Automotive inventory management software and automotive inventory management systems
- Variance in units (negative is a shortfall)
- -86
- What the shortfall cost you to replace
- $1,075
- Count accuracy, percent of expected found
- 96.4
The arithmetic on these sheets is your own count: units, unit cost and reorder point in, variance and value out. Nothing is estimated and no industry average is applied to your numbers. Where a page states an outside figure it names the document it came from and links to it.
A dealership is two inventories in one building and most automotive inventory management software is honest about only one of them. There are units on the lot, each unique, each aging, each financed; and there are parts on the shelf, none unique, all reordered. They share nothing except the word inventory: different identifiers, different aging behaviour, different money at risk, different people responsible. A shortlist that does not make you say which half you are buying for is a shortlist that will disappoint one department.
Open the Inventory spreadsheet template Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
Decide which inventory the product is really built around
Open the demo and look at what the default list is sorted by. If it sorts by days in stock, it is a vehicle system. If it sorts by part number and on-hand quantity, it is a parts system. If it shows both and one of them has three columns, that is the half the vendor added later and the half that will frustrate you. Ask the vendor directly which of their reference customers is closest to your size and whether they run both halves in the product. The answer is usually revealing: a parts-first product with dealer customers will name a workshop, and a lot-first product will name a store with a service department it does not talk about.
On the vehicle side, the identifier is the whole record
Every vehicle carries a vehicle identification number assigned under the federal VIN standard, and that number is what everything else hangs on: the window sticker, the title, the odometer disclosure, the service history, the photograph set. A system that lets a unit exist without a decoded VIN is a system that will let two people create the same car twice.
On the vehicle side, aging is the money
Units do not go missing; they go stale, and a unit financed on a floor plan costs money every day it sits. What you want from the software is the aging distribution at a glance and an alert at the thresholds you set, not a report you run monthly. The variance arithmetic that matters on the lot is between the aging you think you have and the aging you actually have.
On the parts side, the arithmetic is ordinary stock control
Counted against expected, the gap priced at your own cost, a reorder point per line, and the count timed so you know what a cycle costs in hours. That is what the free sheet on this page does, and it is the same arithmetic whether the shelf holds filters or fittings. If the software cannot produce those four figures from your own count, it is a catalogue with a parts department attached. Ask for it as a test during the trial rather than as a question in the demo. Load two hundred of your own lines, do one real count, and see whether the product gives you a variance value at your own costs without exporting to a spreadsheet first.
Check what the paperwork obligations need out of it
A dealer selling used vehicles has disclosure duties, including the buyers guide requirements in the FTC used car rule and odometer disclosure under the federal odometer rule. None of that is the inventory system's job to satisfy, but the data those documents need lives in it, and a system that cannot export a unit's full record on demand turns each of those into retyping.
Stock counts: what people ask before the first one
Can one product run both the lot and the parts shelf? Some dealer management systems do, and the trade-off is that they are priced and implemented for a franchise dealership rather than an independent with twenty units. An independent is often better served by a vehicle tool for the lot and ordinary stock control for parts, which is two simpler things that each work.
What is the difference between this and a dealer management system? A dealer management system runs the whole business: deals, finance, service, accounting, payroll. Inventory management software runs one part of it. If you are being quoted for a full platform when your problem is knowing what is on the shelf, you are in a much larger conversation than you asked for.
How does the free sheet on this page fit a dealership? It does the parts half: expected against counted, the shortfall valued at your own cost, the reorder point and what the count costs in hours. It does not price vehicles, because a vehicle is not a quantity and pretending it is would produce a number that means nothing.
Does inventory valuation matter for a dealer at year end? Yes, and it is one of the places where getting the count right has a consequence beyond operations. The IRS guidance on accounting periods and methods covers when inventories have to be accounted for and how they are valued; your accountant will want a real count behind whatever figure is used.
What is the most common mis-purchase here? Buying a retail-shaped stock system for a lot. Retail systems assume interchangeable units with a quantity, and a used vehicle is a one-off with a history. The tell is being asked for a quantity on hand when the answer is always one. The second most common is the reverse: an independent workshop that buys a dealer platform because a franchise store recommended it, and then uses about a tenth of it while paying for all of it.
Will the Automotive inventory management software fit what you count?
Tell us what you are counting and how you count it today, and we will tell you whether Stocktaka fits before you pay for anything.