Audatex in South Africa: a guide for panel shops

Audatex is a vehicle damage estimating and claims platform from Solera, used widely across the South African short-term insurance industry. Its job is quantum: turning damage into a standardised assessment — parts, times, and rates — that a repairer, an assessor, and an insurer can all read the same way.

You will also hear about Qapter — Solera's current estimating product in the Audatex family — as the industry moves onto it. For your workflow, both names mean the same thing: the platform the assessment side of an insurer job runs on.

One shared basis

Parts and times come from standardised data, so an assessment is argued on scope — what actually needs repair — rather than on where each side's numbers came from.

A digital paper trail

Assessments, authorisations, and adjustments move between the shop and the insurer or its claims network electronically, with a record of what was approved and when.

The network effect

Because insurers and assessors widely work on it, being able to prepare and submit an Audatex assessment is commonly part of taking insurer-authorised work at all.

Every insurer and claims network runs its own process, but from the workshop's side an insurance repair usually follows the same shape. The assessment and authorisation steps are where Audatex sits; everything around them is the shop's own work.

1. 1

   The claim is registered and the car is allocated

   The customer claims with their insurer, which usually sends the car to a repairer on its approved panel. Check it in properly: photos, existing damage and what came with the car.
2. 2

   The shop quotes on the estimating system

   The quote is prepared as an assessment, with parts, labour times and paint, and the photos go with it, so the assessor and the insurer read it on the same basis.
3. 3

   The assessor reviews and the insurer authorises

   An assessor checks the quote, in person or from the photos, agrees or adjusts it, and the authorisation comes back to the shop, sometimes through the broker. Only then does the work start.
4. 4

   Hidden damage goes back for approval

   Damage found once the car is stripped is reported to the insurer's assessors and approved before it is repaired. Shops usually call these additionals.
5. 5

   Final costing, payment and release

   The customer pays their excess to the shop, the insurer pays the balance it authorised against the final costing and invoice, and the car goes home with its release paperwork.

• If you take insurer or claims-network work, expect the assessment side of the job to run through Audatex, and expect approval requirements from the networks you join — “Audatex-approved” appears as a listed accreditation for South African panel shops. Our guide to getting insurance work covers the rest of what networks ask for.
• If you do private and cash work, none of this is required. You quote the customer directly and the insurer machinery never enters the job.
• Either way, the assessment is one slice of the job. The vehicle still needs a job card, parts, progress tracking, final costing, an invoice, and a customer kept in the loop — workshop management, not assessment.

Audatex quantifies the claim. PanelDesk runs the repair. Once the assessment is authorised, the actual work still has to move through your workshop. That is the job PanelDesk does:

• Capture the authorised scope on a job card, with the customer and vehicle records linked.
• Run the floor: statuses, line items, extras, parts orders, photos, and target dates on every repair.
• Reconcile the money in final costing, with insurer and customer splits and excess handling.
• Close out with the invoice, clearance paperwork, and a full audit trail on the job.