The Books area
Every sale, payment and car cost posts a balanced entry on its own, and one place holds your transactions, your bank, the statements and your accounts.
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The Books area in the sidebar shows the money side of your operation as posted, double-entry activity: every sale, payment, vehicle purchase, recon cost, and floor plan event books a balanced journal entry within minutes of happening, and this is where you read them.
Everything here is management-basis: accrual at sale, cash collections, BHPH interest as collected. The statements are not audited GAAP financial statements, and the schedules are not a trial balance. If your books of record are QuickBooks (or whatever system you told us about under Settings → Accounting), this area is the always-current, in-app view of the same entries; verify your books with your own accountant.
What is in the Books area
- Transactions: one list of what AutoDealer recorded, what you added and what your bank sent, and how to review bank lines.
- Connect your bank: bank connections through Plaid on Pro and up.
- Record income, expenses and journal entries: what the platform does not capture on its own.
- Financial statements: the Profit & Loss and the Balance Sheet, and opening balances.
- Chart of accounts: add, rename and archive accounts.
- Account schedules and posted gross: balances per account, gross per VIN, and the journal entries themselves.
- The AI accountant, accounting settings, QuickBooks Online and the QuickBooks file.
FAQ
Who can see the Books area?
Owners, admin managers, and accounting can open Books and add an entry. Categorizing, merging and transferring bank transactions is for owners and accounting. Connecting or disconnecting a bank is for the owner only. Sales cannot open Books: the link is not in their sidebar, and the address shows a short notice naming who can open it. Books used to be a tab under Reports; old links redirect here automatically.
Why is there activity dated before we started using AutoDealer.io?
Your history was booked once when the ledger launched, so opening balances and older ranges line up with the QuickBooks files you exported before.
An amount looks wrong. Can I edit an entry?
No, and that's deliberate. Entries only ever get added. Fix the source (the deal, the payment, the cost) and the ledger posts the correcting reversal and the corrected entry itself.