Early access

The bench

Nothing leaves until it is paid for.

Intake to pickup on one board, with the release gated on payment because an instrument in a customer’s hands is not collateral.

Why repairs are not on the monthly cycle.

This is the decision the whole module is built around.

Lessons accrue through the month and are invoiced at the end of it, on terms. That works because the service has already been delivered and the relationship continues.

A repair is the opposite. The customer is standing at the counter with their hand out, and the only leverage in the transaction is the instrument. You cannot hand back a guitar against an invoice that is not due for three weeks — so a repair gets its own invoice, issued and payable the moment the work is collected.

Releasing an instrument is its own permission. Not everyone who can look at a repair can hand it over, and the system will not release one against an unpaid invoice.

Both invoices still appear on the one account. Different rhythms, same family.

The board.

Six states, and two ways for a job to end that are not “picked up”.

  1. 1IntakeSerial number, condition, promised date, technician
  2. 2QuotedParts and labor, priced from the catalog
  3. 3ApprovedThe customer’s approval, recorded against the quote
  4. 4In progressOn the bench
  5. 5Ready for pickupInvoiced, and due now
  6. 6Picked upReleased — once it is paid

Document it well enough to defend it.

Most repair disputes are not about the work. They are about what the instrument looked like when it arrived.

A repair carries photographs, checkpoints and measurements, each pinned to the moment it belongs to. Arrival, on the bench, ready, collected — a crack photographed at intake and a crack photographed at pickup are different facts, and the record keeps them apart.

The customer is a participant in that record rather than its subject. They can be handed a photo link before they even leave the house, and at handover they type their own name against the checkpoint.

Measurements name the instrument they were taken with, and that instrument carries its own calibration date. A reading is only as good as the meter behind it.

The instrument nobody came back for.

Every shop has a shelf. Almost no software has an opinion about it.

An uncollected instrument starts accruing storage after a number of free days you set, at a daily rate you set, posted to the account as it goes rather than invented in one lump months later.

Selling somebody’s property to recover what you are owed is a different matter, and it is the one the shop’s own agreement usually gets wrong. Telling the customer is not the same act as posting a public notice, and a shop that treats them as one has an unlawful sale it believes is lawful. Both are tracked separately: the notice, where it was posted and for how long; the owner, told in their own step with its own evidence.

Two people, never the same one. One member of staff proposes a disposal and a different one decides it. The balance owed and the days uncollected are frozen at the moment of the proposal, and so is the earliest lawful sale date — a setting corrected afterwards must not silently move a date the shop has already acted on.

The waiting period, the notice days, how many places it must be posted and what share of a surplus goes to the clerk are all settings, defaulted to one state’s procedure. Your lawyer’s reading of your state’s, not ours.

Details that matter at the counter.

  • Walk-ins get an account too

    Somebody who has never taken a lesson still needs somewhere to bill. A repair creates or attaches a billing account, so the “one place to look” rule holds even for a one-off customer.

  • The quote is the customer’s, not yours

    Parts and labor are quoted, and the customer’s approval is captured against that quote. What was agreed is a record rather than a recollection.

  • Paid at the counter or on the account

    Take a card at pickup, or let it sit on the family’s account if they have one. Either way the repair has its own invoice rather than joining next month’s lesson bill.

  • Declined and abandoned are states

    A quote the customer turned down and an instrument nobody came back for are both real outcomes. Neither leaves a job stuck on the board forever.

  • Photographs from whoever is holding the phone

    A photo link can be handed to a technician or to the customer standing in their own hallway before drop-off. Each link knows which stage it is for, so nobody is asked to choose between six options, and the link is stored hashed — a copy of the table yields nothing that works.

  • Readings, tied to the moment they were taken

    Output, resistance, relief, action — measured in the shop’s own words and attached to a checkpoint, so a reading on arrival can never be confused with the same reading after the work.

  • Test gear with a calibration date

    The meters and tuners a shop measures with are themselves recorded, with when they were last calibrated, by whom, and when it is next due. A number is only worth what the instrument that produced it is.

  • Who was standing there

    At handover and at pickup, the customer types their own name against the checkpoint. Not a staff member ticking a box on their behalf.

It is not generally available yet.

B♭ Studio runs a working music studio today. If you run one too, tell us about it and we will get in touch when there is something to show you.

Join the early access list