Stop the Most Common Fraud Situations and Money Leaks in Sales and Administration

Fraud situations and money leaks are becoming more common in dealerships around the world and dealers are, in many cases, unable to prevent them or are unsure how to act once they are detected.

No dealership wants to lose money due to theft, negligence, or deficient processes, nor do they want to see their reputation tarnished with OEMs, suppliers and customers. Dealers need to start considering fraud as a very distinct possibility and take preventive measures.We recently published an article on fraud situations and money leaks in the Service Department. In this article we will analyze two simple but vital factors that must be monitored in the Sales Department, and in the Finance & Administration Department.

Accounts Receivable

What happens when there is no control over accounts receivables? There are four immediate consequences:

Cash is immobilized
Bad debt increases
There are legal expenses
Credibility with customers decreases

The end result is that the dealership loses money… invoices are unpaid but the true causes are multiple: credit sales made to poorly qualified customers, lax collection policies that encourage customers to miss due dates, and excessive credit limits.A clear collection process must be established, while leaving a flexibility margin for special circumstances. The goal of dealers who are struggling against this money leak is to become collection managers instead of merely passive receivers of payments.How can Autologica DMS help?Autologica Awake, the add-on module that monitors business transactions in real time, will send an email or SMS to a manager whenever a payment due date exceeds the dealer’s predetermined threshold. In addition, Autologica DMS offers a High-to-Low Accounts Receivable Report that displays all due accounts for the Finance Manager to organize collections.

Lost Prospects

A dealership’s sales team is the heart of the business. Each new customer not only brings in revenue from the vehicle sale, but should also generate ongoing revenue in the Service Department. This is why each prospect must be converted into a sale.However, many sales teams don’t have clear processes to carry out prospect follow-up, or lack the capacity to absorb all of the opportunities that are generated by the dealer’s marketing efforts. This results in the loss of prospects who decide to visit other dealers when the sales team doesn’t call them.What are the immediate consequences?

Less sales
Time wasted on the wrong prospects
Loss of potential aftersales revenue during each vehicle’s lifecycle

How Can Autologica DMS Help?

Autologica Awake will find each prospect that hasn’t been called within the timeframe indicated in the sales process, and will notify the Sales Manager so they can reassign the opportunity and ensure proper follow-up. In addition, Autologica DMS offers key strategic reports such as the Sales Funnel, which displays the following information:

In which stage is the dealership losing most prospects?
Are you generating more calls than you can actually carry out?
Are you generating calls that result wasted time?
Should you increase the marketing/sales staff to improve follow-up?
Are salespeople entering each sales call in the CRM?

Dealers who focus on these two key points will increase sales and at the same time reduce money leaks.