Serbian garages: run the workshop from one screen and stop chasing paperwork

A garage in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš or a smaller town works through the same chain every day: the car arrives, someone prices the repair, the customer says yes, the parts are found, the mechanic does the job and an invoice is issued. Promec holds that chain in one place: repair order, offer, stock, diary, customer messages and invoices with your tax ID and a PDV rate on each line.

Promec does not connect to the Serbian Tax Administration (Poreska uprava) or to SEF, the state electronic-invoice system. It does not file PDV returns and does not send your invoices to SEF. Those steps stay with your own software or your accountant. A direct tax-authority link exists in Promec only for Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia.

The whole garage in one program, with AI doing the slow part

The phone call, the diagnosis, the go-ahead, the repair and the payment are steps of one job instead of five separate files.

The annual inspection in a Serbian garage's calendar

Cars in Serbia go through the "tehnički pregled", the technical vehicle inspection. The rules are in the Pravilnik o tehničkom pregledu vozila, published on the Ministry of the Interior's website. It names three kinds of inspection: redovni (regular), vanredni (extraordinary) and kontrolni, a check ordered by an authorised person at the Ministry or by a road-traffic inspector. When the inspection ends with a registration certificate being issued, it is recorded as the redovni godišnji tehnički pregled, the regular annual inspection.

It is done by companies authorised for the work, not by an ordinary garage. For regular and extraordinary inspections the car has to arrive clean and in running order, and the person bringing it shows the traffic permit ("saobraćajna dozvola") and an ID. A registered car must also carry its number plates. Those are practical points a garage can tell the owner in advance.

Promec stores the inspection date on each vehicle, sends the reminder before it, and any fault found afterwards becomes an offer on the same file. It does not book inspections or connect to the stations.

Sources: MUP, Pravilnik o tehničkom pregledu vozila

What usually takes several programs is a single one here

Invoices, e-invoicing and customer data: where Promec stops

PDV. Value-added tax in Serbia is porez na dodatu vrednost, or PDV, set by the Zakon o porezu na dodatu vrednost. The Tax Administration (Poreska uprava) publishes the law on its website, and businesses inside the system are called obveznici PDV. In Promec you choose the rate for each invoice line and the amounts flow into the accounts. No rates are quoted here because they can change; your accountant knows the current ones. The return is prepared outside Promec.

SEF. The Sistem elektronskih faktura is the state e-invoice system, run by the Ministry of Finance under the Zakon o elektronskom fakturisanju. Invoices are sent, received and stored through it, and it accepts them by API or as UBL 2.1 XML files. Promec does not connect to SEF and does not send invoices to it. Which of your invoices must go through SEF is set by that law, so ask your accountant; the sending itself happens in the SEF portal or in software that is connected to it.

Personal data. The Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (Službeni glasnik RS 87/2018) is overseen by the Poverenik, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. The Commissioner handles complaints from individuals and promotes awareness of duties among controllers and processors. A garage that keeps names, phone numbers and plates is a controller. Promec processes data under the GDPR, messages only go to contacts who agreed to them, and each one is logged.

Sources: Poreska uprava, Zakon o porezu na dodatu vrednost · Ministry of Finance, efaktura.gov.rs (SEF) · Ministry of Finance, SEF · Poverenik, Authority

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How a Serbian garage can use each part of Promec

Each module takes over something now done on paper, in a chat group or in a spreadsheet. For each one below: what it replaces, what it does and what you need to have ready.

Reception and radni nalog

• Replaces: the check-in slip and the notes left on the dashboard.
• Does: you open the job from the registration plate, write down why the car came, its mileage and its condition, and attach photos taken on a phone. Parts, hours and customer approvals then belong to that job, not to whoever took the keys.
• Needs: plates, the chassis number where you have it, the customer's invoicing details and your hourly rate.

Offers and invoices

• Replaces: the handwritten ponuda and the invoice built in a word processor.
• Does: the offer is built from labour and parts lines and sent with a link to accept or decline. Once accepted it becomes the job without retyping. The invoice comes from the finished job with running numbers and a PDV rate on every line. Nothing is submitted to the Tax Administration or to SEF.
• Needs: the numbering series you use, your PDV rates, prices per type of job and your usual ways of getting paid.

Stock and parts

• Replaces: counting shelves by eye and the order notebook.
• Does: every part has a location, a purchase cost, a selling price and a minimum level. Fitting it to a job reduces stock; dropping under the minimum puts it on the reorder list. Supplier delivery notes are checked against what was ordered, so you see what has been paid, what has not arrived and what has sat unsold.
• Needs: a list of parts with costs and prices, your suppliers and one full stock count.

Diary and bookings

• Replaces: the paper diary and the calls made to juggle slots.
• Does: bookings go to a bay and a mechanic with an expected duration, so you can see whether Thursday has room before promising a day. Bookings made on your website land in the same diary. A car waiting for parts stays visible without blocking a bay.
• Needs: number of bays, opening hours, mechanics and how long your usual jobs take.

Customer alerts

• Replaces: the round of phone calls at the end of the day.
• Does: the customer hears when the offer is ready, when work starts and when the car can be collected, by the channel they chose. Reminders for a booking, a service or the tehnički pregled go out on their own, and everything sent is kept on the file.
• Needs: a phone number and email that the customer agreed to be contacted on, and each car's inspection date.

Reports

• Replaces: the spreadsheet rebuilt every month.
• Does: invoiced amounts by period, margin per line split into labour and parts, offers sent against offers accepted, bay use and the share of each job type. Two decisions come out of it: whether your hourly rate covers your costs, and which part you buy dear and sell cheap.
• Needs: nothing beyond the jobs and invoices already recorded.

Moving from your old system

The fear is losing your history, so the move comes first and the garage keeps working throughout.

• 1. Export. Send what your current program can export: customers, vehicles, stock lines, offers and issued invoices. If it only produces printed lists, we work from those.
• 2. Tidy-up. This is the heavy part and we do it: the same plate entered twice, one customer under two tax IDs, one part spelled three ways. It is cleaned before loading.
• 3. Test copy. Your data first goes into a copy where you can check balances, invoice series and stock. Anything that does not match is corrected and loaded again.
• 4. Set-up. You enter bays, mechanics, rates, invoice series and who may do what: who invoices, who sees margins, who only works on jobs.
• 5. Overlap. For the first days, invoice in Promec and keep the old program read-only, so your history is still within reach.
• 6. Training by role. Reception, mechanics and office staff each get their own screens and lessons, on your own data rather than a demo garage.

Your data stays yours: you can export it at any time, including the day you leave. Moving data in is free of charge.

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