Plain-language definitions used consistently across company, product, integration and buying-guide records.
Grouped by the same headings the category taxonomy uses, so a reader arriving from a market map meets the same organising idea.
22 terms
41 terms
21 terms
20 terms
29 terms
41 terms
35 terms
13 terms
11 terms
12 terms
15 terms
8 terms
8 terms
7 terms
13 terms
4 terms
22 terms
A control list inside the DMS holding the open items behind a general-ledger balance — contracts in transit, vehicle receivables, warranty claims. Schedules that are not reconciled are where a month's real financial position hides.
A model where the dealer also finances the customer directly. It adds loan servicing, collections and payment-device considerations that a franchise store does not have.
The account structure the store posts to, usually set by the manufacturer's financial-statement format. Changing a DMS without mapping it is one of the most common causes of a broken first month-end.
The record of a vehicle transaction — customer, vehicle, trade, lender, F&I products, gross. It is created in one system and consumed by several, which is why field ownership matters more than feature lists.
Multiple rooftops under common ownership. Group-level decisions introduce standardisation, consolidated reporting and single-renewal exposure that a single store does not face.
Dealer management system: a dealership's core accounting and operating platform for deals, parts, service and financial records.
The manufacturer of the DMS controls who may read and write its data and on what commercial terms. Access, its fee and who pays it are separate questions from whether a vendor's product works.
Consolidated reporting across multiple rooftops. It usually requires either one shared chart of accounts or a mapping layer, and the mapping is where group-level numbers go wrong.
The standardised monthly report each manufacturer requires. Its format constrains the accounting structure and therefore constrains what any reporting tool can produce without rework.
A dealership authorised by a manufacturer to sell new vehicles of that brand. Franchise status brings manufacturer programs, approved-vendor lists and reporting obligations that independents do not have.
The store's book of record for every financial transaction. Anything that claims to write financial data should be judged on what it posts to the ledger and what it leaves for a person to reconcile.
A dealership selling used vehicles without a new-vehicle franchise. Its software needs differ mainly in the absence of manufacturer systems and in a heavier reliance on all-in-one platforms.
A manual posting to the ledger. A high volume of manual entries after a system change usually means an integration is not carrying something it was expected to carry.
The process of reconciling and finalising a month's financial records. A software change that lands mid-month is judged, fairly or not, by what it did to the close.
An operation with more than one rooftop. Pricing, integration fees and reporting frequently behave differently at the second store than the demonstration implied, so confirm per-rooftop behaviour explicitly.
The vehicle manufacturer. In software terms it is the party that certifies vendors, funds programs, sets data requirements and can make a capability available or unavailable regardless of the vendor.
A manufacturer scheme that approves specific vendors for a category, often with subsidised pricing. It constrains choice, and what is program-driven versus freely chosen is worth separating during evaluation.
Writing a transaction to the accounting records. Whether a tool posts, proposes a posting for approval, or only reports is the distinction that decides who owns the resulting errors.
Matching the open items on a schedule to the balance they support. It is routine work that software can accelerate and cannot remove, and it is where migration errors surface first.
The store's internal identifier for a vehicle in inventory, distinct from the VIN. Systems that key on stock number rather than VIN break when a vehicle is re-stocked.
The 17-character vehicle identification number. It is the only durable identifier a vehicle carries across systems, which is why records keyed on anything else are fragile.
Deriving year, make, model, trim and equipment from the VIN. Decoders disagree at trim level, so two systems can describe the same car differently and both be defensible.
41 terms
The share of set appointments that arrive. It is the measure most sensitive to how appointments are defined, so agree the definition before comparing anyone's number.
Profit from F&I products and finance participation. It is regulated in ways front-end profit is not, which is why F&I software is a compliance purchase first.
A customer who leaves without buying and returns later. Whether a system can recognise and credit a be-back changes both follow-up quality and attribution.
The interest rate a lender offers the dealer. What the customer is charged may be higher; the difference is dealer participation and is regulated.
A transaction with no financing. It changes which systems touch the deal and which F&I products can be presented, so demonstrations that only show financed deals prove less than they appear to.
A used vehicle meeting a manufacturer's inspection and warranty standard. Eligibility rules are specific, and mislabelling one is a compliance issue rather than a marketing one.
Sales divided by opportunities. Useless as a comparison unless both sides define an opportunity identically, which they rarely do.
A second person on the contract. Co-buyers routinely break identity resolution, duplicate detection and consent handling, and are worth testing deliberately.
Customer relationship management: lead, customer, communication, appointment and follow-up workflow software.
The arrangement of price, trade, cash down, term, rate and products that produces a payment. Two structures with the same payment can differ substantially in gross and in risk.
Obtaining a vehicle from another dealership. It affects inventory records, timing and cost, and is a case worth testing in any inventory or accounting demonstration.
Handing the vehicle to the customer. It is the event most systems key retention and marketing off, so a store that records it inconsistently degrades everything downstream.
Structuring a deal: payment, term, rate, rebates, trade and lender selection, with manager approval. Desking tools differ mainly in what they let a manager change and what they record about who changed it.
Online completion of steps normally taken in the showroom: pricing, trade, credit, payment and F&I product selection. What varies most between products is where the online process hands off to a person and how much of the customer's work survives that handoff.
Cash the customer applies to the deal. Distinct from a deposit, and the distinction matters to both accounting and lender conditions.
Identifying existing customers whose vehicle position, contract stage or service history creates a reason to transact. Its output quality depends entirely on the accuracy of the underlying deal and payoff data.
Profit on the vehicle itself, before F&I. Definitions vary on pack, holdback and reconditioning cost, so it is a term to define before comparing reports.
A credit inquiry recorded on the consumer's file, requiring permissible purpose. Distinct from a soft pull, and conflating the two in a digital retailing flow is a compliance risk.
An amount the manufacturer returns to the dealer after sale. It sits between invoice and real cost and affects how gross is calculated.
An enquiry arriving through a website or a third-party listing. Response time to a first meaningful reply is the measure most correlated with outcome, and the one most often measured to the automated reply instead.
The amount the manufacturer bills the dealer for a new vehicle. It is not the dealer's true cost, because of holdback and incentives, which is why invoice-based advertising claims are fragile.
Elapsed time from lead receipt to a first substantive human or agent reply. Measure it to the reply a customer would recognise as an answer, not to the acknowledgement.
The lease equivalent of an interest rate. Multiply by 2400 for an approximate APR. Systems that display one and quote the other cause avoidable disputes.
The manufacturer's suggested retail price. It is a reference point, not a constraint, and how a system displays it alongside actual price is subject to advertising rules.
A trade worth less than its payoff. Rolling it into a new deal changes lender conditions and product eligibility, and it is a case worth testing in any desking demonstration.
An enquiry passed from a manufacturer's own site or campaign. Response requirements are usually mandated and measured by the manufacturer.
An internal amount added to a vehicle's cost for gross calculation purposes. It is a store policy and it makes gross figures incomparable between stores.
The amount required to clear the lien on a trade. It is time-sensitive, so a system that caches it can produce a deal that will not fund.
A proposed deal structure presented to a customer. Desking tools differ mainly in what a manager may change on a pencil and what the system records about who changed it.
Showing a customer likely terms before a full application. The disclosure language and what data it uses are the parts that need review.
The lease-end value set by the lender. It is supplied, not calculated by the store, and a stale residual table produces quotes that cannot be honoured.
A credit check that does not affect the consumer's score and is used for prequalification. What it can and cannot support in terms of a firm offer is defined by regulation.
Contact after delivery, for retention and referral. It is the follow-up most often owned by nobody after a CRM change, because it has no daily pressure behind it.
Delivering a vehicle before financing is finally approved. It carries specific legal exposure and specific paperwork, and any system that supports it should make the conditional nature explicit.
An enquiry purchased from a marketplace or lead provider. Its cost, exclusivity and the data supplied with it are all negotiable and all worth recording per source.
Valuing a customer's vehicle for trade, combining condition capture, market data and a manager's judgement. Tools differ in what evidence they attach to the number, which is what makes an appraisal defensible later.
The equipment level of a model. Trim mismatches between decoding, listing and pricing systems are the most common cause of inventory data disputes.
Introducing a customer to another person in the process, such as a manager or an F&I producer. Systems record turns inconsistently, which makes accountability reporting unreliable.
Contact with customers who did not buy. The volume is high and the value depends entirely on the quality of the task rules, which is administrator work rather than a product feature.
A customer visiting the showroom. How and whether an up is logged determines whether any showroom reporting means anything.
A written promise of something still owed to the customer after delivery. Unclosed we-owes are a customer-satisfaction and accounting liability, and are frequently tracked outside every system.
21 terms
The notice a dealer or lender must provide when credit is denied or granted on materially different terms than requested. Where a system automates any part of it, establish which party is responsible for the notice and its timing.
A protection product sold alongside the vehicle — service contract, appearance, tyre and wheel, key replacement. Rating, remittance and claims are three separate systems questions.
Terminating an F&I product mid-term, usually producing a refund. Refund calculation, remittance reversal and lender notification are the parts that go wrong.
Reclaimed commission when a product is cancelled or a contract pays off early. A store that cannot forecast chargebacks is reporting income it may not keep.
A presentation showing every product to every customer in the same order at the same prices. Consistency is the point — it is what makes the process defensible.
Funded deals for which the lender has not yet paid. It is both a receivable and a cash-flow measure, and it is the schedule most sensitive to paperwork quality.
The dealer's share of finance charges, the difference between buy rate and the rate the customer receives. It is capped by lender policy and constrained by fair-lending obligations.
Electronic execution and transmission of the finance contract to a lender. Availability varies by lender, by state and by product, so a general capability claim needs to be confirmed for the specific lenders a store uses.
Finance and insurance: the department handling lending, contracts and protection products. It carries most of a dealership's regulatory exposure, which is why its software questions are compliance questions before they are workflow questions.
The lender paying the dealer for a contract. Funding delays are usually document defects, which is why F&I document tooling is judged on first-pass funding rate.
Guaranteed asset protection: covers the difference between a vehicle's value and the loan balance after a total loss. Availability and pricing are regulated by state.
A lender returning a contract unfunded for a defect. The specific defect codes a store accumulates are the most useful diagnostic any F&I system can surface.
A lender's rules on terms, advance, tiers, products and fees. Programs change frequently, and a desking tool with stale program data quotes deals that cannot be bought.
A product covering scheduled service. It ties F&I to fixed operations, so its redemption data should reach the service systems and frequently does not.
The federal requirement to maintain a written identity-theft prevention programme with procedures to detect and respond to indicators of identity theft. Software can support it; it cannot be the programme.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act's implementing regulation, covering how credit applications are handled and how adverse action must be communicated.
The Truth in Lending Act's implementing regulation, governing the disclosure of credit terms. Any tool that displays a payment is inside its scope.
A required notice when credit terms are set less favourably based on a credit report. Whether a system generates it, and on what trigger, is a compliance question with an audit trail.
A vehicle service contract covering specified repairs for a term. Administrator, coverage, claims process and cancellation terms differ far more than the marketing implies.
Transferring ownership and registering the vehicle. Electronic titling availability is state-specific, so a national capability claim needs state-level confirmation.
Pulling credit from all three national bureaus. Which bureaus are pulled, when, and with what permissible purpose is both a cost and a compliance decision.
20 terms
How long a vehicle has been in inventory. The clock's start event differs between systems — purchase, arrival, or retail-ready — so two ageing reports on the same car routinely disagree.
A vehicle's cost expressed as a percentage of its market price. It is a stocking and pricing input, not a performance measure.
A required principal payment on a floor-plan line as a vehicle ages. It converts ageing from a marketing problem into a cash problem.
Current inventory divided by recent daily sales rate for a defined slice. The slice definition does most of the work, so a days-supply figure without its denominator is not a number.
The credit line financing inventory. Its interest and curtailment terms are the real cost of holding a car, and they belong in any total-cost discussion of inventory tooling.
A vehicle that has completed reconditioning and can be retailed. The definition is a store policy, not a standard, and it must be identical on both sides of any cycle-time comparison.
The daily cost of owning a vehicle in inventory — floor-plan interest, depreciation, insurance, space. It is what makes reconditioning cycle time a financial measure rather than an operational one.
How much of a specific configuration is available relative to how fast it sells in a defined market. It is a supply signal, and its market radius is an assumption worth inspecting.
The photos, video, description, features and pricing presentation attached to a listing. Completeness is measurable; its effect on outcome is not, without a controlled test.
The images attached to a vehicle. Count, sequence, resolution and whether they are dealer-taken or stock affect both listing performance and syndication acceptance.
A vehicle's asking price as a percentage of comparable market prices. Like cost to market, it depends on the comparison set, which is the part worth interrogating.
The work required to make an acquired vehicle retail-ready. Its cost and cycle time are the two figures every reconditioning tool exists to move.
Available to sell, photographed and priced. Distinct from mechanically complete, and the gap between the two is where cycle time is usually lost.
Acquiring inventory — trade, auction, private purchase, service lane, off-lease. Each channel has different data, different risk and different tooling.
Distributing inventory listings and their media to marketplaces, OEM sites and partners. The questions that matter are which fields travel, how quickly a change propagates, and which destination wins when two feeds disagree.
The elapsed time from a used vehicle's acquisition to it being retail-ready. It is the headline measure in reconditioning and it is only comparable between stores when the start and stop events are defined identically.
How many times inventory is sold and replaced in a period. It is the measure most affected by ageing policy and the one most often quoted without its period.
The structured export of inventory sent to marketplaces and partners. Field mapping, update frequency and error handling determine whether listings are correct, and errors are usually silent.
Selling a vehicle to another dealer or at auction rather than retail. A wholesale decision made late is usually an ageing-policy failure rather than a pricing failure.
The label describing a vehicle's equipment and pricing. Original manufacturer stickers are used in merchandising to establish specification; reproduced or third-party stickers carry different accuracy and disclosure considerations.
29 terms
The service advisor: the person who writes the repair order and communicates with the customer. Most fixed-operations software succeeds or fails on whether advisors adopt it.
The measured wheel geometry against specification. Like tread depth, it is only persuasive with a captured measurement attached to the recommendation.
Loaner, rental, shuttle or rideshare provided while a vehicle is serviced. Its cost, availability and agreement paperwork are frequently tracked in a system nobody reconciles.
A customer authorising recommended work. Capture method, timestamp and the exact wording recorded matter if the work is later disputed.
Service work paid by the customer, as opposed to warranty or internal. The three pay types have different margins and different data, and mixing them makes a service report meaningless.
A recommended repair a customer chose not to authorise. It is the highest-intent record in fixed operations and the most common one to be captured inconsistently.
Assigning work to technicians. Dispatch rules determine technician efficiency far more than the technicians do, and they are configuration rather than product.
Actual labour revenue divided by hours sold. It reflects discounting and pay-type mix, and it is the fixed-operations number most often quoted without its definition.
Labour hours sold per RO. A headline measure whose movement is usually explained by mix rather than by performance.
Work performed for the dealership itself, most often reconditioning. It is a cost transfer, not revenue, and treating it as revenue flatters a service department.
A coded standard job with a defined time. Manufacturer and store operation codes differ, and mapping between them is a migration task that is routinely underestimated.
Vehicles held for customer use during service. Utilisation, damage, tolls, fuel and licensing are the operational costs that fleet software exists to control.
Standard priced service packages. Consistency between what the website quotes, what the scheduler quotes and what the RO charges is a common and visible failure.
Multi-point inspection: the technician inspection and recommendation process, often digitized with photos or video.
The rule set converting parts cost to selling price by cost band. It is a pricing policy expressed as configuration, and it is worth reviewing separately from any software decision.
Stock unlikely to sell, tying up capital. Managing it is an inventory discipline that parts software supports rather than solves.
A manufacturer campaign to correct a defect. Open-recall lookup by VIN affects both service demand and used-vehicle retail, and its data source should be named.
The service transaction record: complaint, cause, correction, parts, labour, authorisation and payment. Whether a tool writes back to it is usually the difference between a fixed-operations product that changes the workflow and one that reports on it.
Where a job stands. Status values are store-defined, so any cross-system status display needs an explicit mapping rather than a shared vocabulary.
The share of the dealership's fixed expense covered by fixed-operations gross. A management measure, not a marketing one, and definitions vary by manufacturer.
Available technician hours against booked hours. A scheduler that cannot see real capacity books work the shop cannot do, which shows up as customer dissatisfaction rather than as a software fault.
A charge covering consumables. It is regulated in some states as to disclosure and calculation, so its configuration is a compliance setting.
A part ordered for a specific job. Deposit handling, customer notification and ageing of unclaimed orders are the process failures worth asking about.
Hours sold against hours worked. Distinct from proficiency, which compares hours worked against a standard, and the two are frequently conflated in reporting.
The remaining depth of tyre tread, measured in thirty-seconds of an inch. It is the standard evidence in tyre recommendations and the number most easily disputed without a record.
A multi-point inspection delivered with technician video. Its measurable effects are on approval rate and on dispute frequency; both need a baseline to be credible.
The inspection performed with the customer at check-in. Capturing it consistently is what makes later damage disputes resolvable.
A claim submitted to the manufacturer for covered work. Claim rejection rates and their reason codes are the most useful signal about service documentation quality.
Creating the repair order with the customer's concerns. Time spent here correlates with both approval rate and later disputes, which is why check-in tooling is measured on it.
41 terms
Which party holds administrative rights to an advertising account. It decides who keeps the performance history at the end of a relationship, and it is far cheaper to settle at the start.
Answer engine optimization: structuring accurate, useful content so search and assistant systems can extract a direct answer with supporting context.
Assigning credit for an outcome to the channels and touchpoints that preceded it. Every attribution model is a set of assumptions, so the model and its exclusions matter more than the resulting number.
The period after a touchpoint during which a conversion may be credited to it. Two vendors using different windows will report different results for identical activity.
A visit that ends without a further interaction. Its definition changed materially with recent analytics platforms, so historical comparisons across that change are not like-for-like.
A page-level signal naming the preferred URL for duplicate or near-duplicate content. Inventory sites generate duplicates by design, which is why the tag matters more here than on most sites.
The documentation submitted to obtain manufacturer reimbursement for advertising. Claim requirements shape creative and reporting, and rejected claims are a real cost.
Conquest marketing targets customers who have not bought from the dealership; retention targets existing customers and owners. The data sources, permissions and measurement differ, and a single spend figure covering both hides which is working.
The recorded permission to contact a customer through a given channel. Consent is only useful if one system is authoritative for it and a withdrawal propagates everywhere else, including to campaigns already in flight.
The specific events counted as a result. This single definition explains most disagreements between two agencies reporting the same month.
A set of page-experience measures covering loading, interactivity and visual stability. They are diagnostics of user experience, not a ranking guarantee.
Spend divided by leads. Comparable only when both sides count the same lead types and remove duplicates the same way.
The finite attention a search engine gives a site. Filter and sort combinations can generate effectively unlimited URLs, which spends it on pages nobody should see.
How much the page moves as it loads. Late-loading advertisements, banners and images are the usual cause and the usual fix.
Swapping the displayed phone number by traffic source so calls can be attributed. It interacts with local-listing consistency, so implementation detail matters.
A visit meeting a duration or interaction threshold. The threshold is configurable, so the metric is only comparable when the configuration is stated.
Data the dealership collects itself. It is the asset that survives platform changes, which is why where it lives and who can export it is a strategic question.
The current generation of the widely used web analytics platform. Its event-based model is not directly comparable with earlier session-based reporting, which breaks year-over-year comparisons across the change.
Generative engine optimization: improving how accurately an entity and its information can be retrieved, understood and cited in generative answers.
The proportion of available auctions an advertiser appeared in. A budget and competitiveness diagnostic, not an outcome.
A manufacturer offer — rebate, subvented rate, lease support. Eligibility is specific and time-bound, so any system displaying incentives needs a stated data source and refresh interval.
Whether an activity produced outcomes that would not have occurred without it. Attribution can credit a channel that changed nothing, which is why incrementality is a separate question and a harder one.
How quickly a page responds to input. Heavy filtering interfaces on inventory pages are where dealership sites typically fail it.
The time until the largest visible element renders. On a vehicle detail page it is usually the main image, which is why image handling dominates the score.
The recorded origin of an opportunity. Source definitions differ between systems, so the same lead can be counted under different sources in the CRM, the website platform and the marketing report, and comparing those reports without reconciling definitions produces an argument rather than an answer.
A business profile on a map or directory service. Consistency of name, address, phone, hours and departments across listings is the base of local visibility.
Manufacturer reimbursement programs with eligibility, approved-provider, creative and claim-documentation requirements.
A customer's withdrawal of permission for a contact channel. The operative facts are which system records it, how quickly it reaches every other system, and what happens to messages already queued.
Traffic earned through search results versus traffic bought. Reporting that blends them hides which is actually working and is a common source of over-attribution.
Advertising to people who have already interacted. Audience construction, suppression of existing customers and frequency caps are where it becomes either efficient or annoying.
What a searcher is actually trying to do — learn, compare, find, transact. Content that answers a different intent than the query expresses will not perform regardless of its quality.
The search engine results page. What appears on it — maps, answers, listings, ads — determines how much of the demand a website can realistically capture.
Search results page on a dealership site: the filtered list of vehicles. Its speed and filter behaviour affect both crawlability and conversion.
Markup describing what a page is about in a machine-readable form. It clarifies meaning; it does not substitute for the content being useful and correct.
Removing contacts from an audience before it is activated \u2014 opt-outs, existing customers, active deals, employees, do-not-contact records. Suppression failures are more consequential than targeting failures because they are visible to the customer.
A tool for deploying tracking code without changing site code. It is convenient and it is also the most common place for unreviewed third-party scripts to accumulate.
Code loaded from another company's server. Each one is a performance cost, a privacy consideration and a dependency that can change without notice.
Tags appended to a URL to record campaign source. Inconsistent tagging is the single most common cause of unattributable traffic.
Vehicle detail page: the page for a single vehicle in inventory. It is where most retail intent concentrates, so its content completeness and load behaviour affect both search performance and conversion.
A page presenting a filtered set of vehicles. Whether its states generate crawlable URLs is a decision with large consequences for index size.
A conversion credited to an ad that was displayed but not clicked. It inflates apparent performance and should be reported separately, never blended.
35 terms
An API exchanges records on request or on an event; a batch moves a file on a schedule. The distinction decides how stale the receiving system's data can be, and it is frequently blurred in a demonstration.
Automotive Standards Council event names used to normalize measurement of dealership website actions.
Loading historical data into a new system after go-live. What can be backfilled, how far, and at what fidelity is a migration question that changes the value of the whole project.
The period in which scheduled data movement runs. If it does not fit, jobs overlap and produce partial or duplicated data, usually silently.
Customer data platform: software that ingests data from multiple sources, resolves identities, builds profiles and audiences, and supports activation.
A connection built inside a platform's own partner or data-access program. Certification establishes that a vendor met that program's access requirements; it does not establish which fields the specific connection carries.
A recorded representation of what a user agreed to. It only has value if every downstream system reads it and honours it.
The documented meaning of each field. Two systems can hold a field of the same name meaning different things, and without a dictionary that is discovered in production.
A third party certified to move data between a dealer system and a vendor. It usually charges its own fee and it is frequently the party that actually operates a connection both vendors describe as theirs.
A store holding raw data from many sources for later processing. Useful for analysis, not a substitute for a system of record.
Where data is physically stored. It becomes a contract term where privacy law or manufacturer policy constrains it.
Merging records that represent the same person, vehicle or opportunity. The merge rules matter more than the match rate, because a wrong merge is harder to undo than a missed one.
The changed records since the last exchange. Systems that cannot supply a delta force full reloads, which sets a practical floor on how fresh data can be.
Deterministic matching joins records on an exact shared identifier; probabilistic matching infers a match from patterns. Probabilistic matching raises match rates and introduces errors, so the rule set and the error tolerance should be stated before a match rate is quoted.
Extract, transform, load: moving data between systems with a conversion step. Where the transform rules live and who may change them is a governance question.
The contractual right to take your data out, in what format, at what cost. It is the single term with the most influence on switching cost and it is frequently absent.
The correspondence between fields in two systems. Unmapped fields do not error; they simply arrive empty, which is why acceptance testing must inspect values rather than counts.
The single agreed version of an entity assembled from several sources. It only exists if one system is authoritative per field.
A grouping of individuals at one address. Household logic drives both useful targeting and the most common privacy complaints, so its rules should be explicit.
The property that repeating an operation produces the same result. Without it, a retried integration creates duplicates, and retries are normal.
Rules and methods used to decide which records refer to the same person or household.
The delay between an event and its appearance elsewhere. 'Real time' is a marketing word; the number and its measurement point are the specification.
Software that moves and normalises data between systems that do not integrate directly. It is a system of its own with its own failure modes, its own fees and its own support ownership.
Converting values from different sources into one consistent vocabulary. Trim names, colours and lead sources are where it is most needed and least often done.
Data identifying an individual. Which fields count varies by law, so a vendor's definition should be compared with the obligations the dealership is actually under.
A cap on how many requests a system will accept in a period. It constrains what an integration can actually do and is frequently discovered after contracting.
A comparison proving what moved between two systems matched what should have moved. Acceptance without one is acceptance on trust.
Deciding that two records refer to the same entity. In a dealership it must handle co-buyers, businesses, shared numbers and repeat customers over many years.
How long data is kept before deletion. It interacts with both compliance obligations and the value of historical reporting, and the two can conflict.
A change to the structure of exchanged data. Whether a provider notifies partners before making one is a support question worth asking in advance.
The system whose value is authoritative for a given field. Naming it per field, rather than per system, is what prevents overwrite loops.
Whether data flows one way or both. 'Bi-directional' is incomplete until the objects, fields and triggers in each direction are named.
The authoritative system for a defined object or field, such as accounting, repair orders, inventory or consent.
A push notification sent when an event occurs. It reduces latency compared with polling and introduces delivery-guarantee questions that polling does not have.
Data sent from one application into another system's record. The exact objects, fields, triggers and conflict rules must be specified.
13 terms
The transfer from an automated agent to a person. Its trigger, its speed and whether context survives it are what customers actually experience.
Which actions an automated system may take without human sign-off. It is the single most important thing to establish about any AI product in a dealership.
The period during which an automated agent replies before a person is involved. Setting it too wide produces fast, wrong answers; too narrow removes the benefit.
The share of conversations an automated system completes without a person. It should always be read alongside the outcome of those conversations, never alone.
Digital voice assistant: software that uses automated voice interactions for inbound or outbound customer workflows.
How an automated interaction reaches a person when it should. A system without a defined escalation path converts an edge case into a lost customer.
A constraint preventing an automated system from taking or saying something. Pricing, availability and commitments are the three that matter most in a dealership.
A confident, incorrect statement produced by a generative system. In a dealership the material risks are invented pricing, invented availability and invented commitments.
A design where a person reviews or approves output before it acts. It trades speed for accountability and is the appropriate default for anything customer-facing and irreversible.
Classifying what a customer wants from their message. Misclassification is invisible in aggregate metrics and obvious to the individual customer.
A vendor updating the underlying model behind an AI feature. Behaviour can change without any change on the dealer's side, so notification and rollback are contract questions.
Content that manipulates an automated system into ignoring its instructions. It matters wherever an agent reads customer-supplied text and can then take an action.
How long automated conversations are stored. It is simultaneously a compliance obligation, a privacy exposure and the only evidence of what was promised.
11 terms
A caller who hangs up before reaching anyone. The threshold used to count one is configurable, so it must be stated with the figure.
Business development center: the team or outsourced service that handles inbound and outbound customer contact for sales or service, separately from the showroom floor.
The legal requirement to notify or obtain consent before recording. Requirements differ by state, including all-party consent states, and the system's behaviour must match the states the store operates in.
The rules deciding where an inbound call lands. Most measurable phone failure in a dealership is a routing failure rather than a staffing one.
The automated menu answering a call. Every additional layer reduces completion, so menu depth is a measurable trade rather than a preference.
A call that reaches nobody. Defining it — rings unanswered, abandoned in queue, out of hours — is what makes the number actionable.
Callers waiting for an available person. Queue design decides whether the phone system's reporting reflects service quality or hides it.
Different classes of number used for text messaging, with different throughput, registration requirements and deliverability characteristics.
Registering a business messaging number and use case with carriers. Unregistered traffic is filtered, so messages can be accepted by the platform and never delivered.
Documented permission to send text messages. The record of when, how and for what is the evidence that matters if it is ever challenged.
A short announcement played to the answering employee before the caller is connected, usually naming the source. It is how call attribution reaches the person answering.
12 terms
Capturing, coding, approving and paying supplier invoices. The approval chain and the audit trail are the control; the scanning is the convenience.
The record of who changed what, when. In a dealership it is a compliance requirement in several places, so its completeness is a specification question rather than a nice-to-have.
Money held against expected future chargebacks. Whether a system forecasts it or reports it after the fact changes how a manager can act on it.
The complete document set for a vehicle transaction. Retention periods, retrieval speed under audit and export on exit are the operative questions, not storage capacity.
Money taken to hold a vehicle. Refundability and its documentation are consumer-protection matters and differ from a down payment.
How long records must be kept and in what form. Periods vary by document type and jurisdiction, and the retrieval requirement matters as much as the storage one.
Managing spend against the financial statement's expense structure. A tool that cannot map to the manufacturer's statement format creates reconciliation work rather than removing it.
Transactions between rooftops in the same group. They are a frequent source of consolidation error and a specific question to ask of any group-level reporting product.
Matching received payments to the transactions they settle. Surcharging, partial payments and refunds are the three cases that expose weak reconciliation.
Balancing small cash transactions. Trivial in value, and a frequent audit finding because it is nobody's priority.
Adding a fee for card payment. It is regulated and varies by state and card network, so a national capability claim needs state-level confirmation.
Money owed to the store on a sold vehicle, typically from a lender or another dealer. It is the schedule most sensitive to paperwork quality and the fastest indicator of an F&I process problem.
15 terms
Fraud using a compromised or spoofed mailbox to redirect a payment. Dealerships are targeted for it specifically because of wire volume and title work.
Protecting data moving between systems and data stored. Both should be stated separately; a claim covering only one is common.
The documented procedure for a security event, including who is notified and when. It is a requirement rather than a best practice for covered dealerships.
Granting each account only the access its role needs. It is the control that limits the damage of every other failure, and it is usually the one skipped at implementation.
Requiring more than a password. Whether it can be enforced for every user, including integrations and shared accounts, is the practical question.
Customer financial information protected by federal privacy rules. Its handling constrains which systems may hold it and which vendors may see it.
An authorised attempt to breach a system, producing findings. A summary letter is not a report; ask what was in scope and what was excluded.
Testing staff with controlled fake phishing. The useful output is the trend and the follow-up training, not the first result.
How much data loss is acceptable, expressed as time. It sets backup frequency, and it is usually assumed rather than agreed.
How quickly a system must be restored. A backup that meets neither objective is storage, not continuity.
The federal requirement for a written information-security programme covering customer information, including risk assessment, access controls, encryption, monitoring, vendor oversight and incident response. Dealers are covered entities under it.
Authenticating once against a central identity provider. It improves both security and offboarding, which is the control most often missed when staff leave.
An audit report on a service organisation's controls. Type II covers a period rather than a point in time, and the exceptions section is the part worth reading.
A third party a vendor uses to deliver its service, which therefore may touch your data. The list should be available and should be notified when it changes.
Evaluating a supplier's security before and during the relationship. For covered dealerships it is an obligation, not diligence theatre.
8 terms
Knowing where vehicles, keys and equipment are. Its value is measured in time recovered and in test-drive accountability rather than in the hardware.
The documented record of who held a key, a vehicle or a document and when. It is the evidence that resolves loss and damage disputes.
Managing physical key access and custody. It is a loss-prevention and insurance matter as much as a convenience one.
Locating, moving and preparing vehicles on the physical lot. It is the least digitised part of most inventory operations and the source of much reconditioning delay.
The preparation and inspection before a new vehicle is delivered. It is manufacturer-defined work with its own claim path, which is why it belongs in fixed-operations reporting.
One dealership location. Pricing, integration fees, reporting and contract terms are frequently quoted per rooftop, so a group's total cost does not scale the way a single-store quote implies.
The record of who drove which vehicle, when, and with what identification. It is an insurance and loss-prevention control as much as a sales one.
Transport between locations, to auction, or to a customer. Cost, timing and damage responsibility are the three fields any movement record needs.
8 terms
Recording manufacturer and compliance training status by person. It is an audit requirement in several areas and is frequently kept in a spreadsheet nobody owns.
The platform delivering and recording training. Its value in a dealership is mostly in the record, because completion evidence is what compliance requires.
Removing access when someone leaves. It is the control most often incomplete, and shared logins are the reason.
Getting a new hire productive and correctly provisioned. The system access half of it is where security and payroll problems originate.
How a role is compensated. It determines behaviour more reliably than any process document, which is why a software rollout that conflicts with a pay plan loses.
Granting system permissions by job role rather than per person. It is what makes turnover survivable without a security incident.
Recording hours worked. It interfaces with payroll and, in fixed operations, with technician efficiency reporting, so definitions must agree across both.
The rate at which staff leave. It is the constraint on every process change in a dealership and the reason configuration must survive its author.
7 terms
The share of time charging equipment is available. It is the measure that matters to customers and the one least often contracted for.
Direct-current charging at high power for short stops. It carries the largest electrical service and demand-charge implications, which is why load management matters.
A utility charge based on peak power drawn rather than total energy used. It is frequently the largest surprise in a charging installation's running cost.
Handling of waste oil, fluids, tyres and refrigerants, with the records to prove it. Fines follow missing records more often than missing practice.
Alternating-current charging typically used for overnight and dwell-time charging. Its relevance to a dealership is customer amenity and fleet readiness rather than throughput.
Controlling electrical demand across chargers and the building. It is what prevents charging from forcing a service upgrade.
Required workplace safety documentation. It is a records obligation with a defined retention period, which makes it a systems question.
13 terms
A term that renews unless notice is given. Combined with a short notice window it is the mechanism by which most unwanted contracts continue.
A charge for taking your own data out. Its existence should be established before signature, because it is priced very differently before and after.
A contract that continues indefinitely until cancelled. Not inherently bad; it is bad when paired with an unlimited increase mechanism.
A defined, testable point that must be met before payment or go-live. Acceptance criteria written after implementation begins are not criteria.
The umbrella contract governing the relationship, with specific work described in separate orders. Most disputes are decided by the umbrella, not the order form.
The period before renewal in which cancellation must be given. It determines what is actually decidable this year, which is why it is the first thing to establish.
The document listing what is actually bought. What was demonstrated is not what is contracted; the order form is.
A contractual limit on renewal increases. Its absence is not neutral — it is an unpriced open-ended cost.
A service level agreement: the committed response and resolution times by severity, and what happens when they are missed. An SLA without a defined severity scale and a stated remedy is a description of intent.
The description of what will be delivered, by whom, and when. Vague deliverables in it become disputes at acceptance.
Total cost of ownership: every charge over the full term including implementation, integration, usage, training, administration and exit \u2014 not the recurring licence line, which is usually the smallest part.
The right to end a contract without cause, usually with notice and sometimes with a fee. Whether the dealer has it, and whether the vendor does, are separate questions.
The vendor's obligation to help you leave — exports, parallel running, support during changeover. It costs nothing to negotiate before signing and is unobtainable afterwards.
4 terms
Part-time or outsourced management of a function. Its risk is that operating knowledge lives with the provider, which is a documentation requirement rather than a personality question.
A vendor operating a function on the dealer's behalf rather than supplying a tool. The distinction decides who is accountable for the outcome.
Work expanding beyond what was agreed without a corresponding change to price or timeline. It is managed by change control, which is a contract term.
Reducing the number of suppliers. It reduces integration surface and increases concentration risk; both effects are real and should be priced rather than argued.