Second workshops fail less often for lack of demand than because they are treated as a duplicate of the first one. Very little actually duplicates. The product and service lists copy. Stock starts at zero, customers start at zero, and the working habits of the team start at zero too.
This article separates those three: what genuinely transfers, what has to be rebuilt, and the setup order that keeps the original branch steady while the new one opens.
Signs the first branch can actually be left alone
The measure is not revenue. Revenue can be high precisely because you are there every day — which is evidence the branch cannot yet be left.
Three more reliable signs:
- The workshop runs a full day without you, including a day with an unhappy customer in it.
- Stock stops producing surprises. Counts still show variance, but you know where it comes from.
- The monthly report reads in ten minutes and none of its numbers need to be verified against somebody’s memory.
If one of those is missing, the second branch will copy the problem rather than the success. A fuller list is in signs you need a real system — it applies unchanged to workshops.
What copies and what starts at zero
This is the part buyers most often misjudge, so here it is plainly:
| Item | Transfers? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Product and parts catalogue | Yes | Along with categories, subcategories and brands |
| Stock quantities | No | Products arrive with zero on hand |
| Store settings | Partly | Selected fields only, not the whole configuration |
| Job and customer history | No | The new branch keeps its own books |
| Team habits | No | The most expensive item, and there is no button for it |
Row two surprises people most. “Copy products” moves the product list, not the goods — and that is correct behaviour: stock is physical goods sitting in one place, not a number you can duplicate.
Because a catalogue copy runs at volume, Automan offers a dry run that counts the outcome without writing anything. Use it before the real run; ten minutes up front is cheaper than cleaning up a duplicated catalogue afterwards.
Store settings carry one deliberate brake. If the destination branch uses a different inventory costing method and already holds stock, inventory settings are skipped. The reasoning is sound: changing the costing method of a running shop changes profit figures that have already been reported.
Moving goods instead of retyping them
Once branch two is trading, the problem inverts: a part sits unused in one location while the other hunts for it. What you need is not another catalogue, it is a recorded route for goods to travel.
Three steps, and there is no fourth:
- Send — the origin branch sends; the goods sit in transit.
- Receive — the destination branch confirms, and may receive partially if not everything arrived.
- The remainder — whatever did not arrive is either cancelled or recorded as a loss.
Note who presses the button at step two: the destination branch, not a head office. There is no approval stage between send and receive. We spell that out because plenty of owners assume there is one and then design an internal procedure with no counterpart in the software.
The part that matters most to an owner: cost price travels with the goods, following the costing method the origin branch uses. Transferred parts do not become free at the destination, and the receiving branch’s margin does not inflate because its stock appears to have cost nothing.
Full mechanics are on the multi-branch stock transfer page.
Two shops, two sets of books — and that is what you want
The strongest temptation for a two-branch owner is to merge the books to keep things “simple”. It does the opposite: merged books destroy your ability to answer the one question that matters, which branch is actually earning.
Each Store App keeps its own books, and inter-branch movements are journalled automatically on both sides in one go, without you posting the same movement twice. What you get is per-branch profit that stands on its own, plus an inter-branch record that does not need tidying at month end.
The honest trade-off: you read two reports instead of one. At two branches that is still a ten-minute job, and far more informative than a single combined number that hides the branch losing money.
When the second branch is a different trade
A common case: the first branch does cars, the second wants to take motorcycles. Or the reverse.
The rule is firm, and better known now than later: one Store App serves one kind of unit. Car workshops and motorcycle workshops are separate Business Types, with different catalogues and different terminology. Forcing them into one setup leaves one of the two working against a catalogue that never quite fits.
The right shape is two Store Apps under one account. And that is exactly where inter-branch transfer earns its place — the same engine oil often serves both, even though the labour does not.
The same rule governs other combinations, such as a workshop plus an electronics repair counter. One setup cannot hold both; two Store Apps can. How terminology and catalogues shift per Business Type is covered on the auto repair shop page.
A sensible order
Not a schedule — an order. The pace follows your readiness:
- Create the second Store App and choose its Business Type first. Business Type drives terminology and catalogues, so it is the earliest decision, not a later one.
- Run the product copy as a dry run, check the counts, then run it for real.
- Copy the store settings you actually want standardised, and let the rest differ where it genuinely differs.
- Fill opening stock — through purchases, or through a transfer from the first branch. Both are legitimate; typing a stock number with no source behind it is not.
- Then open the doors. A branch that opens before its stock stands will spend its first week repairing data at exactly the moment it should be winning customers.
What will never be automatic
Four things stay human work, and naming them now beats discovering them in month two:
- The new branch’s customer base starts at zero. There is no way to copy trust.
- New mechanics take time, and the first branch’s working standard does not travel through software.
- Selling prices may legitimately differ between branches if rent and local market differ — think that through before copying settings, not after.
- Automan runs online, with no offline mode. For a site with unreliable connectivity, that is the problem to solve before any other.
Whether branch two is already trading or still a plan for next month, the transfer and copy mechanics are on the multi-branch stock transfer page.