Aura Business follows a lab instrument from the institutional enquiry through installation and application training to the annual contract that keeps it running, and keeps the long lead times on imported spares visible while a customer is waiting.
Selling a laboratory instrument is not finished when the purchase order arrives. Somebody has to deliver it into a laboratory with the right bench, power and ventilation, install it, run it against a known sample, and train the people who will use it, often more than once as students and research staff change. Software for laboratory equipment dealers should treat installation and application training as deliverables with owners and dates, not as favours arranged over the phone after despatch.
The long tail is different from other medical trades. There is no monthly consumable that guarantees contact, so the annual maintenance contract and the spares business are the relationship. Aura Business keeps the instrument in an asset register per laboratory, raises the renewal before cover lapses, and shows the service desk the real procurement lead time on a spare that has to come from the principal, so the customer gets a date instead of a promise.
Institutional buyers move on their own calendar and their own paperwork. The service side then runs on parts that are weeks away.
The same institute asks for a comparable quote each budget cycle and the old one cannot be found, so it is rebuilt from scratch.
The instrument is delivered, then waits in a corridor because the bench, the power point or the engineer was never scheduled.
Application training is promised in the offer, delivered informally, and never signed off, so the customer claims it never happened.
Warranty ends, nobody offers a contract, and the first contact after that is a breakdown call with no cover in place.
A part has to come from the principal and the service desk cannot say whether that is a fortnight or a quarter.
One university has your equipment in six departments and there is no single list of what you have supplied there.
An institutional enquiry or tender document arrives and becomes an opportunity on the laboratory account with its contacts.
A GST quotation is built from the catalogue with revisions kept as versions, so last year's offer is the base for this year's.
The purchase order becomes a sales order, and procurement raises a purchase order to the principal where the item is not in stock.
Delivery, site readiness and installation are raised as scheduled jobs with an engineer assigned and photo proof captured.
Application training is a job of its own, completed with the user's signature on the mobile job card.
The serial enters the installed base with its warranty end date, and the renewal engine raises the contract offer before cover lapses.
Breakdown calls, spare requests with their lead times, and service history build on the same asset record.
Workflow: The institute asks again at budget time; the saved quotation version is opened, updated for current prices and reissued the same day.
Result: A fast response while the budget is still open.
Workflow: The sales order raises a site readiness check and an installation job, and the engineer confirms bench, power and ventilation before despatch is scheduled.
Result: The instrument is commissioned the week it arrives.
Workflow: The application training job is completed on the mobile app with the names trained and the user's signature captured.
Result: A record that settles the question a year later.
Workflow: The service desk sees the spare is not in stock, sees the supplier lead time on the purchase order, and tells the lab the expected week.
Result: An honest date instead of a weekly phone call.
Departmental buyers, tenders and budget cycles.
Instruments in pathology labs alongside the analysers.
Instruments where documented installation matters to the customer.
Imported instruments with spares that have long lead times.
Engineers covering a state, not a principal's national team.
Problem: A distribution business run entirely on WhatsApp and Excel.
Built: Field app, manager dashboard, GST billing and payment tracking.
Stack: React Native, Supabase, WordPress.
Problem: No online store or way to manage distributors.
Built: Storefront, distributor portal, quote-to-order and 253 SEO pages.
Stack: Supabase, JavaScript, Playwright.
Yes. Each is raised as its own scheduled job against the sales order, assigned to an engineer or application specialist, and closed on the mobile job card with photos and the customer's signature. The order is only complete when both are closed.
The asset register records each serial number with its department and location under the parent account, so a university with equipment in six departments has one account and six clear installation records.
Yes. Warranty end dates sit on each asset and the contract renewal engine raises the offer before cover lapses, so the first contact after warranty is a proposal rather than a breakdown call. See service contract management.
When a part is not in stock, the purchase order to the supplier carries an expected date, and that date is visible on the service call. The customer gets a week rather than an open-ended wait.
Yes. The tender tracker holds the documents, EMD and deadline reminders, and records the outcome so win rates by product line are visible. See tender management software.
A diagnostic supplier earns mainly from reagents flowing through a placed analyser. A laboratory equipment dealer usually earns from the instrument, then from contracts and spares, so the software emphasis moves from consumable pull-through to installation, renewals and procurement lead times.
Analysers and reagent pull-through.
Stock, reorder and parts per job.
Contracts and renewals in one place.
Versions that survive a budget cycle.
Institutional buying, tracked.
How to choose a CRM for this trade.
Long cycles and uptime obligations.
Tell us how you work today. We will show you what the platform would look like for you, and give you a clear scope and timeline.
Founder-led · Chennai, India · Built and supported by the person who wrote it