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Walk-up flow

Walk-up customer? Add them without leaving the job.

Walk-up customer with their car in the lot? Most shop software bails you out of the new-RO form to go register them. Pitlane lets you add the contact and the vehicle inline — never leaving the job.

4 fields

Inline contact

0 page changes

Form preserved

VIN-aware

Auto-uppercase, 17 char

Inline + New contact when nothing matches.

Type a name, phone, or email. If search returns nothing, + New contact expands a mini-form right there. Save creates the contact and selects them — no page change, no form reset.

  • Pre-fills firstName from your search text
  • Email or phone required (one is enough)
  • Optional notes captured at moment-zero, not in a separate Notes tab later
  • Outer RO form keeps every field you'd already filled in

Same pattern for vehicles.

Customer in the system but their car isn't? + Add vehicle expands a five-field form: year, make, model, VIN (17-char auto-uppercase), plate, current mileage. Save creates and selects.

  • VIN keys future PartsTech / MOTOR integrations
  • Plate + mileage make warranty tracking honest

Email or phone required, on purpose.

A walk-up who never gives you contact info isn't someone you can review-request, reactivate, or text when the truck's done. Pitlane treats one of email or phone as the minimum bar for a real customer record — not gatekeeping, just refusing to pile up orphan rows.

How it works.

01

Start a new RO or inspection

From /service-records/new or /inspections/new. The customer search is the first field.

02

Search returns nothing → click + New contact

Inline mini-form expands. firstName pre-fills from your search text. Add email or phone, optional notes. Click Save.

03

Vehicle is empty → click + Add vehicle

Year, make, model, VIN (auto-uppercase), plate, mileage. Save creates the vehicle and selects it. The rest of your RO form stays intact.

This runs for your shop on a 30-day free trial.

Every feature on this page is included in the trial. No credit card. Live in under 10 minutes.

Start 30-day free trial See a live demo

Questions about walk-up flow.

Why is email or phone required for a new contact?

Without one of those, you can't review-request the customer, can't run reactivation campaigns against them, and can't text them when their car's ready. Walk-ups who refuse to give contact info usually aren't paying customers anyway. The bar isn't high — one of the two is enough.

Can I edit the contact later if I add them in a hurry?

Yes. The inline form captures the minimum to start the job. Open the contact from /contacts and add address, business name, marketing opt-in, tags, additional vehicles — anything you want. The walk-up flow exists to let you start the job; the contact page exists to flesh out the record later.

Does the inline form check for duplicate contacts before creating?

The search above the form already shows the matches; if you click + New contact you've explicitly chosen to create instead of pick one. Pitlane doesn't currently prompt about possible duplicates on save (e.g., same phone number on a different existing contact). If duplicate prevention matters in your shop, file a feedback note and we'll prioritize it.

Does the VIN field decode to year / make / model automatically?

Not yet — you still type year/make/model alongside the VIN. We're scoping a VIN decoder integration as part of the PartsTech / MOTOR work; the VIN field is in place now so existing records have the data when that ships.

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