When office manager Jani Martinez joined Prestige Auto Body in Fort Lee, N.J., a little more than a year ago, she wanted to make some changes to the shop that she thought would make her life and the way the shop ran smoother.
The 7,500-square-foot shop has been in the community for more than 45 years and although it was well established and loved in the community, Martinez felt it needed to update its processes, specifically in the office.
Martinez says that when she started, all of the information she needed to do her job was being stored in various folders and getting through all of the information was very difficult.
"I was going through every detail to make sure that we weren’t ordering parts twice and that vendors weren’t forgetting to give us credit,” Martinez says.
She made the decision to find a more effective way of organizing the shop. Martinez started researching management programs right away and made the decision to go with Mitchell’s RepairCenter.
“I originally got it for accounting purposes. As soon as I saw everything else that it could do, I was blown away,” Martinez says. “I had no idea there was something like this available for the collision industry.”
Since Martinez started using Mitchell, she’s been able to track parts and what’s owed from vendors in a much more effective way than what the shop was doing before.
“From month to month, we range anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 in money that is overpaid or credit that is due back from vendors. I can’t even imagine how much we were losing before we started using RepairCenter.”
Martinez says that the accounting capabilities that Mitchell provides have helped keep Prestige on track and have allowed her to better run the office.
“I can’t imagine running this business without RepairCenter,” Martinez says.
Martinez has also been able to track the shop’s spending and finances with Mitchell Estimating (also known as UltraMate). When it comes to Mitchell Estimating, Martinez says that the Refinishing Materials Calculator (RMC) is what stands out to her most. Through it, she’s able to more accurately calculate P&M costs. She says that her estimators love it and say that everything is well laid out and easy to maneuver.
Across the state line in New York, Precision Auto Works in Long Island City has been in business since 1996 and prides itself on being a high-quality body shop that puts its customers first. It’s also the only Tesla certified collision repair facility in the five boroughs of New York City.
Over the past few years, Precision has grown its operations and even added a second location in 2014. Although growth is great, it’s not without its challenges. Owner George Anastasopoulos says that he’s had to find ways to restructure and improve workflow. One of the ways that he’s done that is by partnering with Mitchell.
“The shop has really grown over the past few years and properly estimating repair costs while maximizing the value of each job is a key component to our success as an independent repair facility,” Anastasopoulos says.
The shop, which employs 17 and produces between 12 and 16 repair orders per week, uses Mitchell Estimating.
“The estimating platform offers a lot of excellent tools for our estimators to work with, like the RMC calculator,” Anastasopoulos says. “It also offers easy access to key information such as P-Pages. On top of all of that, I know that the book times are based on Mitchell’s time with a real vehicle and not something made up in an office.”
Anastasopoulos says that the RMC calculator is invaluable to his shop because it allows him to create accurate estimates based on actual refinish costs. Anastasopoulos says that his estimator is able to demonstrate P&M costs as well as proper repair procedures through the sectioning guidelines of the P-Pages.
Anastasopoulos says that Mitchell sets itself apart from the competition by delivering product reliability and exemplary customer service.
“They are always friendly, knowledgeable, and driven toward their end users and ultimately a very useful resource tool. This allows us to perform more efficiently as a collision repair facility,” Anastasopoulos says.
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