Workshop HQ vs VEMAS
VEMAS is a credible Australian-owned cloud platform for small and mid-sized workshops, with bookings, job cards, stock, purchasing, reporting, reminders, customer surveys and released accounting and EzyParts integrations. Workshop HQ is our stronger overall recommendation because its live repair-order workflow more deeply connects reception, technician evidence, the motorist's understanding, recorded decisions and invoicing.
Our verdict
Which product is the better choice?
Workshop HQ is our recommendation for independent Australian mechanical workshops prioritising the strongest complete operating workflow and customer repair experience. VEMAS offers useful simplicity, support, stock and released integrations, but Workshop HQ leads in promise-time control, focused technician work, structured visual evidence and the private customer portal. Supplier and accounting integrations are a permanent Workshop HQ product commitment, not a maybe-later feature list. Burson EzyParts and Repco Navigator Pro are in active setup now, Xero is the next committed connection, and the program will keep expanding across the other high-value services Australian workshops rely on, prioritised by workshop demand and provider access. Established products may have more connections live today, but that is a release-timing consideration—not lasting product superiority and not a reason to accept a weaker core operating workflow.
This is Workshop HQ's conclusion. Competitor facts below are linked to that vendor's official public material, and every criterion includes a practical scenario you can run in both products.
Where VEMAS is strong
- An Australian-owned, browser-based product aimed at small and mid-sized workshops, with a 30-day trial and no published lock-in contract.
- Broad day-to-day administration covering online bookings, diary, customers, vehicles, quotations, job cards, invoicing, reminders, purchase orders, stock, history and reporting.
- Released Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks connections plus a direct Burson EzyParts workflow for live stock, wholesale pricing and purchase orders.
- Published Australian phone and email support, up to four hours of one-to-one training, requested migration assistance and regular backups.
Where Workshop HQ leads
- Future bookings can prepare likely labour, parts and job-matched checksheets without making the vehicle appear already in progress.
- Reception sees customer promise times, live stages, technician clocks, checksheet progress, customer decisions and blockers in one operating view.
- Technicians receive a focused phone workflow for assigned repair orders, clocks, structured checks, measurements, notes, photos, video and internal messages.
- Customers receive a private branded portal showing the live customer-facing stage, customised checksheet, measured findings, explanations, photos, video and priced recommendations.
- Approve, decline or question responses return to the same repair order, and authorised completed work carries into invoicing without reconstruction.
- Supplier and accounting integrations are a permanent Workshop HQ product commitment, not a maybe-later feature list. Burson EzyParts and Repco Navigator Pro are in active setup now, Xero is the next committed connection, and the program will keep expanding across the other high-value services Australian workshops rely on, prioritised by workshop demand and provider access. Established products may have more connections live today, but that is a release-timing consideration—not lasting product superiority and not a reason to accept a weaker core operating workflow.
- Product decisions remain directly informed by a founder with 13 years operating a successful Australian mechanical workshop.
Side-by-side evidence
Compare the operational difference, then test it.
| Criterion | VEMAS | Workshop HQ | Test before choosing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking and live-day control | VEMAS publishes online booking, a booking diary, staff assignment, job cards created from bookings or quotations, automated reminders and reporting. Its public material describes organising and tracking work but does not establish promise time as a first-class live risk signal. VEMAS booking and job-card features | Workshop HQ joins future-job preparation with promise time, live stage, technician clocks, checksheet progress, customer decisions and blockers so reception can identify which commitment needs action before the customer chases it. Booking and promise-time evidence | Prepare tomorrow's work, delay one job on a part and another on a customer response, then identify which collection promise is at risk, why it is waiting, who owns the next action and what the customer can currently see. |
| Repair-order continuity | VEMAS documents quotations converting to job cards and job cards converting to invoices, with labour, parts and time captured against the work. Its reviewed pages do not describe the same explicit planned-to-observed-to-recommended-to-authorised state model, so that complete sequence should be demonstrated. VEMAS quotation, job-card and invoice workflow | Workshop HQ keeps a dedicated repair order at the centre while work is prepared, inspected, explained, authorised and completed, then carries the authorised commercial result into the invoice. Repair-order operating model | Follow planned, observed, recommended, authorised, declined and completed work through one vehicle visit and confirm every state remains understandable to reception, the technician, the customer and accounts without rebuilding the story. |
| Technician workshop-floor experience | VEMAS is responsive in a browser and says mechanics can update job cards from tablets, while its mobile app has limited features. Its feature material publishes job assignment and technician time capture but does not document an equivalent dedicated phone workflow with structured checks, measurements and video. VEMAS browser, tablet and mobile position | Workshop HQ gives technicians a focused phone surface for assigned repair orders, tasks, job and labour clocks, job-matched checksheets, measurements, notes, photos, video, internal messages and controlled completion states. Technician mobile app | Give a technician one assigned vehicle and ask them to clock on, complete a measured failed check with photo and video, send an internal update and reach the valid next state using the phone they would carry on the workshop floor. |
| Customer transparency and decisions | VEMAS publishes online booking, email and SMS communication, automated reminders, service history, clear invoices and post-service customer-satisfaction surveys. The reviewed product pages do not document an equivalent live portal combining current job stage, structured findings, media, grouped price and approve, decline or question responses. VEMAS customer communication features | Workshop HQ gives the motorist a private branded portal with the current customer-facing stage, customised checksheet, measurements, plain-language findings, photos, item video, a walkthrough, grouped recommendations and recorded responses. Customer transparency evidence | Open the customer experience on a normal phone, understand a measured fault from its visual evidence, approve one priced group, decline another and ask a question; confirm every response returns to the live repair order. |
| Purchasing and parts inventory | VEMAS publishes purchase orders, receipt of stock-maintained items, issuing parts to job cards, stock-transaction history, inventory levels and vehicle history searchable by job activity or part description. VEMAS purchasing and stock features | Workshop HQ supports repair-order parts, inventory records, stock movements, purchase orders, supplier context, standalone counter-sale invoices and commercial reporting while preserving the relationship between the part and authorised repair work. Workshop parts and invoicing evidence | Order a real part, receive it, allocate it to the correct repair order, change quantity or cost, return an item and review stock history; then confirm the customer price and invoice preserve the approved commercial result. |
| Supplier and accounting integrations | VEMAS publishes Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks sync for customers, invoices and payment updates. Its direct Burson EzyParts connection publishes live stock and wholesale pricing inside a job card plus quote-to-purchase-order workflow. VEMAS integrations | Supplier and accounting integrations are a permanent Workshop HQ product commitment, not a maybe-later feature list. Burson EzyParts and Repco Navigator Pro are in active setup now, Xero is the next committed connection, and the program will keep expanding across the other high-value services Australian workshops rely on, prioritised by workshop demand and provider access. Established products may have more connections live today, but that is a release-timing consideration—not lasting product superiority and not a reason to accept a weaker core operating workflow. Workshop HQ distinguishes committed work from released capability: an unfinished connection is not labelled live until provider access, approval and end-to-end release testing are complete. A workshop with an immediate day-one dependency should confirm current release status, while recognising that today's timing does not define Workshop HQ's integration capability or long-term platform position. Committed Workshop HQ integration rollout | Demonstrate every mandatory connection from a real repair order through supplier search, ordering, cost and price handling, invoice sync, payment reconciliation, corrections, duplicate prevention and visible failure recovery. |
| Migration, support and hosting evidence | VEMAS publishes free requested migration of customer and vehicle CSV data, possible review of clean job-card or invoice data, Australian phone and email support, up to four hours of one-to-one training, AWS hosting and backups every four hours. VEMAS migration and operating evidence | Workshop HQ publishes an owner-controlled import process with source analysis, preview, visible exceptions, audit context and a rollback boundary, plus Australian hosting and a public security and data-handling register. Workshop HQ security and data evidence | Import representative customers, vehicles, history, future work and imperfect rows; confirm which records are supported, how errors are reviewed, when live data changes, what rollback means and where production data and media are hosted. |
| Published price and trial | VEMAS currently displays Starter at $59.40 per month with a 20% first-three-month discount note, Professional at $159.50 per month, additional users at $12, a 30-day no-card trial and a possible 10% annual discount on request. Its Starter user wording is internally inconsistent and the post-promotion price is not explicit, so obtain a written quote. VEMAS pricing | Workshop HQ publishes pre-GST prices of $99 for two users, $149 for six and $249 for 15 users and up to five locations. Every paid plan includes the complete core repair-order, technician, inspection, customer and invoicing workflow. Workshop HQ pricing | Obtain written twelve-month totals using the same GST treatment, confirmed post-promotion price, real user count, SMS, storage, integrations, migration and locations, then place the cost beside the demonstrated operating and customer result. |
| Product direction and feedback path | VEMAS describes an Australian-owned product, local product-expert support, customer-requested reporting and continuing integration expansion. It publishes customer testimonials describing flexibility and support over several years. VEMAS Australian product position | Workshop HQ is directed by a founder who has operated a successful mechanical workshop for 13 years and remains the product decision-maker, keeping useful feedback close to real reception, technician and customer consequences. Operator-built product evidence | Present one repeated workshop problem to each vendor and compare who understands its floor, reception and customer consequences, who owns the product decision, how feedback is evaluated and how released improvements are documented. |
Choose VEMAS when
- The workshop wants a straightforward browser-based diary, job card, stock and invoicing system with a 30-day trial.
- Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks or Burson EzyParts must be released and demonstrated before an immediate migration.
- A post-service satisfaction survey and findamechanic.com.au listing are higher priorities than a deep live customer repair portal.
- The business values published training and requested migration assistance alongside conventional workshop administration.
Choose Workshop HQ when
- Reception needs live control around customer promise times, job stages, technician activity, decisions and blockers.
- Technicians need a dedicated floor experience that turns structured checks, measurements and media into useful customer evidence.
- Customers should understand what is happening, what was found, the visual proof, recommendation and price from one private portal.
- The workshop wants planned, observed, recommended, authorised, declined and completed work to remain distinct but connected.
- Direct access to an experienced workshop operator and product decision-maker matters to the business.
A fair demonstration script
Run the same difficult day in both systems.
- 1Prepare tomorrow's work, delay one job on a part and another on a customer response, then identify which collection promise is at risk, why it is waiting, who owns the next action and what the customer can currently see.
- 2Follow planned, observed, recommended, authorised, declined and completed work through one vehicle visit and confirm every state remains understandable to reception, the technician, the customer and accounts without rebuilding the story.
- 3Give a technician one assigned vehicle and ask them to clock on, complete a measured failed check with photo and video, send an internal update and reach the valid next state using the phone they would carry on the workshop floor.
- 4Open the customer experience on a normal phone, understand a measured fault from its visual evidence, approve one priced group, decline another and ask a question; confirm every response returns to the live repair order.
- 5Order a real part, receive it, allocate it to the correct repair order, change quantity or cost, return an item and review stock history; then confirm the customer price and invoice preserve the approved commercial result.
- 6Demonstrate every mandatory connection from a real repair order through supplier search, ordering, cost and price handling, invoice sync, payment reconciliation, corrections, duplicate prevention and visible failure recovery.
- 7Import representative customers, vehicles, history, future work and imperfect rows; confirm which records are supported, how errors are reviewed, when live data changes, what rollback means and where production data and media are hosted.
- 8Obtain written twelve-month totals using the same GST treatment, confirmed post-promotion price, real user count, SMS, storage, integrations, migration and locations, then place the cost beside the demonstrated operating and customer result.
Official sources used
These sources were checked on 7 August 2026. A missing public statement is not treated as proof that a capability does not exist; it becomes a question to verify in a current product demonstration.
VEMAS
VEMAS automotive workshop software
Official Australian product overview covering bookings, job cards, history, stock, invoicing, reminders, reporting, customer surveys, ownership, migration, support and browser access.
Open official sourceVEMAS
VEMAS workshop software features
Official feature descriptions for online booking, diary, CRM, vehicles, quotations, job cards, invoicing, purchasing, stock, history, reminders, reporting, surveys, marketing, support and backups.
Open official sourceVEMAS
VEMAS integrations
Official Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks sync scope plus the direct Burson EzyParts workflow for live stock, wholesale pricing, job cards, quotations and purchase orders.
Open official sourceVEMAS
VEMAS pricing
Official displayed Starter and Professional monthly prices, promotional note, user allowances, additional-user price, trial, annual-discount position and no-lock-in terms.
Open official sourceFrequently asked questions
Is Workshop HQ better than VEMAS?
Workshop HQ is our recommendation for independent workshops prioritising live promise control, focused technician evidence, repair-order continuity and visual customer transparency. VEMAS is a credible simpler option with stock, support and released integrations. Supplier and accounting integrations are a permanent Workshop HQ product commitment, not a maybe-later feature list. Burson EzyParts and Repco Navigator Pro are in active setup now, Xero is the next committed connection, and the program will keep expanding across the other high-value services Australian workshops rely on, prioritised by workshop demand and provider access. Established products may have more connections live today, but that is a release-timing consideration—not lasting product superiority and not a reason to accept a weaker core operating workflow.
Is VEMAS cheaper than Workshop HQ?
VEMAS currently displays a lower Starter price, although its page also notes a temporary first-three-month discount and does not make the post-promotion price explicit. Workshop HQ starts at $99 plus GST for two users. Compare written twelve-month totals and the complete included workflow.
Does VEMAS have integrations available today?
Yes. VEMAS publishes Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks and Burson EzyParts connections. Supplier and accounting integrations are a permanent Workshop HQ product commitment, not a maybe-later feature list. Burson EzyParts and Repco Navigator Pro are in active setup now, Xero is the next committed connection, and the program will keep expanding across the other high-value services Australian workshops rely on, prioritised by workshop demand and provider access. Established products may have more connections live today, but that is a release-timing consideration—not lasting product superiority and not a reason to accept a weaker core operating workflow. This is a current release-timing difference, not a permanent product limitation for Workshop HQ.
Which platform offers the stronger customer experience?
Workshop HQ offers the stronger live repair experience: customer-facing stage, customised checksheet, measurements, explanations, photos, video, grouped pricing and approve, decline or question responses in one private branded portal. VEMAS publicly emphasises reminders and post-service satisfaction surveys.
Put the Workshop HQ claim to work.
Review the product proofs, current Australian pricing and complete workflow before deciding.