Hi,

I thought I saved information on car dealer accounting from the previous email system of forums but I can't find any. I know there are specialty apps or programs for dealer accounting. If I'm not mistaken, there are things that should be specifically accounted for such as fees paid to the DMV on behalf of the buyer, trade ins, etc. 

I do accounting for an auto repair company, one of the shops they are partnered with in Oregon is dabbling in used car sales. The previous accountant simply put all the transactions into an inventory asset account (QB Enterprise). I would like to better track actual profitability per vehicle. 

Some work is completed on vehicles through the shop with themselves as a customer through the POS system. When the car is sold they pay their own accounts receivable. 

I've created a 'job' for each vehicle under the existing customer that is the shop itself (created by the POS system) and make each expense (including the 'internal' invoices) billable to that job. Because the final payment for the vehicle is only partially posted through the POS AR, I have manually calculated the profit and posted as income on an invoice. No has has given any guidance to the shop manager on this and my method is temporary until I find a better way. 

By clearing the shop's own AR invoices through the POS system that also ends up on the profit report by job and skews that number. I think they need to create invoices in the POS system to the vehicle, not the shop itself.

I've been in the automotive sector for decades, although never handled accounting on car sales. They don't do any financing but when I've inquired what about taking in trades, downpayments, etc etc the partners I work with have little clue what is happening or how to deal with that. 

As always, any input is sincerely appreciated.

Kelley Cantrell

Sage Business Services

SLC, Utah