its usefulness. In January 1985, a trade magazine ad for Digitree Systems of Boulder, CO, offered a complete body shop management software system including estimates, job costing, repair orders and full accounting with payroll for $1,995. Together with a computer of the purchaser’s choice, a shop could computerize for less than $5,000 ($11,946 in 2019 dollars.) By mid-1986, a trade magazine article noted, “Like it or not, we are now living in the computer age. For many years, computers have been used for various business applications and we find them more and more in each aspect of our daily lives. You probably can’t remember when your monthly department store bill was not prepared by a computer. In fact, if all the computers now in use were suddenly shut down the whole world would be thrown into chaos.” Despite this obvious statement, many shops had still not computerized. The article was followed by an ad for Team Management Network computers featuring a “portable computer,” forerunner to the laptop, which could be brought out to the car to complete an estimate, then reconnected to the main computer system. According to an article published in the fall of 1986, 32% of all body shops would seriously consider installing a computer system within the next year. That means 20,000 shop owners were asking, “What can a computer do for my business?” The
article suggests the No. 1 priority for shop owners should be computerized job costing. A January 1987 article about computerized estimating systems noted, “Although the traditional role of computers in business tends to be in bookkeeping and finance, a properly written estimating program can provide the starting point for a whole new level of efficiency and profitability.” A three-page spread in a January 1987 trade magazine offered short descriptions of computerized estimating systems and body shop management computer systems from 16 companies, including S & S Development Systems, Tru-Time Systems, Inc., and Keep It Simple Software and Cad Design Systems. It seemed everyone and their brother was jumping on the computer bandwagon. Many systems were designed to run on an IBM XT or AT computer system or Tandy system. Some did not require the hardware system to have its own hard drive. Making the right choice was very confusing, especially for those people with no background or knowledge of the computer world. And those who did have some knowledge were quick to point out the system purchased today could be obsolete in a year, further scaring shop owners. By January 1988, many shops had accepted the inevitable and computerized their shops, but many were still on the fence. Those that made the leap found, much to their delight, learning the management programs was not that difficult. And once mas-
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Not one of those shops reported their application had been rejected, and in fact, nearly 84% said they had already received notification that repayment of the funds was not necessary. More than three in five of shops receiving a PPP loan as of June had not yet applied for having repayment waived, though more than 90% of those said they intended to do so.
SBA Suggests local-assistance/find) to locate SBA resource partners in their area. An analysis conducted by the Society of Collison Repair Specialists suggests nearly 20,000 body shops nationwide received a PPP loan. The data, released in July by the SBA and the Treasury Department, indicates 2,500 independent repairers received loans of $150,000 or more. An industry survey in June found among 200 shops that had received a PPP loan, almost a third (31%) had already applied for loan forgiveness.
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tered, shops didn’t know how they lived without computerization. Computer systems of the period could have included not only a shop management system but also estimating software. At that time, more than 20 different brands of collision shop-related software were available, including shop management and estimating systems. One computer advocate noted, however, that most shop owners bought a computer for the wrong reason—to write estimates. He noted the real value in a computer was job costing—knowing how much money was made on each individual job. The concept of job costing would take some time to sink in. An early 1988 ad for Digitree computers noted the popular computer was now being shipped with the “Mitchell Connection,” an automatic estimating program containing the entire text of the Mitchell crash estimating guides The ad noted the Digitree program required an IBM or compatible computer with MS DOS 3.1, 640K RAM and a 40MB hard drive, pretty standard stuff for the times. A 40MB hard drive! Imagine!
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More space than one will ever use! The 40 MB hard drive was obsolete in a fairly short time, causing people to buy compression programs for their software, making the entire system unstable. Despite the burgeoning computer industry, a trade magazine article in the summer of 1988 discussed various uses for a new tool in the body shop—the fax machine, ideal for, among other things, placing parts orders. The article noted, “The fax machine is here to stay, and most successful collision shops will have fax machines in use in the near future.” The fax concept had been around for years but only commercially acceptable and viable since the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, computers equipped with the proper software could create an estimate, job costing, create work orders, order parts, create estimate supplements, analyze data, log technicians on and off a job, create technician progress reports, maintain parts and materials inventory, create work flow, perform accounting procedures and do word processing.
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