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Venture · 01

PitStop

Garage management for Indian workshops, built for a service advisor with oily hands and a queue at the counter.

Spec
Status
Building, live at a working garage
Stack
Next.js, Postgres, Supabase, PWA
Markets
India GST and US sales tax, same product
Role
Everything. Product, design, build, rollout
01

The problem

An Indian workshop runs on a paper diary, WhatsApp forwards and the owner's memory. Estimates get argued at the counter, the customer cannot see what they are paying for, and the GST invoice comes from a typist shop two streets away. Software for garages exists, but it is built for dealership chains with a back office, not for one owner running the floor from a phone.

PitStop covers the full loop of a repair: intake, job card, mechanic assignment, customer approval, GST invoice, payment. Nothing more, and every screen assumes a phone, a hurry and grease.

02

What it does

01

Job cards, intake to gate pass

Eight statuses from received to delivered, a mechanic on every card, and a chase list that surfaces whatever is stuck so the owner does not have to remember.

02

Customer approval by link

The customer gets a link, not an app. They see every line with a price and approve or decline from their own phone. The link is the credential, and it is built to be safe in hostile hands.

03

GST invoicing done properly

CGST and SGST against IGST decided by place of supply, rate wise summaries, gapless invoice serials and the amount in words. The tax document is correct, not approximately correct.

04

UPI on the invoice

A QR on every invoice sends money straight into the garage's own bank account. No gateway, no KYC paperwork, no cut. The owner watches it land in their banking app and marks it collected.

05

Old parts returned

The scrap goes back to the customer and the job card records it. A small feature, but it is the difference between a garage a customer trusts and one they don't.

06

Workshop chat with voice notes

Every job card is a thread tied to a vehicle. Mechanics send voice notes instead of typing, broadcasts reach the whole floor, and delivered cars leave the inbox on their own.

07

Purchase requests with guardrails

Anyone can ask for a part. The owner approves with an amount cap, a supplier and an expiry, and the system re-checks all three at ordering time. Trust, but verified in a trigger.

08

Reads the bills customers bring in

A customer photographs an old bill from any garage. PitStop reads it once, and when that car comes back the mechanic sees prior work matched against the new complaint. Pads three weeks ago is a comeback. Pads three years ago is wear.

09

Two markets, one product

A single flag switches a garage between Indian GST and US sales tax, and it reaches all the way down: the maths, the invoice serials, the currency, the dates, even whether the odometer is in kilometres or miles.

10

Installs from the browser

A PWA with an offline shell, not an app store listing. Zoom is deliberately left on, because a mechanic reading a part number in bad light needs to pinch.

03

Screens

Today

₹18,420Billed
7In shop
3Approvals
Ready for pickup2 cars
Unpaid this week₹9,340
The owner's morning, one screen

JC-0412 · Swift Dzire In progress

Front brake pads₹1,850
Brake fluid flush₹600
Labour₹750
MechanicRamesh
Old parts returnYes
A job card, nothing hidden

Estimate for your Swift

Brake pads₹1,850
Fluid flush₹600
Total₹3,200
Approve work
What the customer sees. A link, not an app
04

Why it is built this way

Constraint

The phone is the office

The owner runs the shop from a phone at the counter. Every feature is designed there first, and the desktop version is the afterthought.

Trade

UPI without a gateway

A payment gateway needs merchant KYC and takes a cut. A UPI QR needs neither. Ninety percent of the value for none of the paperwork.

Belief

Trust is the product

Scrap returned, every line priced before work starts, an invoice that stands up to a tax officer. The software just makes honesty cheap.

Curious about PitStop?

Ask me anything.

Happy to walk through the product, the multi-tenant design or what a real garage taught me about software.

venkatesh@venkateshgardas.com