Here’s a realistic and practical recommendation on **in which order** you should build parts of this car wash management system — especially considering that:

- you are (most likely) working **alone or in a very small team**
- you want something **usable relatively quickly**
- you want to reduce risk of building the wrong thing / wasting time
- you want to validate the core business value early

### Recommended build order (2025–2026 mindset)

| Priority | Phase / Module                          | Why this order?                                                                                   | Estimated effort (solo dev) | Visible result / validation point                          | Dependencies / notes                                      |
|:-------:|-----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|:---------------------------:|:-----------------------------------------------------------|:----------------------------------------------------------|
| 1       | Authentication + Organizations + Roles  | You cannot do almost anything meaningful without users and access control                       | 2–5 days                    | Can log in as admin / cashier                              | Start with single org → add multi-org later               |
| 2       | Basic Settings                          | Almost every screen needs business name, currency, timezone, receipt header etc.                | 1–3 days                    | Settings page exists and saves values                      | Simple key-value table                                    |
| 3       | Clients + Vehicles                      | Core entity — almost every sale/booking revolves around “who’s the customer and what car”      | 3–6 days                    | Can add/view/search clients & attach vehicles             | Add soft deletes from beginning                           |
| 4       | Services                                | The main thing people pay for — without services there is no business                         | 2–4 days                    | Can create/list services with prices                       | Keep commission fields even if logic comes later          |
| 5       | POS / Sales (MVP version)               | This is the **heart of the business** — if this part doesn’t feel good, nothing else matters   | 7–14 days                   | Can create a sale, select client+car+services, see total, “pay” (fake), see receipt preview | Start without products, without assigning workers         |
| 6       | Receipts (PDF + print preview)          | Immediate business value — customers expect a nice receipt                                     | 3–7 days                    | Nice looking PDF receipt with logo, services, total etc.   | Use barryvdh/laravel-dompdf or similar                    |
| 7       | Payments table & payment status         | Close the money loop — know what was paid / owed                                               | 3–6 days                    | Sale can have multiple payments, balance due updates       | Start with cash + mpesa only                              |
| 8       | Employees + simple commission view      | People want to know how much commission each washer earned                                     | 4–8 days                    | Can assign washers to services, see commission per sale    | Start with fixed % commission                             |
| 9       | Basic Reports (daily sales, top services, top clients) | Owners want to see money coming in — very strong validation & motivation point                | 5–10 days                   | Dashboard shows today’s revenue, top 5 services this week  | Use Laravel Excel or simple Blade tables first            |
| 10      | Audit Logs (automatic)                  | Safety net — once real data enters, people will ask “who changed this price?”                 | 3–6 days                    | See who created/updated clients, sales, services           | Use observer + trait or Spatie Activity Log package       |
| 11–13   | Bookings / Online booking form          | Nice-to-have in v1 — many businesses start without online booking                             | 7–14 days                   | Can create booking from admin or public form               | Depends on services & time slots logic                    |
| 14–16   | Products + Inventory                    | Only if you actually sell shampoo / wax / accessories — many car washes don’t in beginning    | 7–12 days                   | Can sell product together with service                     | Skip / postpone if not core in year 1                     |
| 17–19   | Expenses, Suppliers, Commissions payout | Financial completeness — but usually comes after stable revenue recording                     | 5–10 days                   | Can record expense, mark commission as paid                | —                                                         |
| 20–22   | Marketing campaigns (SMS/Email)         | Retention feature — valuable but usually built after the core money-making loop is stable     | 7–15 days                   | Can send bulk SMS to clients who visited >30 days ago      | Requires external service integration                     |
| 23+     | Multi-branch / SaaS readiness polish    | Infrastructure / future-proofing — do only after single location works well                   | —                           | —                                                          | organization_id scoping, tenant middleware etc.           |

### Suggested realistic v1 scope (MVP that real businesses can start using)

**Must have in first usable version (4–10 weeks depending on experience):**

1. Login (admin + cashier roles)
2. Add/view clients + vehicles
3. Manage services (name, price)
4. Create sale: select client/vehicle → add services → see total → “pay” (record payment) → generate nice PDF receipt
5. See today’s sales + total revenue
6. Basic audit log (who created/updated sales/clients/services)

**Very nice to have in v1 (but can be added in v1.1):**

- Employee assignment + commission calculation
- Multiple payments per sale (partial payments)
- Simple daily/weekly sales report
- Soft deletes + restore
- Backup button (export SQL or Laravel backup package)

**Can wait for v2:**

- Online booking form
- Products/inventory
- Marketing campaigns
- Expenses tracking
- Advanced reports & charts
- Multi-branch / multi-organization isolation

### Quick summary – my personal top-5 starting priorities

1. Authentication + very basic organization & role setup
2. Clients + Vehicles
3. Services
4. Core POS sale + receipt
5. Very simple daily sales overview

Once you can **comfortably create a customer, record a wash, print/email a receipt and see today’s money**, you have something a real car wash can start using — even if many advanced features are still missing.

What do you personally feel most excited / most urgent to get working first?

(Authentication? Seeing money coming in? Creating nice receipts? Something else?)

That answer usually helps decide the real starting point. 


Quick summary – my personal top-5 starting priorities

Authentication + very basic organization & role setup
Clients + Vehicles
Services
Core POS sale + receipt
Very simple daily sales overview