Garage Data Systems Ltd

Garage Data Systems Ltd Run a productive workshop. GDS is a Garage Management Software built to save time, simplify jobs, and keep customers coming back.

Message the word "GDS" for a free demo. Please Like or Follow our page to get the latest news and update notifications. Garage Data Systems was founded in 2006 to develop and publish quality, low cost, easy to use business software for Motor Trade professionals. Our most popular product to date is GDS Workshop Manager which is now in use in more than 1800 independent workshops based mainly across

the UK & Ireland GDS also develop and supply software for Commercial Vehicle & Fleet operators and Parts Motor Factors. GDS Workshop Manager is a fully integrated application for managing daily workshop activities, creating invoices, and maintaining accurate workshop service records. GDS Workshop Manager has proved to be a very popular low cost system amongst garage workshop owners since it was launched over 10 years ago. Our system was based on a brand new design which has been designed from the ground up to be simple to use, easy to learn, and intuitive. We can import existing data from more than 14 existing workshop systems.

03/06/2026

A customer walked in this week and asked Craig to rebook his vehicle for this time next year.

He scrolled to next year's diary and got him in there and then.

Craig runs Sargent Leisure Services. Four years in, heading into year five.

The workshop covers caravans, motorhomes, electrical repairs, cars and vans.

Here's how a job moves through GDS:

The phone rings. Craig takes the customer's name, address, registration and what they want, and the booking is on the system before they've hung up.

When they come in, the booking converts to a job sheet. The work gets done from that sheet.

Once the job's finished the sheet becomes an invoice, parts pulled in from purchases, and it posts straight to the accounts.

One record, from the first phone call through to the books.

His reviews back it up.

Customers like dealing with one person from booking through to the invoice.

They know where they stand.

If you want the same system in your workshop - book a demo.

Comment "Sargent" and we'll send you the link.

If you run a garage, every job follows the same chain. Booking, job sheet, invoice, payment.What changes garage to garag...
02/06/2026

If you run a garage, every job follows the same chain. Booking, job sheet, invoice, payment.

What changes garage to garage is how many separate places you're doing it in, and how many times the same job gets re-typed before the customer's paid.

In out latest video, Micky takes one job through the whole thing in GDS.

He starts with a single booking.

By the time that customer drives off, the job has become a job sheet, an invoice and a logged payment, and he's never entered the details twice.

Worth watching for:

→ The booking that builds the job sheet for you, customer and vehicle already attached
→ Service packages set up once, so nobody rebuilds a major service from scratch every time one comes in
→ The job moving across the board as it goes, so anyone at the front desk can see where it's at
→ A completed job turning straight into an invoice, ready for payment before the car's off the ramp

If your version of this still runs on a paper job card and a reg typed by hand into separate invoicing software, the video shows what one connected run looks like.

It's quicker than most people expect.

Comment "WATCH" and we'll send you the full video.

01/06/2026

A customer came in yesterday with a sensor that wasn't working.

Jay pulled up the job on GDS, found the purchase note, rang the supplier and got it covered under warranty.

Jay runs Beaver Garage in Beverley. S

he and her team took the place on two years ago, but the garage itself has been a well-known name in town for thirty years.

The work covers servicing, MOTs, general repairs, tyres and exhausts.

Without the GDS system, that warranty call doesn't happen.

You'd be hunting through paperwork. By the time you've found the original invoice, the customer's gone home.

If your workshop's still running on piles of paperwork, this is the bit you're missing.

Want to see how it works in your workshop?

Comment "Beaver" and we'll send you the link.

For anyone running a garage and not sure if the diary is actually earning.Your technicians can look flat-out all day.The...
29/05/2026

For anyone running a garage and not sure if the diary is actually earning.

Your technicians can look flat-out all day.

The diary can look full.

And you can still be selling a fraction of the hours you actually have.

Micky has seen exactly that. A garage with eight ramps and ten technicians, everyone busy, barely 30% of their hours sold.

This video shows how that happens, and how to fix it.

Worth watching for
→ The 80% mark, the number you want to be hitting on sold hours
→ Why a diary that looks booked solid can still have hours going to waste
→ The buffer he always built into the end of the day, so remedial work and walk-ins never blew up the schedule
→ How web bookings drop straight into the calendar and hand your front desk back hours of phone time

We're running through all of it

You'll walk away knowing exactly where you can be selling more time and making more profit

Comment "HOURS" and we'll send you the link.

28/05/2026

A customer drove off with bald tyres and forgot all about it.

Three months on, the garage caught it before she did.

JP has worked at this seven-person workshop for eight years. Five technicians in the bays, two on the front desk, covering servicing, MOTs, repairs, alignment and diagnostics.

Busy place.

The sort where a job can slip through if nothing's keeping track of it.

That tyre follow-up could easily have been one. A note someone meant to chase and never got back to. Instead, the system flagged it, a reminder went out, the customer booked back in, and she drove away on legal tyres.

That's what GDS does for a workshop.

Every technician knows what's been allocated to them for the day. The HaynesPro technical data they need sits linked into the job. A customer rings up and the full vehicle history is on screen before the call's finished. Once the work's signed off, the invoice goes straight through to the accountant.

Ask JP about garages still running on pen and paper and he doesn't hold back. They're missing out. You spend the day running around like a headless chicken.

Comment "DEMO" and we'll send you a booking link.

26/05/2026

Every question a technician has to come and ask you is a job paused. Multiply that across a full bay of cars and a busy week, and you've lost hours you'll never bill for.

A good job sheet does more than list the work. It removes the back and forth, protects your labour times, and keeps the tech's hands on the tools instead of chasing you around the workshop.

A few things that separate a great job sheet from a rushed one:
→ Accurate labour times mean you quote with confidence and don't undercharge your own work
→ Clear job notes catch the easy upsells, like flagging the exhaust while the car's already up
→ Parts and pricing sorted up front means no surprises when it's time to invoice

Get the sheet right before the car lands on the bay, and the whole job runs smoother and more profitably.

Comment "SHEETS" and someone on our team will send you a demo link.

You're not charging enough hours.If you run a garage, this one's worth keeping an eye out for.A garage runs on hours.Fou...
26/05/2026

You're not charging enough hours.

If you run a garage, this one's worth keeping an eye out for.

A garage runs on hours.

Four technicians on an eight hour day gives you 32 hours to sell.

A diary that looks busy isn't always one that's actually earning.

Tomorrow, we're releasing a video on how to tell the difference, and how to get more of those hours sold and paid for.

It goes live tomorrow.

Comment "TIME" and we'll send you the link the moment it's up.

Most garages think they know how busy they are.→ They look at the diary→ They see the cars→ They feel the pace of the pl...
25/05/2026

Most garages think they know how busy they are.

→ They look at the diary
→ They see the cars
→ They feel the pace of the place
→ And they assume the business is running about where it should be.

The reality is different for most workshops.

We've seen garages with eight to ten ramps and ten techs running at 30% utilisation without anyone realising it.

→ The bays were full.
→ The phone was going.
→ The lads looked flat out.

Yet almost three quarters of the hours they had to sell were disappearing every single day.

That might get you through the month but it will not always tell you whether you're actually making the money the workshop is capable of making, or where that gap is coming from.

GDS gives you that visibility.

See what you’re billing, when you’re billing and what gaps you have.

Run at your optimal capacity - because you get the visibility within a single system.

Comment “SYSTEM” to set up a 1 to 1 personalised walkthough.

Sean at JH Foreman called it doing the job “three times over”.Writing the parts, the labour, the notes… by hand.Give it ...
22/05/2026

Sean at JH Foreman called it doing the job “three times over”.

Writing the parts, the labour, the notes… by hand.

Give it to the office to retype the job card.

Convert it to an invoice when the work's done.

A 75-year-old workshop was running that loop every single day until they moved to GDS.

Claire at Autosteer was working longer hours just to get through the paperwork.

Handwritten invoices, paper accounts, hunting through folders to find what was done on a car and when.

She was saving over 10 hours a week once it was in the system.

Not because Claire started working faster but because it stopped the double entry completely.

Here's what double entry actually costs you every day:
→ estimate gets written out
→ retyped onto the job card
→ converted to an invoice when the job's done
→ something shifts between the first version and the last
→ nobody notices until the customer does

In GDS, everything is in one place and runs exactly how your workshop does.

Comment “10” and we'll send you the link to book a free 1 to 1 demo of the software.

If you run a garage, this one's worth keeping an eye out for.Yesterday we've released a full walkthrough of the GDS job ...
21/05/2026

If you run a garage, this one's worth keeping an eye out for.

Yesterday we've released a full walkthrough of the GDS job flow.

Micky takes one job from the first booking all the way to a paid invoice, and shows every step in between.

The booking, the job sheet, the invoice, the payment.

The whole run - the way it happens on a normal day.

It shows you how much of the admin actually drops away when one job runs through one system, instead of being re-typed across separate tools.

It just went live.

Comment "STEPS" and we'll send you the link the moment it's up.

Address

Armstrong House, Flemingate
Beverley
HU170NW

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 5pm
Friday 8:30am - 5pm

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