Auto body shop software: damage photos to a priced estimate, and a supplement without the phone tag.
Photograph the car at drop-off. The findings come back classed with confidence values and become an estimate the customer accepts and pays a deposit on from their phone. When the teardown finds more, the supplement is a new version on the same link — the old one can never be paid.
14-day trial · Card required, first charge on day 15 · Cancel anytime
How the day actually runs
- 018:05
Drop-off capture
Walk the car with the phone: wide shots, then panels, then detail. Six photos in, classed findings out — dent, scrape, panel gap, prior repair — each marked on the image with its confidence.
- 028:20
Estimate
Findings become parts and labor lines in exact cents. Adjust anything; your edit is remembered and calibrates the next one.
- 038:25
Deposit
The customer accepts on their phone and pays the deposit. The car is a job the moment the money lands.
- 04Day 2
Supplement round
Teardown finds a bent reinforcement. Add the lines, send version 2. The customer's original link now shows version 2; version 1 can no longer be accepted or paid.
- 05Day 4
Work and updates
The job walks through its states — in progress, complete — and the schedule shows the bay time. Nothing is double-entered.
- 06Pickup
Final invoice
Invoice generated from the job with the deposit already credited. Balance paid on the same kind of link. Done.
The profiles this page speaks for
Read from the same industry catalog the app configures itself from, so nothing here can describe a product that does not exist.
Auto body shop
Profile page- Photograph
- photo of the damaged panel or area
- Schedule
- Bay Schedule
Auto detailing
Profile page- Photograph
- photo of the detail
- Schedule
- Bay Schedule
A deposit is a decision.
A car that has paid a deposit is booked, ordered for, and scheduled. A car that has not is a maybe taking up a bay in your head.
Deposit before the keys leave the counter.
The estimate link asks for the deposit right after Accept. Your terms — percentage, refundability — are stated on the page, so nobody is surprised.
Order against money, not against hope.
The job exists the moment the deposit lands, with the accepted lines attached. Parts get ordered for a car that is actually coming back.
No balance conversation at the counter.
The invoice already knows the deposit. The customer paid the balance on their phone before they arrived, or pays it standing there — either way, the number is right.
The photo you took at drop-off is provably the photo you took at drop-off.
Every capture and every estimate version is sealed with a hash when it is written and chained into that day's records. If a customer, an insurer or a lawyer later asks whether the damage was there when the car arrived, you have more than your word.
- A sealed record cannot be edited after the fact without the hash changing — including by us.
- A third party checks it at /verify without an account and without seeing the contents.
- Estimate versions are immutable: version 1, version 2 and the supplement are all still there, in order, with their times.
- Captured
- 08:05:12
- Photos
- 6
- Findings
- 4 · min conf 0.71
- Estimate
- v1 → v2 (supplement)
Integrations, honestly labeled
Shops ask how this behaves next to the estimating platform the insurer requires. Honestly: beside it. Ciolk is the customer-facing and money side — capture, estimate link, deposit, supplement, invoice. There is no CCC, Mitchell or Audatex integration, and we will not pretend otherwise.
- LiveStripe payments
Deposits and balances on the customer's phone. Card data never touches Ciolk.
- LiveCSV customer import
Customers and contacts from your DMS or spreadsheet, with column mapping and duplicate detection.
- LiveQuote and invoice PDFs
Paper for the file, the insurer or the customer, generated from the sealed version.
- PlannedCCC ONE / Mitchell / Audatex
Not integrated. The insurer estimate stays in their platform; Ciolk handles the customer's copy and the money. Tell us which one matters most.
- PlannedDRP workflow hooks
Not built. Requests decide the order.
Want one that is not here? Tell us which — requests decide the order. How your data is handled, who else touches it, and exact compliance status are on the security page.
What auto body shops ask before they sign up
Does this replace my estimating system?
No. Insurer-required estimates stay where the insurer requires them. Ciolk is the customer-facing estimate, the deposit, the supplement conversation, the job and the invoice — the parts that produce phone tag today.
What happens on a supplement?
You add lines and send version 2. The customer’s link — the same one they already have — now shows version 2 and asks them to accept it. Version 1 stays on record but cannot be paid. There is no separate “supplement document” to lose.
Can the AI price parts and labor for my market?
It prices from what it can see and what you have told it, with a confidence value on every line. You correct it; the correction is stored; after five or more measured jobs, estimates calibrate to your shop’s real labor times. Your rates come from you, not a national table.
Two estimators, one shop — which plan?
Operator covers three seats at one location. Two estimators plus an owner fits. If you want the scenario-planning and recovery engines, Command.
What does the customer actually see?
A page with the damage described in plain language, line items, the total in exact dollars, Accept with their name, and a deposit field. Open the sample.
Most single-location shops start on Operator at $149/month; shops that want every engine choose Command at $399/month. 14-day trial on both; card required, first charge on day 15.
Photograph the next car that comes in.
Set up your business, import your clients from any CSV, and photograph one job. That is the whole onboarding.
- Your data exports whenever you ask
- Cancel in two clicks
- Sealed records you can verify yourself