The month-end playbook: moving units before the books close

How should a dealer prepare for month-end? Start a week early. List units past your target turn, upcoming curtailment dates and the trims you're short, then make a hold, price, open-to-offers or auction call on every unit. Locates.io's month-end mode lets you set a motivated price that reverts automatically when the month turns.

Month-end turns reasonable managers into people who make five phone calls in ten minutes. Targets, stair-steps, floor plan statements and the books closing all land in the same few days. Most of the stress comes from deciding late. This playbook starts a week out; see also how it works.

What should I do a week out?

Pull three lists.

1. Units past your target turn. List each with days in stock and amount financed. These are your candidates.
2. Curtailment dates in the next 30 days. Include the amount. Here, waiting costs cash, not only interest.
3. Where you're short. Trims and packages customers ask about that you don't have. Month-end is not only about selling.

Look at all three together, early, while you still have choices. To price the cost of waiting, see the real daily cost of an aged unit.

How do I decide unit by unit five days out?

Make one of four calls for each candidate.

• Hold. The unit has a real chance to retail before the close, or holding is cheap enough. Write down why.
• Price to move. Decide the number now, not on the 30th.
• Open to offers. You'd move it but don't know the right number. Let buyers tell you.
• Auction or wholesale. It won't trade at an acceptable number, and holding costs too much.

Hold vs move on Locates.io puts each unit's floor-plan cost per day next to the cost of moving it now.

The worst call is no call. A unit nobody decided about on the 25th is a unit somebody panics about on the 30th.

How does month-end mode work on Locates.io?

Locates.io has a month-end mode that runs through the end of each month. Two things change during it.

Sellers can mark units "motivated." Set a month-end price that applies only during the window. When the month turns, it reverts to your regular asking price automatically.

Buyers see a month-end view. They can browse motivated units, with month-end prices, in one place, and get a digest of them at 9 AM local time. A buyer short on a trim can find units priced to move now.

Everything else stays the same. Buyers still see only the vehicle, a distance band and an anonymous profile, not your store's name, city or VINs. Your radius block still applies. There is still no dealer-to-dealer messaging; Locates.io runs the deal for both sides.

How do I work offers three days out?

If you put units out as open to offers, numbers will arrive. Offers are against invoice and blind on both sides. When an offer is close, the near-deal closer splits the gap: the buyer comes up half, the seller comes down half.

• Answer every offer. Even a no is useful, and a fast answer brings buyers back next month.
• Counter with a reason. Know your floor first. If an offer is above it, take it.
• Watch the distance band. A buyer in a far band is paying more freight. That doesn't change what you receive, but it explains why some offers come in lower.

How do I get signatures done two days out?

A deal isn't done until both sides have signed the same version of the agreement. Signing can happen in either order, in the app or from an emailed link. The bottleneck is usually that the person with signing authority is busy.

• Set up your signers before month-end, not on the 30th.
• Check your list of deals waiting on your signature every morning in the last week.

When both sides have signed, the sealed part of the agreement is released with the dealer identities and VINs, and the units can move.

How do settlement and freight work at the close?

Units transfer at invoice directly between the dealers, by floor plan swap or check. The amount over invoice runs through Locates.io: whoever owes pays Locates.io, and Locates.io pays whoever is owed, only after the incoming funds have been received.

Locates.io books the carrier as soon as the agreement executes. Before terms, freight is an estimate range. At terms the charge locks at the carrier's quote per unit plus $75, and the buyer is never re-billed. If the buyer is picking up, there's no freight charge. Selling is free; the buyer pays a flat $199 per unit. See pricing.

If the units don't physically move before the close, that's normal. The agreement is what you need on the books; your accounting team will know how to treat units in transit.

What does a month-end look like in practice?

Nothing dramatic happened. That's the point.

What should I do after the close?

On the first business day, take ten minutes:

• What sold, what traded, what didn't?
• Which month-end prices worked?
• Which units are now one month older, and what's the plan for them?

Month-end prices revert automatically, so you start each month at your regular asking prices.

The short version

Start a week early. Pull your aged list, curtailment dates and shortages. Decide every unit: hold, price, open to offers or auction. Use month-end mode for a price that resets itself. Answer every offer. Line up your signers before the 30th. For more, see the FAQ.