A pack that is nearly complete for three weeks
The repair is finished and the customer is back in their car. The accident management company that referred the job needs the final invoice, the estimate, the before and after images, the customer's satisfaction note and the recovery invoice. Four of those are in your management system. One is in an email from the recovery firm. The satisfaction note was signed at handover and is in a tray on the counter.
Somebody gathers them into a PDF or uploads them one by one to the company's portal. Two of them are rejected because the images are not labelled the way that company likes. The pack goes back and forth, and until it is accepted, you are not paid.
Every referrer wants a different bundle
Accident management companies and credit hire firms work on non-fault claims, recovering the cost from the at-fault insurer. They depend on your documents to do that, so they are particular about them. What you send to one is not quite right for another, and the requirements live in onboarding emails rather than anywhere your system can see.
- Required documents differ between referrers, and sometimes between job types.
- Some want one combined PDF, some want individual uploads, some want email.
- Documents from third parties (recovery, storage, sublets) arrive separately.
- Signed customer documents are often on paper.
A worked example: a recovered car sits in your storage for a few days before the customer confirms the repair. The referrer needs the recovery invoice, the storage record with dates, and the customer's authority to repair, as well as the usual repair documents. The storage dates are in a notebook, and the pack stalls until someone finds them.
What incomplete packs cost
Payment on referred work usually depends on an accepted pack. Every rejection or request for a missing document delays your money, and some jobs sit unpaid for a long time because a single item was never sent. Staff time spent assembling and resubmitting packs is time taken from current work.
Referrers notice too. A shop whose packs arrive complete and first time is easier to work with, and that matters when they decide where to send the next job.
How we build a repair pack builder
- Each accident management company or credit hire firm you work with has its own pack definition: the documents required, their naming and the format and route they expect.
- Documents are collected against the job as they are created: estimate and images from your estimating system, invoice from your management system, signed notes from the handover tablet.
- Third party documents such as recovery and storage invoices are picked up from email where they arrive in a readable format, or uploaded by staff.
- The job shows a pack checklist, with each item ticked or missing, from the day the job opens.
- When complete, the pack is assembled in that referrer's format and sent by their accepted route, or prepared for upload where the portal is manual.
- Rejections are logged with the reason, and the pack is corrected and resent from the same screen.
| Document | Usual source | Collected when |
|---|---|---|
| Estimate and images | Estimating system | At authorisation |
| Recovery and storage | Third party email or notes | On arrival and release |
| Customer authority and satisfaction | Tablet signature | At drop-off and handover |
| Final invoice | Management system | When the job is invoiced |
The pack builder does not decide what a claim should include or give any view on the claim itself. It assembles the documents each referrer has asked you for.
Packs that go out once
When the car is handed back, the pack is already mostly complete because documents were collected along the way. The missing item, if any, is obvious. The office sends it and moves on, and rejections become rare and easy to fix.
You also see how long each referrer takes to pay after an accepted pack, which is useful when deciding how much of their work to take.
Signs your packs need this
- Referred jobs sit unpaid because a document is missing.
- Packs are put together by hand from several places.
- Different referrers' requirements are known by one person.
- Signed customer documents are on paper in trays.
- Rejections come back for naming or format reasons.