DArnTech / Bookings

One engine, eight trades. Booking, job boards, and customer status for small shops.

If you run a small service shop and pay $50–150/month for scheduling software, most of what you actually use is booking, the day's job board, and answering “where's my job?” calls. The DArnTech suite is exactly that, self-hosted on your own subdomain — and every trade's version is running live right now at acme.darn-tech.com. $49–79/month, 2-week free trial.

What it is, plainly

A self-hosted operations tool for small service shops. Customers book online, the day's work lives on one board, quotes get approved with a tap, and customers follow their job from a link instead of calling you. Your customer data lives on your subdomain (yourshop.darn-tech.com) — you own it, you can export it, you can take it elsewhere if you ever leave.

Every trade runs the same DArnTech-built engine with a different trade on top — the auto-repair shop gets vehicle records and parts-ETA states, the tutor gets recurring slots and a family progress portal. Not a wrapper, not a reseller agreement — DArnTech (Indianapolis) built the engine and operates and supports your instance directly.

The whole suite runs live with demo data at acme.darn-tech.com. Real working software, not mockups — click into any trade below and use it.

What you get

Online booking + intake

Customers book online with an intake form shaped to your trade — vehicle + condition for a detail shop, device + symptom for phone repair, pet records for a sitter. No phone tag to get a job on the books.

The job board

The day's work on one screen, moving through your trade's real lifecycle — drop-off → diagnose → quote → repair → pickup, or dispatched → on-site → done. No paper tickets, no whiteboard.

Quote + estimate approval

Itemized estimates the customer approves from their link — no callback loop. Work doesn't start on a job nobody agreed to.

Customer status link

“Where's my car?” answered by a link, not a phone call. Customers follow their job's status and see before/after photos as the work happens.

Recurring schedules

Maintenance plans, weekly lessons, visit packs, cleaning routes — recurring arrangements auto-fill the board alongside one-off jobs, on the same screen.

Your customer data, your subdomain

Hosted at yourshop.darn-tech.com on infrastructure DArnTech operates. Full export anytime. Your data is not pooled with other operators' data. Not sold, not used for ads.

Pick your trade — every demo is live

📱 Phone repair

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/phone-repair

Drop-off → diagnose → quote → repair → pickup. A live repair board, customer status links, quote approval.

🔧 Auto repair

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/auto-repair

Vehicle records, multi-system inspection, itemized estimates, and a parts-ETA state on the repair board.

🚗 Auto detailing

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/detailing

One-off details and recurring maintenance/fleet plans on one board. Before/after photos with an AI paint-score gallery.

🧹 Home cleaning

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/cleaning

Recurring visit schedules, a daily run sheet, per-visit photo records, customer visit summaries.

🐕 Dog sitting

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/dog-sitter

Recurring dog walks, prepaid visit packs, per-visit photos and logs, and a key-custody board.

📚 Tutoring

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/tutoring

Recurring weekly slots that auto-fill the week, a session board, and a family progress portal — one link where a parent sees session-over-session notes.

🎵 Music lessons

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/music

Recurring weekly lessons that auto-fill the studio's week, a lesson board, and a family practice portal with lesson-over-lesson practice notes.

🚰 Plumbing

Live demo · acme.darn-tech.com/plumbing

A dispatch board — emergency call-outs, diagnostics, water heaters and drain work: dispatched → quoted → approved → on-site → done. Customers follow their job from a texted link.

Your trade not listed? The engine retargets — each new trade is a configuration of the same core, not a new product. Ask about yours.

What it's NOT

Honest about scope — this is for the solo operator and the 2–5 person shop that's outgrowing pen-and-paper or Square Appointments, not for the enterprise field-service buyer.

Not a sales CRM. Your customer list lives in the system but it's not a pipeline. If you want lead-scoring and email campaigns, this isn't that.
Not fleet-scale dispatch. The board fits a small crew's day. If you run 5+ vans and need route optimization, you're outside this product's fit.
Not accounting. Quotes and job records yes; tax and books no — the export means your bookkeeper gets clean data. When you want books you own too, that's its own lane: accounting migration, fixed price per system.
Not a marketplace. It doesn't send you leads and it doesn't put your customers in anyone else's funnel. Your customers stay yours.

How to try it

Start at acme.darn-tech.com — pick your trade and click around; it's the real software with demo data, no signup. Then reach out and we'll spin up an instance configured for your shop's services and prices. You can take real bookings on it during a 2-week trial. If it fits, first paid month starts after the trial. If it doesn't, the instance comes down, you get a full export, and there's no lock-in.

Email d.arney@darrenarney.com · phone (text or call) via the contact form at darrenarney.com · or in person around Indianapolis — happy to meet.

Who's behind it

Darren Arney, owner-operator of DArnTech LLC in Indianapolis. Senior lab automation engineer (9+ years) and AI engineering as the day job — this is the small-business software line that runs alongside. The engine is built and operated by DArnTech, hosted on infrastructure I own and operate. Real person, not a SaaS support queue.

No company Facebook or Instagram — if you'd rather meet in person to size up whether this fits, happy to. Any place around Indy that works.