R.O.Writer

Pros

its awsome and great and easy to use so i do reccoment it

Cons

there is not much support on it like live chat or whatever

Pros

it is easy to use quick to build a work order with smart oil and smart jobs

Cons

the marketing and follow up mod. is hard to nav. would like to see it updated

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing R.O.Writer

Reasons for Switching to R.O.Writer

Pros

When it first came out, it was too pricey, and it did a lot but now other automotive software is out there for a fraction of the price and does the same

Cons

Lack of customer support, lack of billing support, and basically over priced for what it is

Pros

Ro write has good customization and is easy to use

Cons

Prompts can get annoying when set incorrectly. There is a lot of clicking for one action

Pros

RO writer is an easy product to learn, user friendly

Cons

That cut and paste is not an option

Pros

Good parts ordering options and great product documentation

Cons

Constant crashes, extremely slow response from software. I spent half of my day staring at my screen waiting for RO writer to catch up with me.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing R.O.Writer

Reasons for Switching to R.O.Writer

Pros

Details. You want reports, you got ‘em.

Cons

Almost everything else.
Just gets worse with each iteration.

Pros

Comfortable for all to use. I have high confidence in the program and the support when needed. Tons of reports to use.

Cons

In the past, I was concerned that not enough was being invested in the product. Glad to see that has changed!

Pros

User-friendly, great customer service. The hard drive crashed, and customer service was extremely helpful. [sensitive content hidden] got the shop and running after a couple days of frustration.

Cons

Not experienced enough to give an honest opinion.

Pros

RO writing, Epicor, service history, inventory management

Cons

Latest version 3.0.3 is overall very clunky, slow, and missing some features

Pros

Can't give no pros. Been having problems ever since updated to new software.

Cons

Keeps messing up. Have to call in all the time because something not working. After 24 years using R O Writer I have to say this new software is crap. More money and a lot of wasted time getting it to work correctly. Which they seem can't fix! Never had problems with older version. This new update version has problems all the time and have to wait on hold for 30 minutes for support . I DO NOT RECOMMEND this new version of R O writer!!!

Pros

SMART E CAT. Ability to easily look up fluid types

Cons

Estimate conversion a bit cumbersome. They could make that easier.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to R.O.Writer

Pros

We have been using ROWriter software for over 18 years. We currently have 10 shops and a central office using the software. The software is easy to use and to train employees on. It is a real asset to our shops. We also like the recent tablet extension to make ROWriter mobile in our shops. With all of the features available in ROWriter, this is the best shop management software you can buy. Support has also been really good over the years.

Cons

Would like to see more detail in the Central History between shops like parts supplier and parts invoice numbers.

Pros

Old platform that really simple. It turns on every time we turn it on I guess that’s a Pro. Needs work

Cons

No good improvement. Took years change database. Glacial tech-support week support to call back...

Pros

Simple to use. If you can read it's self explanatory.

Cons

Almost too basic in some areas. Example: maybe a more modern look instead of blocky 2000s era software.

Pros

Reports are plentiful, repair orders are easy to read, ease of use, and has more than you will use for a shop. Easy to open and process repair orders. Ro touch is the bomb. Awesome product

Cons

Theres a lot of stuff to use. But sometimes it just takes time to decide wHt u need to use cor your situation to run your shop profitable and productive

Pros

easy estimating at All three of our locations. I really like the new updates with the new version. Another thing i like is the the new smart status on ro touch.

Cons

it locks up at times, and i"m sure its probably something we did wrong along the way. The system gets better every day. I think this system is going to be awesome, once all the bugs are worked out.

Pros

I like the speed with which I am able to determine availability for products and create repair order estimates. Find quite accurate.

Cons

At times will ask questions like 4wd vs 2wd, automatic vs standard shift but then will display both options on parts screen even after I have narrowed down the search.
I dislike that you have to get out of an estimate for any other work in rowriter- example I am estimating brakes on customers vehicle when receive call from another customer for an appointment- have to exit estimate in order to set appointment in scheduler- I am constantly having to go back into or restart estimates.
Also would like to be able to look at part pictures from the ro once on a ticket- with current system have to go back into smart jobs if I would like to reference picture again.

Pros

Smart E Cat was nice to use when it worked. I like the parts return system. You need to run AutoApps with it to run efficiently.

Cons

Tech support was not good. Software would crash DAILY. Loses information constantly. Slow to update or improve any features. Expensive.

Pros

This product makes us money. Not only in grosses on sales, but on efficiencies. It makes ordering part very easy and you can compare competitors pricing.

Cons

Hard to learn, but the best product once you do learn it. The system does lock up from time to time, but easy to restart. Sometimes takes quite a while to get through to customer support.

Pros

There is absolutely nothing good about this software. It is a total waste of dollars spent. Unfortunately I can't come up with a single pro.

Cons

Customer support is not friendly to work with, the software is always glitching out on us, you can't track invoices/emails sent

Pros

ROW has always been very easy to use. It served us well for over 20 years.

Cons

Customer support has become slower over the past few years, which caused time delays for our shop.

Pros

Thank you to the customer rep for always assisting myself and my coworkers. He always gives us fantastic customer service.

Cons

The only issue we have ever had with RO Writer is that the wait times are very long on the phone when trying to get through.

Pros

RO Writer helps you run a profitable business. It is very strong in reporting, and having all the separate modules is very helpful when multi-tasking. Smart-e-Cat is nice having all your parts vendors on one screen and the integration with SpeedDial is great. With my current reps, AC and Stan, recent support needs have been met quickly and efficiently.

Cons

The product as a whole is a bit dated and occasionally will need to be restarted due to errors. There is an updated 2.0 version out, we have not migrated to that yet in order to let them get some of the bugs worked out. Was expensive to purchase up front.

Pros

there are none it's just aggravation there behind the times the marketing aspect of the program is terrible you cannot even pull up a declined items so you can reach out to your customers

Cons

constant crashes customer support is ill equipped to handle any questions they always say we need to get you two tier 2 that will take a couple days for them to call you back... if they call. in the meantime your system is down you can't collect any money of nor write any invoices

Pros

Tech Support for this program is MIND BOGGLINGLY good! Incredible service, super knowledgeable agents, lightning fast response time to both phone call and emails--agents beyond smart, knowledgeable, and efficient. They take the time every call to fix as much as they possibly can. World Class! I would buy the program on the strength of this support alone.

Cons

Interface still looks like it's from 1995, some of the defaults--I'm looking at you scheduler--are oddly mixed in and work oppositely from themselves in different parts of the program. We often end up with appointments on the wrong day, at the wrong time, because people who use the program occasionally get tripped up by the anomalies/inconsistencies.

Pros

This software provides ease of use when looking up history for customers. Able to find any customers vehicle with great VIN look up procedure.

Cons

The only con I have with RO Writer is the software upgrade/update process seems to always have at least a couple hiccups. But they are usually quickly solved by the awesome RO Writer support team and Holly!

Pros

The best aspect of RO Writer is the accounting system in it, we are a shop heavy on fleet and this makes my monthly billing MUCH easier!

Cons

No complaints at all, we have used RO Writer for over 25 years now.

Pros

I have used the previous version of RO writer for 20 plus years and was very happy with it until a slick salesman got a hold of my general Manager and talked us into purchasing this new version of RO writerWhat a terrible mistake!!!this new version is clunky takes 30% more time to write up a repair order The new color makes us become fatigued quickerPlease give me back my old version of RO writer or I will have to go to a different software company.

Cons

After you finish writing a description of repair it takes you to the bottom of the page causing you to lose you place on the page Causing you to lose your thought process and you are constantly going to the bottom of the page and back to your original place on the page.This is super exhausting and is waiting precious company time Bad product give me back my old version

Pros

Good, but uninspired program. Decently easy to learn. Does everything we need it to. Better than paper system we had previously.

Cons

Tech support. There are other issues, but the tech support is very bad. Don't get me wrong. The tech support isn't so completely horrible that you will be forced to switch to a different program. It's just good enough that you will probably stay using their program because you don't want to go through with retraining your technofeeb employees on a new system.

Let me elaborate on how bad they are:
No online knowledgebase.
No user forum
No email blasts on known issues occurring
Calls to tech support have approximately 20% chance of being kicked out of the queue and hung up on because nobody picked up the phone after 5 minutes of waiting.
Calls to tech support have a >25% chance of not returning your call. Yes, I really am saying they sometimes do not call me back. Frequency of failure does increase as the severity of the problem decreases. In other words, they've always called me back on critical issues. But on very minor issues, they've failed as much as half the time to call me back.
Calls to tech support rarely reach someone who can fix your problem. They almost always have to call you back.
Tech support consistently and repeatedly fails to return your system environment back to it's original configuration after remotely logging in. For example: regedit is often left running and UAC is never turned back on before they log out of your system.

The second worst problem is lack of user input. There are several areas in the program that work...but require many extra steps that could be reduced with minor coding additions.

Pros

Everything, customer support is excellent.

Cons

Nothing at everything on here is great.

Pros

The scheduler, DVI Suite, matrix gives us the ability to maximize each repair order.

Cons

The ability of the system alerting us of services that are do since last visit.

Pros

"version 2.0 " or whatever its being called is the absolute worst in every way; And trust me, I've been here for the long haul since the days of DOS OS and F Keys...What's bad? The Color and Layout, price, epicore, lasercat, integration of multivendor parts, number of clicks to get an R.O. open or Closed. It has ZERO intuativeness. It's overly comberssom and has unnecessary redundancy of clicks built in to open or close an R.O. My best guess is that the [SENSITIVE CONTENT] are tired, rich and lazy and have finally outsourced this "Gold Standard" of days long since gone by the wayside.

Cons

See above "Pros" section for full length

Pros

it is functional for operating my business

Cons

clunky, slow and navigation is stupid. too many 'features' and repots that are useless. all the time invested into making this software 'better' is just adding useless reports and tracking mechanisms that are meaningless

Pros

R.O. Writer has everything you need in once data base to find out how to repair a car, quote the repair, and invoice the customer.

Cons

R.O. Writer has so much information within the software it doesn't make it very user friendly to someone with little experience.

Pros

1. Had problems with querying data (IE History) Was told that this issue would go away if I migrated to Generation 2. I was skeptical. RO Writer was absolutely correct. Looking up info is now incredibly fast thanks to the SQL Server back end.
2. Sales, Install and Training called me WHEN they said they would and everything worked around my schedule, couldn't have asked for it to go better. The team was fantastic.
3. I have several different POS systems. RO Writer is my favorite when it comes to ease of use, hands down.

Cons

I honestly don't have any cons to list here. I am upset that I didn't migrate to Generation 2 sooner.

Pros

We love that it is user friendly and continues to create options to make our business more efficient.

Cons

There are so many things that RO writer does, I feel like sometimes we need a single person just to keep up with everything and teach the other service writers, so we use it to its fullest extent.

Pros

Very easy to use, integrates with Quickbooks, easy to make labor lines to suite customer complaints, very customizable, has a DVI system that allows techs to attach pictures to RO.; allows text communications between service writers and tech which increase efficiencies. Has text capabilities from Service writer to customer and allows customer to text back for increased approval times; etc.

Cons

It is not designed to manage a large inventory (works great on a small inventory)

Pros

Integrates with 3rd party software. Basic point of sale functionality. With a paid Pro support subscription response is fairly quick, Tier 1 personel are fairly knowledgeable.

Cons

Screen handling, Window sizing, and placement, Field Navigation. Inventory control process. Loss of automated backup processes. Tier 2/3, and programming support ineffective when they respond. Improvements promised but never delivered. Follow-up non-existant.

Pros

easy to use and very intouch with todays needs. AC very knowledable and helpful.

Cons

n/a just the learning of new system issues but RO writer team was very supportive.

Pros

I pushed for RO Writer when we decided to open our own shop due to the great experience I had at another shop. The system is well built and is VERY customizable so we can build it more to our everyday use. I like the fact that is integrates World Pac as that is our main parts source. My partners have only been working with the system for a few days and already love the overall simplicity of it and how relatively intuitive it is. The scheduler is another great feature so we are able to see what we have at a glance. We also like the training that comes along with getting the program as they make sure that you understand the basics of the system and provide plenty of guidance time and time for any questions. Customer support has been great so far and sales was a great experience as we were only sold what we were looking for and did not feel pressured to get anything we didn't need.

Cons

The only real issue we have at the moment with RO Writer is the accounting software integration is provided by a third-party vendor. This requires an additional up front cost and then a monthly fee thereafter so RO Writer can integrate with Quickbooks. It would be nice if RO Writer would offer this integration with the system rather than having a third party vendor, but at the same time RO Writer makes a great product.

Pros

easy to use software at first but constantly have issues. Not stable Even on Gen2

Cons

no tech support. They will leave you on hold for an hour or more.Takes days to repair software

Pros

Easy to input information into the system. Keeps customer database and inventory organized. Easy to check customer's history on vehicles

Cons

RO Writer is not always easy to navigate. It took some time to learn. Sometimes has glitches, however Customer Service is available to assist.

Pros

Lots of reports. Capable of a lot if properly set up.

Cons

Hard to implement. Very bad support. They need contracts to keep people stuck with it.

Pros

Most all processes work well for what we need.

Cons

Since our upgrade in August of this year to Gen 3 we have experienced some hiccups.

Pros

What we like about RO Writer is the ease of use and the ability to navigate through the Software. It is very user friendly even for new users. The Accounting side of RO Writer is a must for shops looking to increase their profitability, knowing where the Margins are is very important. Our CPA recommends it also as it is very powerful in that feature. The Support team is awesome.

Cons

Speed issues, but we are on an older version and soon moving to the newer 2.3 version. Sometimes the older version will run sluggish but our database has grown leaps and bounds over the last few years.

Pros

It is user friendly. and has great support. Our Regional and Field Manager has taken the time to make sure that we are aware of all the new features that RO Writer has to offer. We have stayed with RO Writer through thick and thin and very happy that we did. They are adding some really neat features that are taking our shops to new levels.

Cons

No cons at this time, they seem to be handling any issues that I have had in years past.

Pros

The best feature about RO Writer is Smart E-Cat. This is an add on feature, but does more to drag this archaic platform into this century than anything else.
That said RO Writer functions as a great shop management system in 1999.

Cons

While the program functions it does everything VERY slow. There is also very little customization for most operations.

Pros

I thought I lost everything on a Friday afternoon. Went out and bought a New Server and one Workstation. Called R O Writer and was up and running on Monday,
without losing anything except one day of work. Found out by R O WRITER, after software was installed that the Backup that CARFAX does every night had all of the DATA I needed to get back up and running. I thought that weekend I wad Dead in The Water.

Cons

Not being able to set software to back up Automatically. Other than not having this on my version of R O WRITER, I believe it is a Great Software for Vehicle repair.

Pros

Been a customer with two locations since 1999. This program is the back bone to my biz. You guys have made some major changes to your new 2.0 update and R O Touch. It fells like the Giant has awoken. Good job. Love your team of professionals. AC is a Rock Star! The support staff "gets it done" Another satisfied customer.

Cons

Follow up when calling in and leaving messages in timely order could use improvement. It's tough to have to call you back to find out when someone will fix problem.