Which software for your body shop?

For the workshop software: Gest’Garage €19 incl. VAT per month, TDV Agent €19.90 to €79 incl. VAT, AutoProGestion €29 or €59 excl. VAT, Kwixéo €22 to €89 excl. VAT per month (€18.33 to €74.17 in the first year paid yearly), WinMotor Next €68 excl. VAT for one user (€44 per user from two), ProGarage €99 to €499 excl. VAT. Dealer management systems with a body shop module (EBP MéCa PRO, Fiducial, Repair Soft, Cilea, 3Dsoft) and estimating tools (Sidexa, GT Estimate, DAT, Lacour, Atelio) are on quote, and Darva access is subscribed separately (prices checked on 1 November 2026). A custom extension costs €2,500 to €7,000 paid once, a complete tool €5,000 to €25,000, then €100 to €300 per month for maintenance.

Yes, as soon as your jobs go through insurers: the estimating tool produces, from licensed manufacturer labour times and parts, an estimate that the appraiser and the insurer accept. No workshop software under €100 per month includes one, and Gest’Garage says so itself: no manufacturer times, no paint estimating. Systems with a body shop module (EBP MéCa PRO, Fiducial, Repair Soft) connect to these tools to avoid retyping, once an account is opened with each platform. Sidexa Qapter goes further by detecting damage on photos. For customers paying themselves, workshop software with a separate paint rate is often enough.

Darva is the French exchange platform between insurers, appraisers and repairers, created in 1988 near Niort and mostly owned by insurers; its presentation page mentions 9 million claim files. The insurer’s assignment, the claim notice, the photos, the appraiser’s approval, the invoice and the payment go through it. It is not management software: it is reached through a partner system (EBP, Fiducial, Solware, Cilea, Repair Soft…) or the Sinapps Auto portal, with a separate subscription whose price is not published. Its Flash service sends the policyholder an SMS link to photograph the damage themselves. Not to be confused with Alpha Scale, which is not an estimating tool but a parts purchasing centre created by Prefikar, a subsidiary of Axa.

The software listed here is all paid, but most of it can be tried for free: 14 days with no card at Gest’Garage, TDV Agent and Kwixéo, 14 days at AutoProGestion (card not charged), 7 days at ProGarage, 15 days for the GT Estimate estimating tool. For a small body shop, the free tracking sheet on this page, one row per job in Excel, is enough to see where each vehicle stands and what each insurer owes you. What a spreadsheet does not do: attach photos to the job, chase the appraiser or the supplier by itself, and hold up beyond about thirty jobs open at the same time.

The categories of the French Consumer Code (art. R224-25) target your workshop directly: removable body panels, interior trim, non-bonded glazing, lights, and some mechanical or electronic parts outside running gear, steering, braking and suspension. You may skip them when the service is free, under warranty or part of a recall, when the part is not available within a lead time compatible with the vehicle’s time off the road, or when safety is at risk (art. R224-24), noting the reason. The customer’s choice is recorded on a durable medium before their agreement, with availability, lead time and price, and a copy is kept for 2 years; the information is posted outside and on your website. Penalty: up to €3,000, €15,000 for a company. Equivalent quality parts have no rule of their own; since 1 January 2023, glazing is free of design rights and other visible parts may come from the original equipment supplier (art. L513-6 of the French Intellectual Property Code).

That their policy mentions it and that their insurer must remind them of it at the first contact to declare the claim, in writing if it was oral (art. L211-5-1 of the French Insurance Code, order of 17 June 2016): they can have the repair done at your shop even if the insurer steers them to its approved network. The insurer keeps the choice of the appraiser, whom it appoints on average within 15 days, and no text sets a deadline for the report. The quote template on this page has a “free choice of repairer reminded to the customer” box, useful if the job is disputed later.

The customer assigns their right to the indemnity to you: you invoice the insurer directly for its share, and the customer only pays you their excess and any depreciation. Since the French law of 3 December 2020, a policy clause forbidding this assignment is void (art. L211-5-2 of the Insurance Code). Have an assignment document signed with the quote and keep it in the job file; EBP MéCa PRO handles it through a Mobilians interface, and the free template on this page has its “assignment of claim: yes / no” line and its two shares, insurer and customer.

You are not obliged to lend a vehicle. If you do, you must inform the customer about the insurance cover that applies (Court of Cassation, 25 November 2003), and the vehicle is at least insured for third-party liability: check that your workshop policy covers vehicles lent to customers. Keep in the job file a loan agreement, the condition reports at hand-over and return, the mileage and the dates. On the software side, AutoProGestion handles the contract and the condition report, WinMotor Next (Premium) and 3Dsoft the courtesy car schedule, Repair Soft replacement vehicles; the free Excel file on this page has a loan register.

Body shops fall under heading 2930 of the French classified installations: applying paint, varnish or primer requires a declaration with inspection above 10 kg of products a day and registration above 100 kg; repair itself does above 2,000 m² of workshop. Keep count of the quantities put through the booth to know which side of the threshold you are on. Paints, solvents, aerosols, oils and batteries are hazardous waste: the tracking slip has been dematerialised on Trackdéchets since 1 January 2022, and the chronological register is declared there since 5 May 2025, within 7 days. An end-of-life vehicle goes to an approved ELV centre, with a destruction certificate.

Every French company must be able to receive e-invoices since 1 September 2026, and small and mid-sized companies will have to issue them from 1 September 2027. Your invoices to insurers and fleets are business-to-business invoices: they will go through an accredited platform, in Factur-X or an equivalent format; invoices to private customers fall under e-reporting. So check that your software can split an invoice between the insurer’s share and the customer’s (TDV Agent in its Pro plan, WinMotor Next with its multi-payer invoicing, EBP MéCa PRO with its insurance / customer split) and that it already produces Factur-X, as TDV Agent does from its Essentiel plan.

If your software exports your customers, vehicles, jobs and invoices to Excel or CSV, I import them into the new tool; it is planned in the quote. Check this export option before signing with a publisher, and ask what happens to the photos.