If you’re like every PDR tech who ever pushed a dent, you love new tools. We love seeing the new stuff too, even one just for using around the office.
Over the years, we’ve found some apps or software which makes life easier. Listen to the tools we use in the dent repair office.
Estimating Software:
We have mostly used the Ding Stinger app for iOS. It is a quick way to write a hail estimate and gives the authority boost which comes from a computer generated estimate.
Another app we hope to try soon is MobileTechRx. Our concern right now is price and users. There are 3 techs in our shop who also write estimates. Look for an update soon.
Organizing Your Thoughts:
Evernote is the app we’ve used for years for brain dumps, to-do lists, and any info we want to keep forever or at least, for later.
It works on all platforms, so any device, excepting grandma’s flip phone.
Derek uses paper journals almost exclusively, but my preference is the Noteshelf for iOS. I can write with a stylus on a tablet and it backs up to Evernote, so its always at fingertips.
Mind Maps are a great way to cough all your thoughts into one page and organize after. Here are a couple we use:
Freemind
iThoughtsx
Mindnode
Documenting and Remote Fax/Scanning:
The ability to scan a paper document is a must for a mobile PDR business. You can quickly grab a customer’s paper hail estimate, scan receipts, or business cards even. We love Scannable for Evernote since it ties the two apps together so well.
Scanner Pro for iPhone also works well.
Both apps can convert the scans into very small, high quality PDF files, which are great for emailing.
Accounting:
Counting money is the fun part and we use Quickbooks for this, but its love hate at best. It is one of the programs which ties our hands to Windows like a captive prisoner. Would make the jump to their online version were it not for all the negative reviews.
Freshbooks is an online accounting software we have not tried. If you decide to, first priority would be to make sure it works with your companies structure. Sole proprietor I’m certain they do, but LLC or Subchapter S, not sure.
Photo Editing and Design:
If ye are wise, ye’ll be takin’ fores and afters of your dents. Sometimes your shots will need a little editing. I prefer Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for Mac. There are windows versions available as well.
We know about photoshop and creative cloud which are the standard. But for ease of use and only paying once, not monthly, Affinity has our love.
The Designer App is more for business cards, or icon creation for your website, for example. I have used it to design billboard size banners as well. Big fan of vectors.
Printing:
Once you’ve made your business cards give GotPrint.com a try. We’ve had great results with business cards for many years with them.
Though we mostly use Gmail from Google for email, I like a Microsoft product for iOS called Outlook. It works with Gmail and all other providers and just seems a better app than the Mail which comes on the iPhone.
What are the apps or office tech you use in your PDR office? Leave a comment below.
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