Auto Credit Express Blog
May 9, 2008
New key feature of LotProOnline prevents underbooking of vehicles and more
New features included with LotProOnline enable special finance managers to instantly know of any booking problems with their inventory.
How do you know if your inventory is accurate?
One of the biggest problems in trying to manage the inventory in a subprime finance department is knowing whether or not the vehicles have been booked correctly. Even though you’re supposed to “touch” every vehicle in the lot to make sure the information is correct, how do you know if that information was entered into your online inventory.
Online automation has its positives and its negatives
Not to date myself, but in the bad old days, there was no such thing as inventory software. All the vehicles that could be used with subprime lenders had to be manually booked. This was fine if there were only a dozen vehicles in stock, but a dozen vehicles won’t cut it in today’s market. Larger inventories and higher turn rates are a good thing – especially if they’re being retailed with good grosses, but it’s a headache to keep up with all that movement.
A few years ago, a number of companies came up with a way to fully or partially automate the inventory process. LotProOnline, in an earlier version, was part of that cutting-edge process. It enabled special finance managers to bring over their inventory from the DMS and to “base book” the inventory. Once the inventory was in the special finance software, you would then have to pick a car, enter the miles and equipment (or skip this part to make the process quicker) and add it to the inventory. The only trouble was, once the vehicle was in inventory, it was up to your memory to let you know which vehicles had been booked in properly and which ones had just been brought across to empty the integration screen and complete the inventory.
With LotProOnline, you can tell which vehicles have been fully booked
With the most recent version of LotProOnline, you can now tell, by color code, which vehicles have been base booked, which cars have been fully booked, and which ones may have issues with book value, trim or accessories.
Now, when you click on the inventory tab, a colored icon, just to the left of the inventory number, will tell you the status of that vehicle. If you forget what the color means (other than green for go, red for stop and yellow for caution), their real meaning can be found by clicking on the question mark icon to the left of “inventory: search results”.
The green status means the vehicle is O.K. That is, in addition to being base booked, it has been opened and viewed (with any additional equipment added). The yellow status means that the vehicle has not been reviewed, only added to the inventory. The red status means that there is an issue with either the book value, trim or accessories.
Now, with a glance, you know the rest of the story.
These latest features should help special finance department managers and employees see, at a glance, if the inventory is accurate and up to date. In addition, this feature is also visible in the “Compare Deals” portion of the program, to let you know if a deal you are preparing to structure has a vehicle with the correct accessories.
To find out more about these changes, as well as other features of the best subprime software on the planet, contact us at 888.535.2277 or by using our quick contact form.
