How do I make an online booking system? Like the theory test one?

[GetPaper]

Hi,

I wanted to know the best way to create an online booking system for an Automotive workshop.

We have fixed prices for services we offer for different types of makes and models of cars.

Product selection - I would like to have a dropdown list of cars and then a service selected which displays a price.

Book and Pay - The customer can then go ahead to a screen where they can see availability and then book, pay and receive an email confirmation of their order.

Very similar to the online system when you book a theory test but this would be for cars.

Or does anyone know which type of software/ configuration/ SQL the theory test website uses?

Thank you in advance for any responses!

Yas.

 

[Alan]

Yes, the book your theory test system is custom built from the ground up, and probably (i'm guessing) out of your league (£many tens of thousands) for a custom coded system that meets government standards.

Most small businesses now are using WordPress, and there are many 'appointment' or 'booking' plugins, of varying quality & price - free to not expensive - but you probably will need a 'pro' version.

One key thing to remember, that you will need to update the availability in one place (your website or a feed to your website) as you can't say have a manual counter diary for phone booking, or you will get double bookings.

Creating a WordPress site & adding / configuring a plugin is relatively simple (for a technical pro), the costs will mainly be driven by the styling / design effort.

Key questions - what payment gateway(s) will you use

 

[GetPaper]

Alan,

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, that would be out of my league!

I have looked at that option of Wordpress plugins and have found a few. The only difference for me currently is that I will be using Drupal 7 and am not aware of a Pro booking system that will do what I need it to do.

We would be doing all the bookings from one place, for example using the backend of the site to take phone bookings or an extended plugin module that would support this.

As you can imagine there will be a lot of data which would be in table format such as a list of car makes/ models. So would need a module that would support import/ export of data in Excel format.

Regarding payment gateway I was looking at linking something like Sage or another one which would also support PayPal.

 

[Alan]

What you can do is just iframe the forms of a cloud booking service - we did this for a B&B with BookingBug
https://www.bookingbug.co.uk/

other stand alone systems are be available but I don't have specific experience of them

Probably solo or small plan would suffice https://www.bookingbug.co.uk/pricing

(I'm not an affiliate - but I create cloud solutions as an integrator )

 

[fisicx]

It's not that difficult to do. Building the plugin is simple enough but it is time consuming and that's what will put up the cost. I've just built a similar sort of thing to a business in Germany - it cost them 1600€.

But once you have the plugin, you could then sell it to other garages...

 

[GetPaper]

Thanks for the responses. I have had a quick look at BookingBug.

I didn't really want to put reliance on an external source for keeping my bookings but from a starting point I think this may be the way forward as it offers integration with Sage etc.

 

[Paul Norman]

Many garages have booking systems in use, and they are from a variety of providers.

A LOT of investment has gone into these systems, and many of them are very good indeed. Plus, the better ones all have easy to use API's to integrate with other systems - such as SAGE.

This is not a wheel I would attempt to re-invent, but rolling out one into whatever IT set up you currently have would not be massively difficult.

 

[GetPaper]

I do like the idea of integrating these modules into existing websites. However there is costs involved and some charge a lot more than others when you need further flexibility.

 

[fisicx]

So why not just get someone to build you one? All you need to do is create the spreadsheet. The plugin can then upload and create the database tables. All you now need is the form to select the vehicle and date and it's all just about done.

 

[RichardfromOquile]

As other have said there are a lot of booking systems around but having looked at them previously they tend to be either completely inflexible or incredibly expensive,

Fisicx's suggestion of getting one built and then selling it as a plugin is quite nice.

 

[GetPaper]

What would be the approx cost of having one built and then integrated into a site such as Wordpress/ Drupal?

 

[soundengineeruk]

What would be the approx cost of having one built and then integrated into a site such as Wordpress/ Drupal?

I'm afraid it is how long is a piece of string type of question

 

[GetPaper]

I see what you mean, I suppose I would have to make a project brief first.

Does anybody have any suggestions for someone who builds things like this?

 

[fisicx]

Loads of people. Including me. How much you pay depends on how many features you want. If you can create the spreadsheet it will save you a wodge. If you want someone to do it for you it will cost you a wodge.

Building the actual booking part is easy.

 

[GetPaper]

Thanks for that, think I will try and make a spreadsheet and the initial design of how the system should work and then go from there. If a ready made system costs about £15pm then it may be more economical to take the plunge and pay a one off fee at the start for a custom built one and it will pay off itself over time. I'm not 100% keen on the idea of relying on an external source which limits what you can do based on how much you pay them per month.