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Keeping Inventory Updated with LotProOnline
One of the key features of LotProOnline is the ability to configure the update process to your particular needs. Today we will discuss one of those features…
Vehicle Integration Lock
LotProOnline gives you the ability to “lock” a vehicle and prevent that vehicle from being dropped from the inventory any time an integration upload is performed. It will also prevent wiping out critical updated cost information.
Practical applications of the lock feature
There are times that you want to immediately enter a car into your subprime inventory before it is added to your dealer DMS. As an example, your buyer calls from the auction and lets you know that he is buying 6 Ford Focuses at $800 in back of book. You get the VIN’s, equipment and pricing and, since these will all work with your programs, you enter the information into LotProOnline.
The advantage of the manual enter feature is that each vehicle you have entered has been automatically locked. Since these vehicles have yet to be entered into your DMS, running an integration would sweep them out of the inventory. Since they are locked, all the information is saved and they remain in inventory. You can keep the vehicles locked indefinitely, or unlock them once you are comfortable all the information – including cost – has been entered into the DMS.
As previously stated, the lock function is automatic for manually entered vehicles. To change the status or add a lock to integrated vehicles, click on the “inventory” tab. When the inventory screen has populated, scroll down to the vehicle you want to change and click on the “pencil” icon to the left of the stock number. This will open the inventory edit screen. Once the edit screen is opened, you will notice the “inventory lock” icon in the upper left-hand corner. By clicking on the icon, the vehicle is locked from further updating.
This feature works not only for saving inventory that might otherwise be dropped, it will also prevent any cost information from being overwritten. This is important if you are entering updated vehicle costs in LotProOnline and vehicle costs are not being updated on a regular basis in the DMS.
The Bottom Line
It’s absolutely critical in subprime finance that vehicle information be kept accurate and up-to-date. With the integration lock feature, you can be sure that vehicle as well as cost information is accurate, even if DMS information is out of date. For more information on this as well as other features of LotProOnline, contact us at 888.535.2277 or by using our quick contact form.