September has been a busy month for the Haswent dealer management system. You can now work out salesperson commission on every deal, see how your cars are priced against competing AutoTrader adverts, and add your own fields to vehicles, dealerships and contacts. Here is everything that is new.

Salesperson commission

You can now set up commission policies under Settings > Sales Commission, paying a percentage of profit or a fixed amount on the vehicle, finance, accessories and each type of product. Give each salesperson a policy under Settings > Users, and their commission is worked out automatically when a deal is completed.

  • See what everyone has earned under Insights > Reports > Salesperson Commission, and mark it as paid with the date you paid it.
  • Anyone with a commission policy can check their own commission under Insights > My Commission.

Find out more about sales commission in Haswent.

Compare a car against competing AutoTrader adverts

Open a vehicle and go to the vehicle Insights tab to see how its price compares with similar cars advertised on AutoTrader: how many competitors there are, their average and lowest prices, how many are cheaper than yours and where your price sits.

  • Choose Compare with market for the full list. Each competitor shows its price, the AutoTrader price indicator, the seller and how long it has been advertised, with a link to the advert.
  • AutoTrader suggests the matching adverts, and you can change the filters yourself, including trim, plate range, mileage, price and distance from your dealership.
  • Your own car appears in the list too, so you can see exactly where it sits. Sort by mileage, age or distance to compare those instead.

This is available if you have a standard AutoTrader connection. Read more about stock management and pricing.

Custom fields for vehicles, dealerships and contacts

You can now record the details that do not have a place of their own, such as keys held or a finance status. Set up your fields under Settings > Custom Fields, choosing from text, numbers, dates, yes or no, and dropdowns. Then fill them in on a vehicle’s Custom Fields tab, a dealership’s page or a contact’s Details tab.

Vehicle and contact fields can also be used to filter your stock list and your contacts list.

Search by VIN when adding a vehicle

When you add a vehicle to stock you can now search by VIN as well as by registration, which helps with imports and cars that are not registered yet. Choose VIN above the search box, enter the 17-character VIN and the mileage, and the vehicle details are filled in as usual. You will see the VIN option if AutoTrader or vehicle data lookups are switched on for your account.

AutoTrader photo labels and a suggested photo order

Photos sent to AutoTrader now come back labelled with what they show, such as Front Right or Interior Front, and you can see the labels on the vehicle’s Images tab.

If your stock is managed on AutoTrader through us, the Images tab also has a Suggest order button. It shows AutoTrader’s recommended photo order and any shots it thinks are missing, and you can apply that order in one click. Reordering or removing photos now updates your AutoTrader advert straight away. Read more about our AutoTrader integration.

Special offer prices on the stock list

Cars on special offer now show their offer price in the stock list, with the normal price struck through underneath. Click the price to change the price and the offer price together without opening the vehicle.

  • You are warned when an offer price is not lower than the normal price, and asked to confirm before saving a special offer with no offer price.
  • Sorting the stock list by price uses the offer price for cars on special offer.
  • The price history on the Pricing tab now records when a car goes on offer, when the offer price changes and when the offer ends.

Range and charging details for electric vehicles

When you look up an electric or hybrid vehicle, its range, battery size and charging times from AutoTrader are now saved with it. You will find them in the Electric Vehicle section of the vehicle’s Specifications tab, where you can check or correct them.

Products and warranties matched to the right vehicles

You can now choose which vehicles a product or warranty can be sold with, by make, model, fuel type and vehicle age. When you add products to a deal, you will only see the ones that suit the car being sold. Set it up in the Vehicle criteria section under Settings > Products. See more about car sales invoicing.

Customers can add photos they already have to an appraisal

Your customers can now choose photos already on their phone when completing an appraisal, as well as taking new ones. This is switched on for you already. If you would rather they only take new photos, turn off Allow Uploading Existing Photos under Settings > Appraisals. Read more about remote appraisals.

NextGear holding charges since the last invoice

NextGear only bill the daily holding charge at month end, so between invoices a funded vehicle now shows an estimated charge for the days since the last invoice. It is marked as estimated on the ledger, included in the outstanding total and counted towards the vehicle’s funding cost until NextGear invoice the real figure. See how the NextGear Capital integration works, or read more about stock funding.

Deal count in the Sales Report

The Totals row of the Sales Report (By Deals) now shows how many deals are in the report, so you no longer need to count sold vehicles by hand. The Totals row is included when you export the report to CSV too.

Proper file names for printed documents

When you print or save an invoice, order form, deposit receipt, inspection or vehicle pack, the file is now named after the document, its number, the vehicle registration and the customer, for example “Vehicle Invoice - D1038 - YH24 BZJ - Smith.pdf”, instead of “document”.

Release notes inside the DMS

You no longer need to wait for a blog post to hear about new features. A bar at the top of the DMS shows the latest change, and the full list of release notes is a click away.

Want to see any of these in action? Get in touch and we will show you around.