Module 31 · Foundation · 8 min read

The setup guide: company, VAT and labour rates

You will be able to: List the eight steps of the setup guide in order; Enter the company details and TRN correctly; Explain what happens to tax invoices when the TRN is missing.

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A new garage does not have to hunt through Settings. The Setup guide walks through eight short steps in about five minutes. Every step can be skipped, your answers are saved, and you can finish later; a Finish setting up chip stays on the dashboard until you do. Only a user who may change settings is offered the guide.

  1. Your garage: name, Arabic name, phone, emirate, address, TRN and logo.
  2. Labour rates: what you charge per hour and what an hour costs you.
  3. Bays and mechanics: how many bays or lifts, and who works on the cars.
  4. Services and parts: load a ready-made starter list, then change the prices.
  5. Document numbers: prefixes for job cards, quotations, invoices and receipts.
  6. Your team: a login for each person, with a role.
  7. Backup: a daily backup on this computer, and a copy somewhere else.
  8. Opening balances: money already in the till or the bank.

Company details and the TRN

Type the real garage name as it should print on invoices. Choose the emirate, because the VAT return needs it. The tax registration number, the TRN, is exactly 15 digits and is printed on every tax invoice. A logo can be a PNG, JPEG or WebP picture of 1 MB or less. A garage that is not registered for VAT ticks Not VAT registered instead of typing a TRN.

Watch outA VAT-registered company cannot post a sales invoice or credit note while its TRN is empty or still the sample number the starter company carries. The system refuses with a plain message. The public demo is exempt, so training works, but a real garage must enter its own TRN first.

Labour rates

Two numbers drive pricing and profit. The labour rate is what you charge per hour, before VAT. The standard labour cost is what an hour of a mechanic costs you; it is used to estimate labour cost when nobody clocked the time. Changing the cost needs both the price right and the cost right on your user.

Pricing an hourAl Noor Auto Service charges 120.00 per hour and a mechanic costs it 45.00 per hour. A 1.5 hour job is sold for 180.00; VAT at 5% adds 9.00, so the customer sees 189.00. The estimated labour cost is 1.5 x 45.00 = 67.50, which leaves 112.50 of labour margin before parts and other costs.

The last steps

In Document numbers a starting number can be set only until documents exist; a prefix can be changed later in Settings. Estimates follow the job card number, so they need no setting. The Backup step shows whether the daily backup is on and offers to keep a copy off this PC, because a copy on the same computer disappears with it. Opening balances is optional and nothing else waits for it.

Try it in the demo

  1. Open the Garage demo at https://garage.zeyto.app and look for the Setup guide in the menu or the Finish setting up chip on the dashboard.
  2. Open each of the eight steps and read the one-line help. Do not save anything on the shared demo.
  3. In the Your garage step, find the TRN box and the Not VAT registered tick.
Open the live demo

Public demo company, sign in as admin / demoAdmin123. Data refreshes nightly.

Key takeaways
  • The Setup guide has eight skippable steps and takes about five minutes.
  • A TRN has exactly 15 digits; a VAT-registered company cannot post invoices without a real one.
  • Labour rate is the price per hour before VAT; standard labour cost is what an hour costs you.
  • Keep a backup copy somewhere other than the shop PC.

Check yourself

5 questions on this lesson. Not timed, not the exam, and you can try again. Score 60% or more, and read the lesson, to complete it.

1. How many steps does the setup guide have?

2. How many digits does a UAE TRN have?

3. A VAT-registered company with an empty TRN can still post sales invoices on a real installation.

4. Which of these are steps of the setup guide?

Select all that apply.

5. A garage charges 120.00 per hour and a mechanic costs it 45.00 per hour. For a 1.5 hour job, what is the estimated labour cost?

Previous: Roles and who sees whatNext: Building the services and parts catalogue

Practice questions for this module · Printable study sheet