How to Add Customers and Equipment (Assets) in Blue Collar Parts, Including VIN Decode
How to add a customer and the trucks, trailers, generators, and marine engines you service in Blue Collar Parts: required fields, why the customer's email matters, USDOT numbers, and decoding a VIN.
- Published
Every record in Blue Collar Parts belongs to a customer and a piece of equipment, called an asset. Add them once, and every later service event starts from them.
Add a customer
- Open Customers and press ADD CUSTOMER, or go straight to add a customer.
- Fill in Customer name (required). Add Contact name, Email, Phone, DBA (doing business as), City, State, and ZIP as you have them.
- Press SAVE CHANGES.
Add the customer's email. Records are delivered by email. A customer with no email shows No email — cannot receive records, and you cannot send them a record until you add one.
USDOT number (optional). For a motor carrier, adding the USDOT number lets Blue Collar Parts show public FMCSA reference information about the carrier's fleet alongside your work. It is reference data, not a finding about the customer.
To change a customer later, open them and press EDIT CUSTOMER.
Add an asset
- Open the customer and press ADD ASSET, or open Assets and press ADD ASSET.
- Choose the Type: Truck, Trailer, Generator, or Marine.
- Enter the Asset identifier (e.g. unit number) (required): the name the customer uses for it.
- For trucks and trailers, enter the VIN and press Decode VIN. Blue Collar Parts fills in the vehicle details from the NHTSA vPIC database. Review or edit them before you save. Generators and marine engines use Serial number instead.
- Fill in Make, Model, and Model year if they are not already filled, and press SAVE CHANGES.
After you save, Blue Collar Parts opens a Record preview of the asset: what your customer's record will look like, with a Start work button.
Why the asset type matters
The asset type decides which preventive-maintenance form opens when you start work: the truck, generator, and marine forms each follow their equipment. Trailers do not have a dedicated PM form yet, so you choose the form you are working to when you start the service event. See record a PM service.
Links into the app open your account. If you are not signed in, you will be asked to sign in first.