Parts ordering

CarSignal connects to PartsTech, which connects to your parts suppliers. You order from the job, and the parts come back as line items.

Those suppliers are vendors like any other: they appear on Inventory > Vendors on their own (marked PartsTech), and every order you place is a bill there until you mark it paid.

Connecting (one time)

Settings, Apps, PartsTech. CarSignal pre-fills your shop details into the PartsTech registration. Book labor times do not depend on this connection: CarSignal licenses the MOTOR labor guide directly for every shop.

Ordering from a job

1. On the issue, launch the parts search, or hit the PartsTech button right on the job's line grid: every job has its own PartsTech cart, and parts picked there come back onto that job, never a guessed one. Dragged a part to a different job? Its cart follows: the part joins the new job's PartsTech cart and leaves the old one automatically.
2. Search, compare suppliers, and pick parts. Quote them or place the order.
3. The chosen parts flow back automatically as line items: description, part number, brand, your cost, and the retail price from your parts markup matrix. The estimate recomputes on the spot.

A retail price you type never follows a later cost edit; only a price the matrix set keeps following it. A matrix with every bracket at 0% means no automatic markup: parts arrive at cost, and a cost edit never changes a price.

Change a quantity or remove a PartsTech part on the job and it changes right away. The live PartsTech cart catches up on its own in the background, and the order review waits for any change still on its way before anything is submitted, so the order always ships what the job says. A part you removed never comes back from the cart. Once a part is ordered through PartsTech its quantity is locked: the supplier order says how many, so a quantity edit on the job line (web or phone) answers with what was ordered ("Ordered 1 from AutoZone on Oct 24") and asks you to add a separate line for more or return it through the order.

Each result shows where the stock actually is. Warehouse distributors like WORLDPAC can fill your order from any of their branches, and CarSignal picks the branch that covers your quantity automatically. Store networks like NAPA only fill orders from your own connected store. When the part sits at a nearby branch instead, the row says Not available from your store and where the stock is, so you can call for a transfer.

When you place the order, the parts screen lists every part on the visit in ONE table grouped by job, with a checkbox on each part that can be submitted (no tabs; slots with no part, ordered parts and outside parts sit in the same table with their own word and action). Each job is one block: its name as a compact heading (with Awaiting approval beside it while the customer has not approved that job), its parts close together under it, and a thin line before the next job. The columns are the same on every row: the part (the full name, wrapping to a second line when long, with the brand and the complete part number under it, plus at most one short status word such as Out of stock at BOS537), the supplier, the quantity with the remove button beside it, the Unit cost, the Line total, and the Status (In cart, Not in cart, Ordered). The PO sits in the header: it starts as the visit's RO number, and PO opens it to change. A longer reason never crowds the row: the full sentence sits as one quiet line under it. Anything worth knowing before you order sits on one quiet line under the title ("2 jobs are not approved yet · 1 part needs re-sourcing"), never as stacked notices. A part the supplier cannot fill right now (sold out since it was picked) keeps its place, its price and its part: it reads Not in cart with the supplier's reason ("Out of stock"), and Retry on the line re-adds it the moment the supplier can fill it. Re-source is there if you would rather pick a different part, and Mark ordered if you got it another way. Nothing picks a replacement for you and nothing takes the part off the job. It opens right away from what is already on the job, on the web and in the mobile app's Order parts sheet, and checks the live cart with your suppliers in the background: a check from the last three minutes is reused, Order unlocks once the check lands, and if PartsTech is slow to answer the sheet says so and lets you order anyway (the cart is read again when you order). Checking several jobs places one supplier order per job's cart from the one Submit; the carts go to PartsTech one after another. If PartsTech refuses one of them, the rest still order, the done screen names the job that did not order with PartsTech's reason, and Order the rest tries that cart again. Tap a quantity there and the number, the row cost and the order total move at once; the job line and the PartsTech cart follow a moment later, and a burst of taps is saved as one change. Uncheck anything you already have on the shelf or plan to source elsewhere. It stays on the quote at the same price, skips the supplier order, and moves to the sourced-outside list where you mark it ordered manually once it's in hand. This works after the customer approves too: approval locks pricing, not sourcing. The Status column is the part's state word with its actions (Re-source, Mark ordered) on the line under it; no sentence under the row.

When a PartsTech cart expires

PartsTech carts do not live forever: a cart left open for a while, a second PartsTech window on the same job, or a cart PartsTech closed on its side can all leave a job pointing at a cart that no longer answers. None of that touches the parts you chose. A chosen part only leaves the job when you remove it, in PartsTech or with the x on the line. When the cart is alive, a part that is not in it yet (a pick PartsTech was slow to take, a refusal that has cleared) is added to that same cart and nothing else moves. When the old cart is gone, CarSignal rebuilds a fresh one from the job's lines the next time you open the parts screen or PartsTech, re-adding every part at its current stock; a part the supplier cannot fill at that moment stays on the job and reads Not in cart with the reason and Retry, and a part PartsTech simply did not answer for stays exactly as it was and is retried on the next open. A part the supplier just refused is not asked for again for 15 minutes (its words stay; Retry on the line asks right away), so opening PartsTech or the parts screen stays quick on a job with a sold-out part. A refused part never stops PartsTech from opening on that job: the rest of the cart loads and the refused line keeps its word. A slow or failed PartsTech call never changes a line.

Core charges

Some parts carry a refundable core: the supplier bills a deposit on a battery, an alternator or a caliper and credits it back when the old part goes in. That deposit is real money on the bill, so it does not hide in the order total. When a part with a core lands on the job, a Core charge: <part> line lands next to it at the supplier's core amount, with cost equal to price (it is a deposit, so it never inflates your profit figure). It follows the part: change the part's quantity and the core follows, remove the part and the core goes with it. It prints on the quote and the invoice like any other charge. When the old part goes back and the supplier credits the core, credit the customer on the invoice as you would any other adjustment.

When PartsTech does not answer

PartsTech and the network have slow moments. None of them change a line.

• A part you pick reads In cart the moment you pick it, on the job card and on the parts screen, and the cart catches up behind the words; there is no "adding" state to watch. A pick whose cart add got no answer (a timeout, a hiccup on PartsTech's side) stays on the job at its quantity and its price, still reads In cart, and is retried on its own: within a minute, and again whenever the job is opened, the parts screen opens or PartsTech opens on it. Nothing is repriced, nothing is set to 1. Only a failed add changes the words: if PartsTech fails to answer three times in a row, the line reads Not in cart · PartsTech did not answer three times; re-source it and is left alone until you press Retry or Re-source on it; after Retry it reads In cart again until the cart answers.
• A part the supplier refuses (sold out, not at your store) keeps its quantity and price too; the line carries the supplier's words. When the supplier names what it has ("only 12 available"), the line says so and suggests the number; you decide whether to lower the quantity or source the rest another way.
• A PartsTech cart holds whole units, 1 to 999 per line. Type 0.5 or 1000 on a PartsTech part and the job keeps your number, the cart holds the nearest whole number or 999, and the line says so. Submit refuses a line it cannot send as written, with the line named, rather than sending a different number.
• Opening PartsTech again on a job whose parts are already ordered never puts the ordered parts back in a cart. Only parts that are not ordered yet travel; the order record stays as it is.
• Two people on the same job: if someone else is placing the cart when you press Submit, the sheet says Someone else is ordering this cart right now and nothing is submitted twice. A submit that went through on PartsTech's side but lost its answer on the way back is found again before anything is placed a second time.

Already ordered a part by phone or on the supplier's own site? Uncheck its row and hit Mark ordered right there. It comes out of the pending order, counts as handled, and the cart count drops. Undo lives on the part line on the job page, and undoing puts the part back on the next order.

Submit places each cart with its supplier once. In the mobile app the button reads Ordering the moment you tap it, and the sheet shows the order numbers and each part's Ordered word straight from the supplier's answer. On a slow connection it says Still placing the order after a few seconds and keeps waiting on that same order. A second tap, a dropped connection or a retry never places the same cart twice, on the phone or on the web: if the order already went through, you get that order back.

Mark ordered is instant on the job grid, on the parts screen and in the mobile app: the part reads Ordered on the click and the other rows stay usable while the server records it. If the server refuses (a part PartsTech would not release from its live cart, a dropped connection), the word goes back and the reason appears beside the part so you can retry.

Add to quote appears on parts you can't order through PartsTech at that moment (out of stock, or only at a branch that can't ship to you). It puts the part on the job as a regular line (catalog name, number, and cost carried over, retail from your markup matrix) with no PartsTech order attached. The part keeps its catalog identity, though: every time you open the order review, CarSignal re-checks it against live stock, and if the supplier can fill it by then it joins the PartsTech order automatically (the sheet tells you when that happens). Until then it sits in the sourced-outside list like any hand-entered part.

A job created from a template or the labor guide can carry part slots, like "Front brake pads" or "Front brake rotors ×2", with the exact part chosen per car. A slot is not a priced line: it lists your suppliers' parts for this vehicle right under it on the job card as a sideways row of cards with a vendor chip for each store above it (the vendor's logo or initial, its name and its count; your own shelf is an Inventory chip when it has the part); one chip is always selected, the vendor of the recommended part first (or of the part on the line when you are changing it), and tapping another chip swaps the row to that vendor's cards so you cross-shop store by store. Each card (up to ten per supplier, forty in all) reads the brand, part number and picture, the price each in bold with the count and the line total on the line under it when the job takes more than one ("$23.08 each" then "× 6 · $138.48"), your cost each under those, the stock in words and the order-by and delivery line; one tap makes your pick the line; the picked part keeps that row behind a Change part door (a part taken from your own shelf reopens on the Inventory chip with its shelf card as Chosen) (the quiet Change part word at the end of its row's sub-line, beside In cart and Mark ordered, or its row menu) until it is ordered, and every other catalog part has the same door (a PartsTech part, a part with a part number, a shelf part, a part quoted before this picker: the row opens on Reading the catalog and lists your suppliers' matches for the car), and Update on another card swaps it in place, repriced, with the old part leaving the cart (when the swap is refused, because the part is already ordered or its last cart add is still running, the reason prints in red under the row and the old part stays); on an approved job the same door opens inside Revise approved work, where Update stages the swap on the revision (another supplier or warehouse when the quoted part is out of stock), the review lists it as Part changed: Wix 57189 -> Baldwin P40104, $33.41 -> $31.70, and the old part leaves the cart only when you apply the revision; the parts screen shows the same slot as Pick a part, a quiet door to the catalog. While the suppliers are being asked, the slot is its own row in the job's lines table, the part's name with a quiet finding a match under it and its numbers blank; when a match lands, that row becomes the part in place. When the catalog has no match for a slot on this car, the row reads No catalog match for Front brake rotors. Add part to pick one. after the job's parts, and its Add part opens PartsTech on this job's cart. Tires are never looked up in the parts catalog (they live in PartsTech's tire catalog), so a tire slot always reads that way and Add part opens the tire search for the car. The sentence goes away on its own once a part of that type is on the job. Parts you typed into the template with a price or a part number are not slots; they land exactly as you wrote them. Per-cylinder slots (spark plugs, glow plugs, a set of coils) open at the engine's cylinder count, a V6 at 6, an L4 at 4, the same way an oil slot takes its quarts from the book; when the engine's count is not on file the slot stays at 1 and reads Set the count: cylinders unknown for this engine. A count you typed yourself stays yours.

Parts can also be imported into your inventory or attached to a job template the same way.

If PartsTech asks you to sign in

The PartsTech window opens already signed in. If it shows a sign-in page instead, and signing in just spins, your browser is blocking PartsTech's cookies inside CarSignal. Safari does this by default, and so do Brave, private or Incognito windows, and any "block third-party cookies" setting. CarSignal detects it and shows the fix for your browser right above the PartsTech window:

• Safari: Safari menu, Settings, Privacy, turn off Prevent cross-site tracking. On iPhone or iPad: Settings app, Safari, turn off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.
• Chrome: click the eye icon at the right end of the address bar and allow third-party cookies on this site. Incognito windows block them by default.
• Brave: click the Brave lion icon and set Shields to Down for trycarsignal.com.
• Firefox: click the shield icon at the left of the address bar and turn Enhanced Tracking Protection off for trycarsignal.com.

Hit Check again after changing the setting. PartsTech reloads in place, signed in, and the setting sticks for next time. The CarSignal mobile app is not affected.

Tracking

Parts bought by phone or outside PartsTech have their own Parts status view. Use Mark ordered beside the part after you have ordered it, then Done. There is no supplier checkout or $0 order to submit when every part is sourced outside PartsTech.

Once approved work has its parts ordered, the car advances to Waiting on parts, and CarSignal polls order status for you. Shipped and Delivered fire notifications automatically, even if nobody has the job open.

Every part line on an approved job shows its own status (Ordered, Ordered manually, or Not ordered yet) with a Mark ordered manually action for parts you sourced outside PartsTech. The job counts as parts-ordered once every line is either ordered or marked.

Ordered parts then wait to arrive: the parts window keeps an Ordered, waiting to arrive list with a Mark received per part, and a received part shows a green "received" tag on its job line. That answers the question the schedule actually runs on: not "did we order it" but "is it in the building."