Multiple locations in Service VIN: setup
Add a second or third shop under one login, switch between them, and understand what each location keeps to itself — plus how to get both set up before you start paying.
Account & billing2 in this section
The short answer
Can I run two shops in Service VIN?
Yes. Each location is its own shop with its own customers, catalog, calendar and numbers, and you switch between them from one login rather than signing out. Nothing leaks between them. Set both up during the trial, because configuring the second one is the same work as the first.
Related feature
team management for auto shops is the page about what this article sets up.
If you run more than one shop, each location lives as its own shop in Service VIN — its own customers, jobs, calendar, inbox, booking page and roster — and you move between them from one login with the shop switcher at the top of the dashboard. A location is a real boundary, not a tag on a job: your Northside crew sees Northside's work, not the whole company's.
Multiple locations are part of the Command plan, which covers up to 3 shops under one login. They all ride one subscription — you don't pay per location up to that limit, and there's one card, one invoice and one billing page for the whole account.
You can build both locations during your trial
Every new account trials on Command, so you can add your second (and third) location before you turn on billing and have both fully set up on day one — services, hours, staff, booking pages, the lot. Nothing you build during the trial is thrown away when you pick a plan. Just make sure the plan you choose is Command: if the trial ends on a plan that only covers one shop, you keep everything you've entered, but you won't be able to add another location until you're back on a plan that includes it.
Adding a location
- 1
Open Settings → Locations (or “+ Add shop” in the top bar)
Settings → Locations lists every location on your account with its address, its booking page and whether online booking is on — and it's where you add one. The “+ Add shop” button beside the shop switcher at the top of the dashboard does the same thing in one click. Both are for owners and managers only. If neither is there, you're either not a manager or your plan doesn't include a second location yet (see Billing, your trial & your plan).
- 2
Name it
One field. Use something you'll recognise in a dropdown at 7am — “Apex Detailing — South”, not “Shop 2”. Your browser's timezone is used to start with, and you can change it, along with everything else, in Settings.
- 3
You're dropped straight into the new shop
The switcher flips to it, you're the owner of it, and you're on its roster as a bookable staff member. Its online booking page is already live on its own address, and email is on from its first second.
- 4
Set it up like you set up the first one
Everything under Settings is per-location: shop profile and address, hours, services and stations, branding and templates, booking page, notifications, and its own phone number for calls and texts. Work through the same setup you did the first time — the Go-live checklist applies per shop.
- 5
Add the crew to the location they work at
Team members are invited per shop, so someone who covers both locations gets invited to both and shows up in the switcher just like you. Someone who only works at one is only ever a member of that one — that's what keeps each location's data to itself. See Invite your team.
Switching between locations. With more than one shop, the top bar shows a dropdown instead of a plain shop name. Pick a location and the whole app reloads into it — the calendar, the inbox, the job board, the numbers. The app remembers the last location you worked in, so you land back in it next time you sign in, and anything you create is stamped to the shop you're standing in.
What's shared, what's separate
How customers book when you have more than one location. Once two or more of your locations have online booking switched on, your booking page opens with a “Which location works for you?” step: the customer sees every one of your bookable locations by name and address, picks one, and carries on into that location's own services and times. One link works for all of them — you don't have to publish a separate URL per shop, and a customer who lands on the wrong one can move themselves without phoning you.
Each location still has its own address you can share directly (it's listed under the location's name in Settings → Locations). Sending someone that link skips the picker and drops them straight into that location's booking flow — handy for a location-specific ad, a Google Business profile or a QR code on the door.
A location only appears in the picker if a customer could actually book it right now: online booking on, and not locked by your plan. Turn a location's booking off and it quietly leaves the picker; turn it back on and it's there again.
If your locations do different work, don't ask “which location?” at all. Say one site is only fitted out for basic washes and the other does full detailing, ceramic and PPF. Asking the customer to pick a location first makes them answer a question about your floor plan before they've said what they want — and whoever picks the wrong one sees a menu with the service they came for missing from it.
Go to Settings → Online booking → Multiple locations and choose “Let the service decide the location”. That location's booking page then becomes a universal one: every other location's services appear in the same categories and on the same cards as this location's own — same size, same grid, same place in the menu — each carrying a small pin naming the location that performs it. A category only your other location sells (say *Washes*, when this site only details) shows up as a category card on the front of the menu like any other, so nothing is tucked away at the bottom of the page where it gets missed.
Pick work this location doesn't do and you're taken to the location that does, with everything you've already answered carried over — the service, your vehicle size, and whether you're coming in or booking mobile — plus a note saying which location you're now booking with. Nobody has to start the form again. The only thing a customer is asked twice is a vehicle size the receiving location doesn't price online, and the page says that is why.
The third option, “This location only”, does the opposite: that page never mentions your other locations at all.
It's a per-location setting — it controls what *that* booking page does — so set it the same way on each location if you want every link to behave alike. Prices on a merged card always read “from”, because the exact price depends on the vehicle size under the other location's own pricing; the customer sees the real number on that location's page, before anything is confirmed.
Finding a customer who belongs to your other location. The books stay separate — that is the point of two locations — but from week one every two-shop business hits the same wall: someone rings the branch they've never been to, and your agent retypes a profile the other branch already has, usually with a typo in the email.
On the Customers page there is a box called “Look them up at your other locations”. Type a name, phone number or email and it searches your other shops. What comes back is an identity card: their name, whether that branch flags them a VIP, their phone, email and city, the vehicles on file, how many visits they've had there and when — and the last few jobs that location did for them, with the services and the car. That last part is there for the quote you're about to give: you can see the film already on the panel before you price the panel.
What never crosses is that location's notes, messages, invoices, balances or lifetime value. Those belong to the branch that did the work.
“Add to this location” copies the person into the shop you're standing in, with their vehicles, spelled exactly as the other branch has them — which is what keeps the two records recognisable as one person afterwards. Someone you already have is marked “Already here” instead, so you can't copy them twice.
You can't create the duplicate by accident any more. Type an email or phone that already belongs to a customer at another location and the Add-customer form stops and tells you whose it is, with the button that copies them across properly. The quick-add inside the quote builder does the copy for you without asking, because mid-quote is no moment for a decision.
On a customer's own record you'll also see “Also one of your customers at” — which of your locations know them, how many visits at each, and what was done. If the other branch spells their name differently, it says so, so you can fix it instead of never finding out.
One rule worth knowing: if someone tells one branch to stop texting, that stop travels — every location honours it. Permission to market to them does not travel: each location records its own basis, which is what the law asks of you.
Turning it off, per location. In Settings → Locations each location card has a Customer look-up block with three switches, all on by default: whether your other locations can find that location's customers; whether they can see what work it did (nested under the first); and whether that location's own staff may search the others. Owners and managers only.
Switching sharing off stops future look-ups. Records another location already copied stay theirs — nothing is clawed back.
Setting up a second location? Leave “Customer list & vehicles” unticked
The setup carousel offers to copy your whole customer list into the new location. It ships off, and it should usually stay off. Copied records arrive marked as archived history, which means reminders, review requests and reactivation at the new location can never contact them — you'd get thousands of people who have never been there and whom your automations can't speak to. Letting your staff pull each customer across from the look-up as they actually call gives you live customers instead.
Closing a location for good
- 1
Open Settings → Locations
Find the location and choose Close permanently. Owners and managers only, and it's never offered for your last remaining location — an account has to have somewhere to work.
- 2
Read what it takes with it, then type the location's name
The dialog names the real numbers — how many customers and jobs that location holds — and asks you to type the location's name and tick a box before the button turns on. That's deliberate: this is the one action in Service VIN you can't undo yourself.
- 3
What happens the moment you confirm
Its booking page goes offline immediately and the link stops working. It disappears from the shop switcher for everyone on your team. Its customers, jobs, quotes, invoices and payments are kept as records — nothing is shredded — but they're no longer reachable anywhere in the app. The location stops counting against your plan's limit, so you can add a different one in its place; your bill isn't changed here.
- 4
If you might reopen it, don't close it
Turning that location's online booking off (Settings → Online booking, while you're standing in that location) takes it off the booking page and out of the location picker, and you can switch it straight back on. Closing is for a location you've actually shut.
Bookings already on the calendar aren't cancelled
Closing a location doesn't cancel or refund the appointments it already has, and it doesn't message those customers. If that location has work booked in, deal with it first — cancel or move the appointments and refund any deposits — then close it.
One honest limitation
There is no combined cross-location dashboard yet — no single report that adds Northside and Southside together. You get one login and fast switching, and you read each location's numbers in that location. (Customers are a different story now: each location can look the others' up and copy someone across — see “Finding a customer who belongs to your other location” below.) If a rolled-up report is the thing you need most, tell support — it's the sort of ask that decides what gets built next.
Troubleshooting
“+ Add shop” isn't in my top bar
Why: It renders only for owners and managers, on a plan that covers more than one location.
Fix: Check you're signed in as an owner or manager, then open Settings → Plan & billing and confirm you're on (or trialing) Command. If you're on Essentials or Growth, upgrading puts the button back.
“Your plan covers 1 shop — you're already at the limit”
Why: The account is on a plan that includes a single location, or the trial has ended and access has fallen back to the one-shop floor.
Fix: Pick a plan that includes multiple locations from Settings → Plan & billing. Your existing shops and everything in them are untouched either way.
I added a location and my team can't see it
Why: Memberships are per shop — a new location starts with just you.
Fix: Invite each person to the new shop from its Settings → Team. They'll get a shop switcher once they belong to more than one.
My booking page only shows one location
Why: The location picker appears only when two or more locations can actually be booked — online booking switched on, and not locked by your plan.
Fix: Open Settings → Locations and check the badge on each card. Any location showing “Booking off” is missing from the picker: switch to it and turn online booking on in Settings → Online booking. A location showing “Locked by plan” needs a plan that covers it.
I closed a location by mistake
Why: “Close permanently” is final — there's no restore in Settings, which is why it asks you to type the location's name first.
Fix: Contact support straight away and give them the location's name. Nothing was deleted from your records, so the sooner you ask the better the chance of getting the location itself back — but treat it as gone rather than counting on it.
I'm working in the wrong shop / a job landed in the wrong location
Why: The app stays in the last location you used, so a quick job entered right after a switch can land in the shop you were previously in.
Fix: Check the shop name in the top bar before you start. Records are scoped to the shop they were created in and can't be moved between locations — recreate it in the right shop and delete the stray.
Common questions
Can I set up both locations before I start paying?
Yes. Your trial runs on Command, so you can add your locations and build them out during the trial, then pick Command when you're ready. Everything you set up carries over — a plan change never deletes what you've entered.
Does a second location cost extra?
Not up to the limit. Command includes up to 3 shops on the one subscription — you're paying for the plan, not per location.
Will customers see both of my locations when they book online?
Yes — as soon as two or more of your locations have online booking switched on, your booking page starts with a “Which location works for you?” step listing each one by name and address. One link serves the whole business. If you'd rather send someone straight to a specific location, each one also has its own booking address, listed in Settings → Locations.
Why do I see a booking link for each location? I thought there was only one.
Each location is its own shop in Service VIN — its own catalog, calendar, deposit policy and staff — so each one has its own address, and you'll see one per location in Settings → Locations. That does not mean you hand out more than one. On the default setting (Settings → Online booking → Multiple locations → “Ask which location first”) whichever link you share opens with the “Which location works for you?” step listing every location, so any one of them works as your single booking link. On “Let the service decide the location”, the link you share lists every location's services on one page and sends the customer to the right site automatically. The extra addresses are there for when you *want* to point somewhere specific — a location's own Google Business profile, a door QR code, a location-targeted ad. Only on “This location only” is one link per location the intended setup.
My locations offer different services — can I have one booking page that covers both?
Yes. In Settings → Online booking → Multiple locations, pick “Let the service decide the location”. That booking page then lists every location's services on one page — filed in the same categories, on the same cards, at the same size as its own, each with a pin naming the location that performs it. When a customer picks work this location doesn't do, they're taken to the location that does, with the service and the vehicle size they already picked carried across, so they never restart the form — a basic wash always becomes a booking at the site that does washes, without the customer having to know which site that is. It's set per location, so switch it on for each of your booking pages.
Do my locations share customers?
Not the whole list — but they can look each other up, which is the part that matters at the counter. A customer record still belongs to the location it was created in, so one person who visits both ends up with a record at each. What's changed is that you no longer type the second one from scratch: on the Customers page, “Look them up at your other locations” searches your other shops by name, phone or email and shows you who they are, what they drive and what work was done for them — never that location's notes, messages, invoices or balances. One tap copies them into the location you're standing in, with their vehicles, spelled exactly the same way. And if you try to add someone whose email or phone already belongs to a customer at another location, the form stops you and offers the copy instead, so you can't create the duplicate by accident.
Can I delete a location?
Yes, from Settings → Locations — but only if it isn't your last one, and only as an owner or manager. You'll be asked to type the location's name and tick an acknowledgement, because it can't be undone: its booking page goes offline, it leaves everyone's shop switcher, and its records stay on file but stop being reachable in the app. If there's any chance you'll reopen it, switch that location's online booking off instead — that's reversible.
Can staff at one location see the other location's customers?
They can LOOK THEM UP, and that's all, unless you invite them to both shops. Access still follows membership: a member of the Southside shop works in Southside's jobs, calendar and inbox and cannot open a Northside record. What they can do is search Northside's customer book from the Customers page and see an identity card — name, phone, email, city, vehicles, visits, and what work Northside did — then copy that person into Southside's own book. Notes, messages, invoices and balances never cross. Each location controls this itself in Settings → Locations, under Customer look-up: whether the others can find its customers, whether they can see what work it did, and whether its own staff may search. All three ship on; turn any of them off per location.
Do I need a separate phone number for each location?
Each shop has its own phone line and inbox, which is usually what you want — the number on the Southside booking page rings Southside. Set one up per location the same way you did the first.
What if I have more than three locations?
Three under one login is the current ceiling. Get in touch with support and tell us how many you're running — that's the conversation that moves the limit.
Can I rename or reorganise a location later?
Yes. Name, address, hours, timezone, branding and booking address are all editable in that shop's Settings at any time.