two systems, which is where prices drift.
- Does anything reach the customer automatically?
- No. That rule does not vary by system. Mechanica writes the draft and a person at the shop reviews it and sends it.
- Do our own canned jobs and markups get used?
- Yes. Matching the shop's own pricing setup is what makes a draft read like the shop wrote it, and it is the first thing the setup pass covers.
- How do we get started on Shopmonkey?
- Book a demo and say you run Shopmonkey. Setup is a login with the permissions a new advisor would get, plus a conversation about how the shop quotes: labor rate, parts markups, pre-built jobs and preferred brands.
- Do we have to stop using Shopmonkey's own parts and labor lookups?
- No. Shopmonkey describes built-in parts and labor lookups inside any estimate and those stay exactly where they are. An advisor who wants to check a number, add a line by hand or override something the draft got wrong uses the same screen they use today. A draft that cannot be edited in the system that holds it would be worse than no draft.
- Our pre-built jobs are out of date. Does that matter?
- It matters a lot, and it is the highest-value thing a shop can fix during setup. Shopmonkey tells shops to use pre-built jobs and pricing for quick estimate creation, and Mechanica matches a shop's own jobs before it looks anything up. A library priced under a labor rate you stopped charging two years ago will produce drafts priced under a labor rate you stopped charging two years ago.
- Does the projected profitability figure still work?
- It works better on a priced draft than on a half-built one. Shopmonkey shows projected profitability in real time as an estimate is created, and that number is only as good as the parts prices sitting under it. A draft that arrives with live supplier prices on every line means the profitability figure is worth reading the moment the ticket opens instead of after somebody finishes typing.
- Does the customer approval flow change?
- No. Shopmonkey lets customers authorise an estimate with an e-signature and notifies the shop on approval. That stays. Mechanica writes a draft and stops; an advisor reads it, edits what they want and sends it through Shopmonkey's own flow. Nothing reaches a customer without a person at the shop deciding to send it.