09 / 16 · Money & performance
Car dealership accounting software, in-house or in QuickBooks Online
A sale, a payment, a vehicle purchase or a vehicle cost posts its own balanced entry within a few minutes, and a trade-in is booked inside the sale entry. Keep your books here, or connect QuickBooks Online and the new entries post there.
Who does what
The work happens. The books follow.
Posts from the source
Sales, payments, vehicle purchases, recon costs and floor plan activity post balanced entries within a few minutes. Nothing is typed in twice.
System · alwaysKeeps corrections dated
Unwind a sale, void a payment or change a cost, and a reversing entry posts dated that day. The original entry stays.
System · alwaysAdds entries to QuickBooks Online
If your books live in QuickBooks Online, the owner connects it once. New entries are added there; nothing is edited or deleted, and your QuickBooks history is not copied in.
Owner connectsSuggests, then waits
With your books kept here, the AI suggests a category for each bank line and prepares entries as cards. Nothing is recorded until a person presses.
AI · you approve
What you get
Accounting software for car dealers, where the deal keeps the books
AutoDealer.io posts your dealership’s own activity as balanced journal entries: every sale, payment, vehicle purchase, recon cost and floor plan event. Keep your books here, with a transaction list, account schedules and management statements, or connect QuickBooks Online and the same new entries post there.
Start with the source
Recorded sales, payments, purchases and recon costs post their own balanced entries. Each one names what it came from, such as a vehicle sale or a customer payment, and a sale’s reference carries the stock number.
Review bank activity
With your books kept here, on the plans that include it, connect a bank through Plaid and categorize, split or merge its transactions beside what the app already recorded.
Read the bigger picture
The Profit & Loss, the Balance Sheet and the account schedules read straight from the posted entries, on a management basis, for any dates you pick.
See it in action
English audio · English and Spanish captions
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Read the transcript
English transcript
Dealership books organize the financial effect of the work you record. Transactions become accounting entries, and those entries support reports that help the team review income, costs, assets, and liabilities in context.
Your dealership work has a financial side. Books connects recorded sales, payments, and vehicle costs with accounting entries, giving the team a place to review the transactions and reports beside the operational records that created them.
The transaction list is where you review recorded entries. When entries are available, open one to inspect its details. Automatic posting connects supported activity to the books, while the transaction record helps your accounting team understand the amounts and source before making a correction or decision.
The profit and loss and balance sheet views bring the recorded figures into management reports. The chart of accounts gives those transactions a consistent structure. Review the reporting period and the underlying data together, especially when a vehicle cost has not yet been entered.
Pro and Max add bank imports and manual entries. Plaid connections and optional QuickBooks posting extend the workflow, with new US dollar journal entries sent to a connected company. Review setup and mapping before enabling a connection.
The AI assistant can review accounting context and suggest bank categories or supported entries. Check the proposal and approve it before anything is recorded.
The details
A dealership accounting system your bookkeeper can read
A clear correction history
Entries are only ever added. Unwind a sale, void a payment or change a vehicle cost, and Books posts a reversing entry dated that day, marked as a reversal beside its original. The corrected entry follows when you change the cost, or record the payment or the sale again.
- A cost added after the sale redoes that car’s cost of goods and leaves the sale entry as it was posted.
- A correction reaches QuickBooks Online as its own entry. Nothing there is edited.
- What you added yourself can be deleted, and it stops counting in its own month.
Every line, in an accountant’s view
Transactions is one list of what the app recorded, what you added and what your bank sent. Every row opens an accountant view with its debits and credits, and every automatic entry names what it came from, such as a vehicle sale or a customer payment.
- The Accounting role opens Books and downloads the CSVs. Salespeople cannot open Books.
- With QuickBooks Online connected, each entry there carries a reference starting AD-.
One place for bank review
With QuickBooks Online connected, bank work belongs there. The Books area hides its bank lines and the Bank connections button, so the same transaction is never reviewed or recorded twice.
Dealer bookkeeping
Car sales accounting software for trade-ins, floor plan and in-house loans
Trade-ins and payoffs
The sale entry books the trade into Vehicle Inventory at its actual cash value when you recorded one, otherwise at the allowance. When the allowance is more than the trade is worth, the difference goes to Sales Discounts, and a payoff owed on the trade is held as a liability.
- Promote the trade-in from the deal and it arrives with that cost filled in, with no second entry.
- Tag and title fees you collect are held as a liability, never counted as income.
Floor plan advances and payments
A floor plan advance and each payment to the lender post on their own. A payment splits the interest out as an expense and takes the principal off what you owe the lender.
In-house loans
A loan payment splits into principal, interest and late fees. The principal reduces the note, and only interest and fees count as income. A final balance you waive comes off the note as a write-off.
Recon and late bills
A recon cost goes into Vehicle Inventory when it is recorded and moves to cost of goods when the car sells. A bill that arrives after the sale updates that car’s cost of goods, and a cost paid on a later day waits as a payable until it is paid.
Your bank
Your bank beside your books
Connect a bank through Plaid, read only
With your books kept in AutoDealer.io, the owner connects the bank from Bank connections at the top of Transactions. The connection sees balances and transactions and cannot move money. Nothing comes in until each account is mapped to your chart and switched on.
- Bank connections come with the plans that include them, Pro and Max.
- Your bank and your books shows what the bank reports, what the books hold and what sits in the gap. It is not a formal bank reconciliation.
Categorize, split, merge or exclude on the row
The Needs review tab lists every bank transaction still waiting on you. Pick a category, split one across several, merge a deposit with the payments already in your books, or exclude a personal charge.
- Categories are remembered by place, so the next charge from the same store offers the same one.
- A transfer between your own connected accounts is recorded once, as a transfer, never as income or a cost.
- A deposit that carries several payments merges with all of them at once.
- An automatic Stripe payout is booked when Stripe pays it out, so its bank line matches the entry already there.
AI categories you confirm
When the AI is sure, a row says AI: Fuel · Record and one press records it. When it is not sure, it asks on the row, with the likely answers as buttons. Record all records every one it is sure about.
- It is never sure about deposits, auction purchases, floor plan or loan payments, or transfers.
- Nothing is recorded until a person presses.
- Its work counts toward your monthly AI allowance.
Statements
Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and a chart of accounts for a car dealership
Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet
Both read straight from the posted entries for any dates you pick, and both print or download as a CSV. Retained earnings is worked out from everything posted, so the Balance Sheet always balances.
- Management basis: a sale counts when it happens, collections as cash, in-house loan interest as it is collected.
- Expenses appear when someone records them. Without your rent, payroll and utilities, the Profit & Loss overstates profit, and the page says so.
Account schedules and gross per VIN
Each account shows its opening balance, debits, credits and closing balance for the dates you pick. The gross table shows what each car made from its posted entries, the same figure as Gross (posted) on the deal.
- A recon bill that arrived after the sale shows up in that car’s gross.
A chart of accounts you can maintain
The chart starts with the accounts a used car store with in-house financing needs. Owners and managers can rename the built-in accounts, and on the plans that include your own entries you can add accounts of your own.
- Automatic entries always land in the built-in accounts.
- Built-in accounts can be renamed, never archived or deleted.
QuickBooks Online
Works with QuickBooks Online: new entries post on their own
How the connection works
Under Settings, Accounting, the owner sets where your books live to QuickBooks and presses Connect QuickBooks. AutoDealer.io checks that the company uses USD and matches each account name to a QuickBooks account, creating any that are missing. From then on, new entries post within a few minutes.
- Each entry carries a reference starting AD-, so your bookkeeper can tell them apart.
- Entries are only added. A void or an unwind arrives as its own reversing entry.
- The connection renews itself, and queued entries deliver after a reconnect.
What it leaves out
Posting starts on the day you connect, and your QuickBooks history is not copied in. For earlier months, download the QuickBooks file: the balanced journal entries for any dates, as a CSV. QuickBooks Desktop has no connection, and a Desktop bookkeeper converts the file first.
Books here or in QuickBooks, one or the other
The owner picks where the books of record live. With AutoDealer Books, you add expenses and journal entries and review your bank here. With QuickBooks, those happen in QuickBooks, and Books here shows what the dealership’s own activity posted.
Plans and help
Accounting software for a small used car dealer: what your plan changes
What your plan decides
Posting the dealership’s activity and reading the statements do not depend on your plan. Recording your own income, expenses and journal entries, bank connections, QuickBooks Online, the AI categories and the AI accountant come with Pro and Max, in the trial as well as after it.
The AI accountant
Owners, managers and accounting can ask the assistant what the store made last month, why a car’s gross is low or what is waiting from the bank. It answers from the posted books, finds the entries behind a number and prepares expense and journal entry cards. It never posts on its own.
The statements are management basis, not audited GAAP, and the schedules are not a trial balance. Bank connections through Plaid are read only and never move money. QuickBooks Online receives new USD journal entries only, from the day it is connected, and nothing there is edited. Recording your own entries and bank connections come with the plans that include them.
In plain words
What the books do, and what they leave to your accountant
What it does
- Posts every sale, payment, vehicle purchase, recon cost and floor plan event as a balanced entry
- Posts a reversing entry, dated that day, when a sale is unwound, a payment voided or a cost changed
- Shows a Profit & Loss, a Balance Sheet, account schedules and gross per VIN
- Adds new USD journal entries to QuickBooks Online once the owner connects it
- Connects a bank through Plaid, read only, when your books are kept here
- Suggests a category for each bank line and waits for a person to record it
- Builds a balanced journal entry file for QuickBooks, for any dates
What it does not do
- Produce audited GAAP statements or a trial balance. The statements are management basis.
- Do a formal bank reconciliation. It shows the gap between bank and books and what sits in it.
- Prepare tax returns, file sales tax or run payroll
- Pay bills or move money. A recorded payment notes money you received.
- Connect QuickBooks Desktop, or edit anything already in QuickBooks Online
- Record a bank line or an AI suggestion until a person presses
Questions
Car dealership accounting software questions
Does this replace QuickBooks, or work with it?
Either one, and the owner picks which under Settings, Accounting. With AutoDealer Books as your books of record, you keep the books here: the dealership’s activity posts on its own, and on the plans that include it you add income, expenses and journal entries and review your bank. If your books already live in QuickBooks Online, connect it and new entries post there. It needs a company with USD as its home currency, and QuickBooks Desktop has no connection. Either way, your accountant reviews the books and handles taxes.
How the QuickBooks Online connection worksHow does a sale with a trade-in get booked?
Marking the deal sold posts two entries within a few minutes. The sale entry debits Accounts Receivable for what the buyer and the lender still owe, and Vehicle Inventory for the trade at its actual cash value when you recorded one. It credits Vehicle Sales Income, the doc and dealer fees, sales tax, the tag and title fees held as a liability, and any payoff owed on the trade. When the allowance is more than the trade is worth, the difference goes to Sales Discounts. The second entry moves the car’s cost from Vehicle Inventory to cost of goods sold, and each payment you record posts its own entry.
See how a deal is closedCan I connect my bank, and can the software move money?
You can connect it on the plans that include it, with your books kept in AutoDealer.io. The owner connects it through Plaid from Bank connections at the top of Transactions, and its transactions arrive in the same list to review. The connection is read only: it sees balances and transactions and cannot move money. Bank connections shows what the bank reports beside what the books hold, and what sits in the gap, but it is not a formal bank reconciliation. With QuickBooks Online connected, your bank feed lives in QuickBooks and the bank area here is hidden.
How to connect your bankDoes the AI post entries by itself?
No. Sales, payments and costs are posted by the system, not by the AI. On a bank line the AI suggests a category, such as AI: Fuel · Record, and asks when it is not sure. It is never sure about deposits, auction purchases, floor plan or loan payments, or money moving between your own accounts. The AI accountant answers questions from your books and prepares an expense or a journal entry as a card. Nothing is recorded until a person presses, and the AI’s work counts toward your monthly AI allowance.
What the AI accountant doesCan my accountant or bookkeeper log in?
Yes. Give them the Accounting role: they can open Books, review and categorize bank lines, and download the Deals, Payments and Gross CSVs and the QuickBooks file. Every row in Transactions has an accountant view with its debits and credits, and the statements print. Salespeople cannot open Books.
Which plan do I need for bank connections and my own entries?
Posting the dealership’s activity and reading the statements do not depend on your plan. Recording your own income, expenses and journal entries, bank connections, QuickBooks Online, the AI categories and the AI accountant come with Pro and Max. The 14-day trial gives you the plan you pick, so start on Pro or Max to try them. Without them, nothing records rent, payroll or utilities in Books, so the Profit & Loss overstates profit, and the page says so.
Compare plansCan I fix a wrong entry?
Fix what it came from. Unwind the sale, void the payment or change the cost, and Books posts a reversing entry dated that day. The corrected entry follows when you change the cost, record the payment again or redo the sale on a new deal. Unwinding and voiding are for owners and managers. Entries are only ever added, so QuickBooks Online receives a correction as its own entry. What you added yourself can be deleted, and it stops counting in its own month.
How corrections show in the schedulesHow do I start with balances I already have?
With your books kept here, on a plan that includes your own entries, the Balance Sheet links to a guided opening balances entry that fills in the usual shape: bank balance, cars at cost, notes outstanding, loans, and the equity that makes it balance. Date it the day before your first activity here. If QuickBooks already holds those balances, leave them there so nothing counts twice.
Opening balances and the statementsIs this GAAP accounting, and can I file taxes from it?
No. It is management basis: a sale counts when it happens, collections as cash, and in-house loan interest as it is collected. The statements are not audited GAAP statements, the schedules are not a trial balance, and the books do not prepare tax returns or file sales tax. They tell you how the store is doing; your accountant signs off on the books you file.
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