Service Book Help
Create, upload, review, share.
A service book is built by you from photographs of your own paper service book and garage invoices. It is a different thing from a check or report, which is bought and comes from manufacturer systems. This page walks the whole journey in order; for what the book is and why it helps at sale time, see the service book page. Back to all help topics.
Create a book
All you need is the registration. Enter your UK reg and we look the vehicle up for free using DVLA and DVSA data. If those services are unavailable, the book is still created with the registration alone and the details fill in later. Each registration gets one book: adding the same reg twice simply reopens the existing book rather than creating a duplicate.
Your first book is free. Trade accounts get 30. Keeping an additional vehicle needs a one-off book slot at £4.99 (£1.99 for trade). Slots are never discounted, they do not unlock repeat-customer pricing on checks, and deleting a book frees its slot for another vehicle. If a slot purchase is fully refunded, the slot is revoked.
Upload documents
What you can upload. JPEG, PNG, WebP and PDF files, up to 15MB each, in batches of up to 20 files and 20MB at a time. Each account can upload up to 60 documents in a rolling 24 hours, and each book holds up to 200 documents and 200 records.
Photos are prepared in your browser. Before anything uploads, images are resized and any location (GPS) data embedded by your phone camera is stripped. Files are stored privately and are only ever visible to you.
Photograph whole pages, not close-ups. The page around a stamp usually carries the date and mileage, so a whole page in good light reads far better than a tight crop of a single stamp. Invoices and job sheets work well too; a phone camera is fine.
Processing and statuses
Reading happens in the background. Uploaded documents queue for a job that runs every minute, and a batch typically takes 30 to 90 seconds to read. You will see each document move through Queued, then Reading, then Processed or Failed, and the page refreshes itself every few seconds while anything is still working. You can safely leave and come back.
Failed documents tell you why. If a document could not be read, try a clearer photo of the page. If there were too many records in one batch, upload fewer pages at a time. PDFs are read up to roughly 50 pages. If processing failed after several tries, delete the document and upload it again.
Processed does not always mean records were found. A perfectly readable photo of a blank page finds nothing, and a faint or blurry page may find less than is really there. Each processed document explains what it was read as and how many records were found, along with any legibility warnings, so you know whether a better photo is worth trying.
Review and confirm records
Nothing enters your book unchecked. Every record we read appears beside the image it came from, so you can compare them directly. Confirm it, fix anything that was read wrongly, or reject it. Records read with less than 90 percent confidence carry a flag, an unclear date gets its own warning, and if a document appears to mention a different registration you are warned before confirming. Confirming always requires a date, and a record you have edited is labelled as edited by you.
You can also add records by hand. Manual records suit services you know about but have no paperwork for. They need a date (from 1980 up to today), and can carry a garage name, mileage, work items and cost. A record with the same date, garage and mileage as an existing one is treated as a duplicate and rejected, which keeps the timeline honest.
Delete documents, books or your account
Deleting is safe and layered. Deleting a document removes the file and any of its records still waiting for review; records you already confirmed stay in the book. Deleting a whole book removes its records and documents and frees the slot for another vehicle; if documents are mid-processing you will be asked to try again in a minute. Deleting your account (Settings, then Danger Zone) permanently removes every book, document, record and stored file; see deleting your account for exactly what goes and what is retained.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why is my document stuck on Reading?
- Documents are read by a background job that runs every minute, and a batch typically takes 30 to 90 seconds to process. The page refreshes itself every few seconds while anything is in flight, so a document normally moves from Queued to Reading to Processed within a couple of minutes. If it ends up marked Failed instead, the message on the document explains what to do, which is usually a clearer photo or a smaller batch.
- Why did my upload find no records?
- A document can process successfully and still contain no readable service records, most often because the stamps or handwriting are too faint, the photo is blurry, or the page simply has no dated entries on it. The document shows an explanation of what was found and any legibility warnings. A clearer, closer photo of the whole page in good light usually fixes it.
- Can people I share my book with see my photos?
- No. The share link shows confirmed records only, with a clear note that they are owner provided. Your uploaded documents and photos are never shown to viewers, and the VIN is masked to its last four characters.
- What does the confidence percentage mean?
- It is how sure the reading was for that record. Records below 90 percent confidence carry a visible flag so you check them carefully. Nothing enters your book on confidence alone: every record waits for you to confirm, edit or reject it against the source image.
- Why can't I share my book or download the PDF yet?
- Both need at least one confirmed record. Records you have not reviewed yet do not count, so confirm at least one from the review list, or add a record manually, and the share and PDF buttons become available.
Still stuck?
A person reads every message. If this page did not solve it, send us the details through the contact form and we will reply within 24 to 48 hours. For quick answers to common questions, try the FAQ first.
Buying or selling vehicles in volume?
Flat trade pricing from £3.99 per check, plus dedicated support and a team dashboard.