RepairBill Setup Guide: Quickstart in 30 Minutes

What Settings Should You Configure First?

After completing the 5 basic steps above, there are several settings that make a meaningful difference to your day-to-day experience. Don't skip these — shops that configure them on day one save themselves confusion later.

Business Details and Invoice Header

Navigate to Settings → Business Profile. Enter your business name, ABN, address, phone number, and email exactly as they should appear on your tax invoices. Upload your logo if you have one. This information stamps every invoice you create, so getting it right once saves you from correcting invoices later.

Set your default payment terms — most phone repair shops use "Due on completion" since payment happens at pickup. If you do any commercial accounts or insurance work, you may want "Net 14" or "Net 30" as an option.

GST and Tax Invoice Settings

Go to Settings → Tax. Confirm your GST registration status. If you're registered (required once your turnover exceeds $75,000/year), enable "GST Registered" and set the default rate to 10%. Set "Display GST on invoices" to show the GST amount as a separate line on every invoice — this is required for ATO-compliant tax invoices over $82.50.

Set your BAS reporting period to quarterly unless your accountant has advised otherwise. Schedule the BAS reminder to 2 weeks before the end of each quarter so you have time to review the report before the ATO due date.

Service Catalogue Deep Configuration

The service catalogue is where most of the setup time goes, but it's worth doing thoroughly. For each service type in your shop, set:

• Service name — use the name as it appears on your invoices (e.g., "iPhone 15 Screen Replacement")
• Default price — your standard charge for this repair
• Default labour time — how long the repair typically takes
• GST applicable — yes for most repair services and parts
• Parts required — link the parts from your inventory that this repair typically uses

Once a service is configured, creating a new repair ticket for that service auto-populates the price, parts, and expected time. Technicians don't need to remember prices or look up parts codes. The typical repair shop has 30-80 services in its catalogue — spend an hour building this out properly and you'll save that time back within the first week.

Notification Templates

RepairBill sends automatic SMS and email notifications to customers at key job milestones. The default templates are functional, but personalising them takes about 10 minutes and makes a noticeable difference to how professional your shop appears.

Navigate to Settings → Notifications. Customise the message for: "Job Received" (confirmation the device is checked in), "Repair In Progress" (technician has started the job), "Ready for Pickup" (device is repaired and waiting), and "Invoice Sent" (payment request). Include your shop name and phone number in each template so customers have your contact details in every message.

How Do You Connect RepairBill to Google Sheets?

RepairBill's Google Sheets sync is one of its most useful features for Australian repair shop owners who want their job and revenue data in a spreadsheet format — either for their own tracking or to share with their accountant or bookkeeper.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Navigate to Settings → Integrations → Google Sheets
2. Click "Connect Google Account" and follow the authorisation prompts — you'll need to approve access from your Google account
3. Select or create the destination spreadsheet — RepairBill can create a new sheet or write to an existing one
4. Choose which data to sync: repair jobs, invoices, payments, inventory movements, or all of the above
5. Set your sync frequency — daily automatic sync is recommended for most shops
6. Click "Run Initial Sync" to push your existing data to the sheet immediately

Once connected, your Google Sheet becomes a live mirror of your RepairBill data. Your accountant can access the sheet directly for BAS preparation, or you can share the quarterly report columns with them at BAS time without exporting anything manually.

The Google Sheets sync also works well as a backup. If you ever need to analyse your business data in a way RepairBill's built-in reports don't cover — custom date ranges, job type breakdowns, technician performance comparisons — the raw data is all in your sheet ready for analysis.

Common Setup Mistakes to Avoid

After helping multiple repair shop owners get set up on RepairBill, these are the most common mistakes that cause friction in the first few weeks:

Not Completing the Service Catalogue Before Going Live

The biggest frustration during early use is creating repair tickets and having to manually enter prices and parts every time because the service catalogue wasn't set up. Spend the time to add your 20-30 most common repairs before your first day of live use. You can always add more later, but having the core services ready from day one makes the system feel fast rather than clunky.

Importing Customers Without Cleaning the Data First

If you're importing a customer CSV from a previous system or from your own spreadsheet, clean it first. Duplicate entries (same customer entered twice with slight name variations), missing phone numbers, and old email addresses all cause problems when RepairBill tries to send notifications. Spend 30 minutes cleaning your customer list before importing — remove duplicates, fill in mobile numbers where possible, and standardise name formats.

Skipping the Test Repair

Always create a test repair before going live. Use your own name as the customer, create a fake iPhone screen replacement, generate the invoice, and verify that: the GST calculation is correct (10% of the taxable amount), your ABN appears on the invoice, the notification email/SMS arrives, and stock decremented correctly. Catching any configuration errors on a test job is much easier than discovering them mid-customer-interaction.

Not Training All Staff on Standard Voice Phrases

If you're using voice entry (which you should — it saves enormous time), make sure every technician uses the same phrase structure. RepairBill understands natural language, but consistency helps. Create a laminated reference card with 5-6 example voice commands and put it near each workstation. Within a week, it becomes second nature.

Forgetting to Set Up Low-Stock Alerts

Go to Inventory → each part → Low Stock Threshold. Set a minimum quantity for your fast-moving parts. For a typical repair shop, you'd set screen replacements for your top 5 models to alert at 2-3 units remaining. Without these alerts, you'll discover you've run out of a part mid-repair — an avoidable frustration that also costs customer satisfaction.

Frequently Asked Questions: RepairBill Setup

How long does RepairBill take to set up for a mobile repair shop?

The basic setup — account creation, business details, GST configuration, and your first repair ticket — takes under 30 minutes following the steps in this guide. A thorough setup including full service catalogue, inventory loading, customer import, and notification templates typically takes 2-3 hours. Most shop owners complete the full setup across two sessions: a quick start session to go live, and a second session to build out the full service catalogue at their own pace.

Do I need to import my existing customers to use RepairBill?

No. You can start creating new customers directly in RepairBill from day one and add existing customers to the system as they come in for repairs. The CSV import is available if you want to migrate a large existing customer database at once, but it's not required to get started. Many shops find it easier to add customers progressively over the first few weeks rather than importing a potentially messy existing list.

How does RepairBill's Google Sheets sync work?

RepairBill's Google Sheets sync connects to a Google Sheet you specify (or creates a new one) and pushes your repair jobs, invoices, payments, and inventory data to it on a scheduled basis. You authorise the connection once through your Google account, set the sync frequency, and the sheet stays up to date automatically. Your accountant can access the sheet for BAS preparation without you needing to export anything manually.

What should I set up first in RepairBill?

Set up your business details and ABN first so invoices are compliant from your very first job. Then configure your GST settings. Then build your service catalogue with at least your 20 most common repair types before going live. Customer import and inventory setup can happen in parallel or immediately after. The voice command system and Google Sheets sync can be configured at any time and don't block your ability to process repairs.