Recon Vendor Management – Multiple Moving Parts and People

For those who manage multiple vehicles through a reconditioning process, like dealerships, fleet managers, auto auctions, and rental companies, employing multiple vendors and employees on top of the administrative duties of running the business can be difficult to manage. There are a lot of steps to getting a vehicle through the make-ready process. To help ease the pains of so many moving targets, AMT developed ReconMonitor™, smart workflow management software for auto reconditioning.

This software is specifically designed to assist in your execution of auto remarketing at maximum speed and efficiency. ReconMonitor improves the ready-for-sale process by giving the user visibility into each of the many steps in the recon process. It also provides a detailed look at how each of the steps and technicians is doing from an efficiency perspective. Let’s look at an example:

Let’s say your dealership acquires a car at auction. The initial inspection indicates that the vehicle needs some mechanical work, PDR, a bumper replacement, paint touch-ups, and of course, photography. Then the next day you acquire 5 to 10 cars through trade-in (wouldn’t that be great), each with its own list of needed repairs. For the recon director or manager within your operation, it can be dizzying tracking numerous vehicles at different stages of the recon process. If your facility employs its own mechanical repair resources in addition to outside vendors for specialties like PDR and other sublet work, keeping track of everything can be stressful and things can slip through the cracks. You not only have administrative tasks to complete but have to manage multiple workflows and stations to make sure the right employees and vendors are matched to the right jobs for the most efficient turn-around.

Capacity management and knowing where each vehicle is in the process becomes complex and the entire process can become bogged down from a single inefficient step. Vendor management in ReconMonitor means the ability to plan, schedule, and evaluate vendors for improved efficiency. For the example above, it would make no sense for the dealer to have the photographer come on a day when a car wasn’t cosmetically ready for its close-up. Knowing where each vehicle sits in the process, and planned time until it is ready for the next stage is a critical ability that will set your business processes apart from any other dealer without this type of visibility and control.

With ReconMonitor, you can watch your vendors and employees complete the designed order of tasks in real time, contact them if needed, make changes where you see fit, and analyze the quality of work. ReconMonitor will also automatically create and distribute vendor work orders, and generate vendor invoices when the completed work is approved, giving you full control.

Dealerships can lose around $35-$50 every day a car is stuck in the reconditioning process. ReconMonitor increases the visibility and control you have over the end-to-end process of reconditioning any vehicle. It’s a great way to get rid of disorganized paper orders and antiquated whiteboards and keep everything in one centralized management solution. With ReconMonitor, your reconditioning process is transformed with vehicles efficiently made frontline-ready in record time.

June 7, 2019 Business, New and Used Car Dealers, Product Related, Reconditioning, ReconMonitor No comments yet

Advantages Of Management Software For Your Used Car Dealership

  • Faster Turn Times
  • Improved Vehicle Volume
  • Better Coordination

For used car dealerships, management software is an excellent way to increase your efficiency both in the back-office and front-end operations.  Having a system in place not only reduces your overall cycle time but also increases your throughput– maximizing profit and minimizing overall costs.

Employing a management software solution for your fixed operations and reconditioning emphasizes your commitment to making your dealership run as effectively as possible, that you care about making tasks more streamlined for your employees, prioritize customer service and sales readiness, and you’re willing to adapt to the newest technologies out there for dealerships.

With management software in place, back-office administrative tasks that used to take hours can be cut down to just a few minutes. It allows all of your departments to be connected and work together, while also improving productivity on all fronts. Instead of relying on one employee or vendor at a time during each stage of vehicle processing, the operation becomes a more team-oriented environment. There’s a clear and organized structure that doesn’t rely on a back-office spreadsheet or whiteboard to get done. If a team member updates a vehicle’s status in the software, all relevant team members have access to the information, instantly, on their desktop or mobile devices. This lets the team know what’s in the pipeline, and lets both your technicians and your sales team plan for when work is coming.

You can see what vehicles are being reconditioned, where they are, the stage they’re in, and who’s working on them. You can also track and anticipate bottlenecks or delays during the reconditioning process, and improve resource planning based on vehicle volume and where they are in the recon process. The goal, of course, is high-quality work at optimal speed. Workflow management software can get your cars from acquisition to front line sales-ready in as little as a few days. Dealerships lose an average of $30-$50 per day when cars are stuck in reconditioning, so each day you can shave off your recon equals more profit per vehicle. And that savings adds up!

Workflow management software will make your used car dealership faster and more efficient both in the back and front-end of operations. You can create and refine your processes to make the back-office, reconditioning, and retail side of things work better together.

 

Automobile Technologies Can Help

AMT offers software solutions designed to make your used car dealership and reconditioning process as efficient as possible. We also provide you with better visibility and get your vehicles frontline ready in the shortest possible time.

ReconMonitor™ is powerful workflow automation for auto recon, dealerships, and auto remarketing companies that integrates with Dealer Management and Accounting Systems to ensure seamless operations across the enterprise.

June 4, 2019 Business, New and Used Car Dealers, Reconditioning, ReconMonitor No comments yet

ReconMonitor Back Office 3.4.9

Select one of the found OEM numbers when you add a new part to a repair order or edit an existing part, quickly resolve problems to complete the current phase

New Features

  • Select OEM# for repair order parts
  • Resolve problems to complete current phase

Improvements

  • Showing the “Settings” menu section only to users with the Administrator role

See the details of the new features here.

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May 15, 2019 ReconMonitor, Updates No comments yet

ReconMonitor Back Office 3.4.85

Specify a default technician for client services, and these services will be automatically assigned to the default technician in inspections and work orders created for this client

New Features

  • Assign default technician to client services
  • Specify phone number for a device license
  • Allow tracking the status of phases, services, or both

Improvements

  • Showing status icons in the Parts Management dashboard
  • Performance of the Repair Order page has been improved

See the details of the new features here.

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May 14, 2019 ReconMonitor, Updates No comments yet

7 Advantages Of Adding PDR To Your In-house Reconditioning Operation

In the reconditioning business, you’re always looking for a way to add another profit center. Luckily for you, adding Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) as an in-house capability is a great way to increase profit with minimal effort. As someone who’s already performing automotive repairs in your service bays or collision center, adding PDR to your processes will actually be pretty easy. With PDR, you can reduce the time you spend on bodywork during the reconditioning process, but you can also save quite a bit of money as well.

Trained PDR technicians can “massage” out any dents or dings found on a vehicle’s body. PDR typically relies on no damage to the paint in order to be as efficient as possible. Even so, technicians can still perform PDR to reshape the dents, and provide paint touch-ups if need be.

Below are 7 advantages of adding PDR to your reconditioning process.

 

It (Mostly) Doesn’t Cost Anything In The Long Run

Outside a few initial specialized tool purchases and training, PDR basically pays for itself. Once you have the training and tools, you won’t be paying any incremental costs to perform PDR since none of the tools or parts will require frequent replacement.

 

It Has a High Potential To Net You Profit

With the right technician, a $100 or $200 job can be done in 10 – 30 minutes with PDR.

 

You Have The Opportunity To Provide Better Deals To Customers

Most of the average drivers out there today have no idea what PDR is. It’s been around for close to 60 years, and there are still shops that don’t have it as a part of their repair processes. So, if a customer comes in with dents that need fixing, imagine their response when you tell them you can repair them all in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the price of conventional dent repair. You may already use an outsourced PDR technician, but if you find yourself waiting for them to show up to complete the repairs, that vehicle downtime is costing you even more than just their charges.

 

Creates An Avenue For New, Potential, Customers

If you already have a stream of customers for other repairs and maintenance, you can offer dent removal as an up-sell in the service drive. In most cases, the dent work can be done during other repairs or services, adding no additional wait time for the customer. In addition to your walk-ins, you have the potential to bring in work from auto auctions, used car dealerships, car rental agencies, car insurance agencies, detail shops, and body shops.

 

Minimal Effort To Adding It Into Your Shop

PDR isn’t a method that requires a drastic change in your business. As we said above, it only requires a few initial tool purchases. Outside of that, there’s a pretty minimal space required to do the work and can easily be done in the shop or on the road with what you currently have. It only takes a few minutes to do during your detailing or painting phases, and it’ll just take a minute for you to speak with the customer, bring up the dents, and offer to repair them without any impact to the overall repair time.

 

Relatively Low Start-Up Cost

PDR will basically pay for itself once you’ve trained your technician(s) and purchased the proper equipment. It can be self-taught, but professional training and tools can cost anywhere from $5,000 – $15,000 depending on the level of training, certifications, and the quality of the tools. However, after the initial investment, PDR has high profit potential and costs much less than other typical investments for business line extensions.

 

It’s Easy To Sell To Customers

No matter what, offering a dent repair option that costs a fraction of conventional dent repair to a customer is a pretty easy sell. Since it only takes a few minutes to repair, the lower costs are drastically made up by the sheer volume of PDR that can be done throughout each week. What takes many shops days to do, you could do in minutes. So, if you provide a quality option that saves customers money and is convenient for them, you’ll ultimately get more business down the road.

 

AutoMobile Technologies offers Software Solutions That Can Help You Manage Your PDR Process

AMT offers software designed to make your reconditioning business more efficient, provide you with better visibility, and give you peace of mind knowing that your back-office is always up-to-date.

ReconMonitor is a state of the art workflow automation software for auto recon, dealerships, and auto remarketing companies. ReconMonitor dealership software decreases reconditioning cycle time from acquisition to front line and increases your control and profitability.

ReconPro is the industry’s most versatile and powerful software solution purpose-built for auto recon professionals. With essential tools for performing PDR estimates, hail and insurance matrixes, parts management, paint code lookups, integrations with body shop crash systems and accounting systems, too. ReconPro manages the details of running your business so you can focus on growing your business.

May 10, 2019 Business, Collision Centers, New and Used Car Dealers, Product Related, Reconditioning, ReconMonitor, ReconPro No comments yet

ReconMonitor Back Office 3.4.8

Add notes to repair order services with the Parts price type and the Labor price type, as well as services included in a bundle

Improvements

  • Add notes to parts, labor, and bundle service items in repair orders

See the details of the improvements here.

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April 17, 2019 ReconMonitor, Updates No comments yet

ReconMonitor Back Office 3.4.7

Replace multiple services of the same kind with a generic service that you can clarify when adding this service to inspections and work orders, and many other improvements

New Features

  • Generic Services
  • Repair Problem Reporting

Improvements

  • Select a vehicle part when adding money services to repair orders
  • Support for generic services on the Parts Management page
  • Support for generic services in the Repair Order details view
  • “Check In” button for repair order phase
  • ”On Hold” status indicator for repair orders
  • Improved search for repair orders
  • Access to repair orders has been restricted based on user’s role.

Fixed Issues

  • The Repair Orders link was shown twice in the breadcrumb.
  • The Phases filter on the Repair Orders page did not work properly.
  • The layout of the Part Management page was not properly displayed after scaling.

See the details of the improvements here.

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April 15, 2019 ReconMonitor, Updates No comments yet

How Reconditioning Software Reduces Your Time To Market

Recon management whiteboard

Yesterday’s recon management dashboard. Don’t rub it the wrong way!

With each year, more and more dealerships are adapting to the latest and greatest technology. They’re doing this to increase their inventory turn times, but to also anticipate the likelihood of selling outside of those time spans. There are a lot of things to consider as a used car dealership, but one thing for sure is that each day a vehicle is being reconditioned, you’re losing money.

So, let’s approach time to market with an example. Let’s say your turn time is 50 days, but it takes you a total of 9 days to recondition the vehicle from auction to the frontline. With that turn time alone, you’re already reducing the vehicle’s chance of getting sold by 18%. Beyond that, if you wait too long, you may have to send it back into auction or reduce the price significantly to make any profit from it. The longer you have a vehicle in inventory that isn’t driveable by a potential customer, the less likely it’ll get sold.

Because of an inefficient recon operation, problems with morale can develop between your different departments. The business relies on the sales force selling vehicles as soon as possible, but if the technicians in the service department are taking too long, there will inevitably be some friction. At the end of the day, time to market relies the most on the reconditioning process pushing out vehicles as fast as possible for the sales team.

If you create a standardized process for your back-office, service department, vendors, and front-end sales, your time to market will drastically reduce. One of the biggest bottlenecks for used car operations and the reconditioning process is communication. Reconditioning management software can bridge the gap between all of the departments– making it easier for information to be accessed, knowing who’s accountable for delays, and getting approvals as fast as possible. It can even reduce friction between departments, by enabling your Fixed Ops department to set Sales department expectations with reliable delivery times for each vehicle.

To make sure all of your vehicles are frontline-ready as soon as possible, reconditioning software is an absolute must in this market. It enforces a much more organized approach when it comes to back-office information, vehicle reconditioning, sales, and customer satisfaction, and all the relevant information is available at the touch of a button on your computer or mobile device.

AutoMobile Technologies Can Help

AMT offers software solutions designed to make your reconditioning business more efficient, provide you with better visibility, and give you peace of mind knowing that your back-office is always up-to-date and your reconditioned vehicles are delivered at speed.

ReconMonitor is a state of the art workflow automation software for dealerships, auctions, and auto remarketing companies. ReconMonitor dealership software decreases reconditioning cycle time and increases your control and profitability.

April 4, 2019 Business, New and Used Car Dealers, Product Related, Reconditioning, ReconMonitor No comments yet

ReconMonitor Back Office 3.4.6

Apply dashboard filters to show repair orders with parts in the appropriate status and search for repair orders by phase in a particular status.

Improvements

  • Use dashboard counters to filter repair order parts
  • Better layout for part details
  • Showing available part statuses only
  • Filter repair orders by phase status
  • Showing the current phase of repair orders
  • Searching repair orders by active phase

See the details of the improvements here.

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March 19, 2019 ReconMonitor, Updates No comments yet

Auto Dealerships Will Be Just Fine In 2019

New & Pre-Owned Sales signAccording to NADA News, Senior Economist for NADA, Patrick Manzi, said trends are looking good for both new and used vehicles in 2019.

He continued on and said in a recent speech in San Francisco: “The current posture of the U.S. economy is strong. A tight labor market continues to put upward pressure on wages, which are rising. Consumer spending, a significant contributor to GDP, remains solid. It’s a positive sign that consumers are spending money.”

In 2019, NADA expects there to be roughly 16.8 million sales in light trucks and new cars– a 3% decrease from 2018’s fourth straight year of 17 million units.

However, Manzi warned that the rising interest rates for auto loans will impact the affordability of vehicles for consumers in the coming year. With rates and monthly payments expected to rise, he says younger consumers will shift to the used car market. “This is a great opportunity for dealers to get these customers into nearly new certified-pre-owned vehicles.”

With the used car market’s expected increase, software companies have developed software to make the reconditioning process as efficient as possible to maximize profits. Products like ReconMonitor can help you track each vendor or employee task and identify what order those tasks are being performed. This helps you execute auto remarketing at maximum speed, and ensure you have the stock available to meet consumer demands.

March 18, 2019 Business, Future, New and Used Car Dealers, ReconMonitor No comments yet
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