How to choose phone repair shop software: nine things to check

1. Arabic that is really Arabic

Many products translate the menus and stop there. Open an invoice and a repair ticket in Arabic and print them: does the page run right to left, do the numbers and the IMEI sit where they should, and can one customer get their invoice in Arabic while another gets English from the same screen?

2. Tax invoices that pass an inspection

• UAE: the words "Tax Invoice", your TRN and, above the threshold, the customer's TRN.
• Saudi Arabia: simplified and standard tax invoices with ZATCA's QR code (phase one). Ask plainly whether the product reports invoices to ZATCA's platform (phase two), and when.
• Egypt: ask whether it submits to the e-invoice and e-receipt systems, or only prints.
• Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan: prices in fils or baisa need three decimals everywhere, not rounded to two.

3. The repair ticket at the counter

Intake should take a minute or two: the IMEI, checked as it is typed; the fault in the customer's words; what came with the phone; the cracks and dents it arrived with, in photos; and the customer's signature. Then the estimate: can the customer approve it from their phone, line by line, and do the approved lines land on the repair without anyone retyping them?

Ask one more question that most demos skip: where does the customer's passcode go? Who can see it, does it appear on anything the customer or a passer-by can read, and when is it deleted? "It stays in the notes field" is the wrong answer.

4. The warranty

Every repair you hand back starts a warranty. Ask whether the system counts the days from hand-over by itself, prints the warranty on the invoice, and links a phone that comes back to the repair it came back from. If the answer is a free-text note, you'll be counting days on your fingers at the counter.

5. Parts, accessories and phones in stock

Parts should come off the shelf onto the repair, at cost, so profit per repair is real. Accessories should sell at the counter from the same stock. And if you sell phones, each one has to be its own item with its own IMEI, not "quantity 4". Look for low-stock warnings, purchase orders and, with more than one branch, stock kept per branch.

6. WhatsApp, where your customers already are

Ask whether the product sends from your shop's own number and whether replies come back into the same place your team works. A separate WhatsApp tool means copying names and phone models between two screens all day.

7. Your data, if you leave

Ask two questions before you start: can I export everything, any day, without asking? And what happens to my records if I stop paying? A good answer is a date, not a sales call.

8. The price, all of it

Compare the full monthly cost for your size: branches, users, repairs a month, WhatsApp messages, set-up fees and anything charged per invoice. Ask what hardware you have to buy. A free trial without a card tells you the vendor expects the product to sell itself.

9. A test day with your own phones

1. Open three real repairs from this week: a cracked screen, a phone that won't power on, and one waiting for a part.
2. Send one estimate to your own phone and approve half of it.
3. Fit a part from stock and see the stock and the repair's profit change.
4. Hand one repair back, then bring the same phone in again as a warranty return.
5. Sell a case and a used phone at the counter, and read the IMEI on the invoice.
6. Print a tax invoice in Arabic and give it to your accountant.
7. Ask a technician to use it on his phone for an hour, without training.

If the test day needs the vendor on the phone, the busy Saturday will too.

How SolderDesk answers these

Every screen, message and printout works in Arabic and English. Invoices carry the TRN, Saudi invoices carry the phase-one QR, and three-decimal currencies are kept to the fils. ZATCA phase two and Egypt's e-invoice submission are not offered yet. The repair ticket takes the IMEI, checked as you type, the fault, photos and a condition report the customer signs. The screen lock is seen by staff only and erased when the device is handed back. Each repair carries a warranty in days from hand-over, and a comeback can be marked a warranty return. Parts and accessories are kept per branch, and phones for sale by IMEI. The customer approves estimates from their phone, and the assistant on your own WhatsApp number answers at any hour.

It runs on any computer or phone and prints on a normal printer. It has no online store, and it does not check an IMEI against any blacklist. Everything exports any day, and the trial needs no card. Open the live demo and run the test day on it.