The essence of being an auto dealership is having inventory to sell. Instead of having titles and folders lying around endlessly without any clear organization of their status beyond your impressive memory, you can use our technology to safely organize it for you.
Adding the Vehicle
From the dashboard, navigate to Vehicles.
Once in the Vehicles section, you'll see your other vehicles, or an empty table if you have not yet added any. Click the blue "Add Vehicle" button.
This will create a new vehicle record and open a popup with it so you can begin working.
Remember: we're here to help, not overwhelm. We'll collect as much information as you provide us, but all fields are optional. The more you input, the more we'll use to streamline your workflow.
Below we'll recommend information you should always include, as they are most frequently used in your business and in government forms.
Vehicle Info
Vehicle Status: helpful to know the current state of the vehicle
Date in Stock: know when you acquired the vehicle. This helps you know what vehicles you've been stuck with for a while.
General
VIN: vehicle identification number that uniquely identifies the vehicle worldwide. If you provide a valid, 17-character VIN, we'll use it to autocomplete most of the vehicle's data using information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Odometer
Mileage: you have a federal obligation to disclose the odometer at the time of sale, so we'll help you comply by including it in every form automatically.
Mileage accuracy: similarly, you must disclose to the consumer if the mileage reading above represents the actual reading of the vehicle.
Odometer Date: the day you read the miles reported above should be noted in every disclosure to the consumer, so they know the recency of the reading.
Exterior
Body: the body of the vehicle can change the nature of the sale by requiring more paperwork or fees; the body can be sedan, coupe, pickup, etc.
Color: required by most states to assist in quickly identifying vehicles
Dimensions
Weight: in some states, if the weight of the vehicle exceeds a certain amount, the tag registration structure changes. For example, Florida pickups of more than 5,000 lbs are required to be titled as trucks, and must renew their registration at the same date every year instead of on the vehicle owner's birthday.
Gross Vehicle Weight: like weight, GVWR can be very important. Trucks, for example, are regulated based on this rating, so it is important to disclose correctly. A dump truck of 70,000 GVWR is treated differently by the federal Department of Transportation (DoT) than 80,000 GVWR.
Title Info
Title Brands: once more, your dealer has a federal and state obligation to disclose all brands to the customer. Brands are when a vehicle is used in a specific way or involved in a situation which the government has determined future buyers should know about. Notable brands are: salvage, junk, taxi, police, flood, and many more.
Provider
In the Provider tab, you're able to keep track of the person or company you obtained the vehicle from. This is not required, but it is very helpful in case the vehicle has problems in the future. It is possible you may purchase a defective vehicle for which you are sued by your buyer, and you may later seek reparations from your provider. Knowing as many details as possible regarding who this is would prove useful to future you.
Location
In the Location tab, you're able to know exactly where your vehicle is currently located, including the address, contact information, and person or company name. This is very helpful as your business scales. If you have 1 or 2 vehicles in active inventory, you can remember off the top of your head, but as your numbers increase, having a tool to assist you will prove helpful. Even if you have perfect memory, you might want to know where your vehicle was repaired a few months ago. If you set the Location as the bodyshop, you can open the record however many months ago it was added and check.
Even if Location and Provider records store the same information—both are simply entities with contact information and an address—, you should keep them separate to have your data organized. Where your vehicles are stored is not necessarily who you purchased the vehicle from.
Vehicle Value
The vehicle value tab is the most exciting part of the vehicle record. Here, you can keep an itemized breakdown of both your pricing and costs.
On the left, you'll add how much your car will sell for. On the right, you'll add how much the vehicle has cost you. We'll guide you through an example below:
Name your price and press enter or click outside
Set your price and set Taxable to "Yes"
Since we allow for deep customization of your pricing tables, instead of guessing potentially incorrectly for you, we allow you to decide whether it is considered taxable or not.
Important Note
All charges except where taxes have already been paid, such as license plate agency fees, should have Taxable marked as "Yes." Only fields with Taxable marked as "Yes" will be considered taxable. If you mark any price's Taxable as "No," we will not include it in the automatic tax calculation.
Title fees, license plate fees, and others are fees you are collecting for transactions you likely already paid sales taxes for at the license plate agency, so you can mark Taxable for these as "No" to avoid taxing these transactions again.
This is not tax advice. These are instructions on how to tailor Syncorise to your dealer's needs. Whether taxes need to be collected or not in a transaction is a decision you should make with your tax advisor.
Conclusion
Hopefully this was informative in helping kickstart your journey in simpler vehicle dealing. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, reach out to us.
Disclaimer
Our product facilitates the accounting aspect of your sales, but you are responsible for ensuring everything is working as intended. You and your business are responsible for the accurate collection of government fees and adequate disclosure to your customers of all information. We strive to provide the best of services, but you must, among other aspects, ensure all brands are properly disclosed, the odometer is properly declared, the pricing is properly detailed, and the correct sales tax is being collected, reported, and paid. We are not accountants or attorneys; it is your responsibility to comply with federal and state regulations surrounding your business.