Smart Buying Desk and maximum bids

The Smart Buying Desk puts everything you might buy in one queue: auction and wholesale listings, trade-in offers, private-party prospects and customer requests you cannot fill from stock. For each one it prepares a read-only worksheet with grades, a maximum purchase price, comparable stock, expected profit, customer demand, missing information and the approval you would need.

The desk prepares recommendations. It cannot bid, buy, contact a seller or request approval. People request and approve purchases through Purchasing Controls and the Acquisition screens.

Open the queue #

1. Open Inventory › Buying desk (/buying-desk).
2. Optionally pick a Source and select Show.
3. Select Worksheet on a row.

The queue shows the vehicle, mileage, a price with what it means (current bid, buy-now price, our offer, seller asking price, or "customer budget (not a price)"), the opportunity grade, the risk level and the base maximum bid. "Open the worksheet" means no grade has been worked out yet. You only see items for the rooftops you can work at.

Add a private-party prospect #

Under Add a private-party prospect, enter what the seller told you: year, make, model, trim, VIN, category, mileage, seller asking price, seller, where it came from and the receiving rooftop. Select Add prospect.

This does not contact the seller or buy anything. Nothing is scraped or imported from marketplaces: prospects exist only when your staff enter them. When you decide against one, open its worksheet and select Pass on this prospect.

Read the worksheet #

Save this worksheet keeps a snapshot for the record. It does not buy, bid or request approval. Saved worksheets are listed at the bottom with who prepared them; a worksheet prepared by the AI assistant says so.

How the maximum bid is worked out #

The maximum bid is the highest hammer price that still leaves your target gross after every cost. It is plain arithmetic from your own data and settings; no AI is involved.

budget      = expected resale − target gross − fixed costs (transport, recon, inspection, title, other)
total at H  = H + buyer fees at H + purchase tax (only if you pay it as a cost) + carrying cost
maximum bid = the highest H, on your bid increment, whose total is within the budget

Where each input comes from:

• Expected resale. For an auction listing: a resale price you entered, otherwise your own sales of that make and model. For trade-ins, private-party prospects and customer requests: only your own recorded sales (the median of the same make and model, model year within two years, over the last 24 months). With fewer than 5 such sales the result is NOT ENOUGH DATA: no number is invented.
• Target gross. Per category, the larger of your fixed target and your minimum margin times the expected resale. Set it in Pricing settings or Acquisition settings.
• Buyer fees. The fee schedule you entered for that auction under Acquisition › Acquisition settings, tier by tier. Trade-ins have no buyer fee; private-party prospects and requests assume none.
• Transport. Your rate per mile times a distance you enter on the listing. No distance is guessed. Trade-ins are already on site (zero). For private-party prospects and requests it is unknown.
• Reconditioning, inspection, title and other costs. The defaults in Acquisition settings, labelled as assumed.
• Carrying cost. Your holding cost and floorplan rate (see costs and holding) for the expected days to sell.

If any cost is unknown the bid is shown as an upper bound. "No profitable bid" means no hammer price meets your target.

Conservative, base and optimistic #

Every evaluation shows three maximum bids from the same calculation. Only the expected resale changes between them; fees, costs, carrying cost and the target are identical.

When the resale estimate has no spread, the conservative and optimistic rows say "unavailable" with the reason rather than inventing one. Each row lists its assumptions, sources and dates (resale as of, fee schedule as of, calculated at) and a confidence level:

The conservative and optimistic ends are never rated above Medium.

The same three scenarios appear on a listing under Acquisition › Wholesale auctions, next to the price actually paid on an Acquisitions record, and on Analyze trade-in / acquisition (from the Pricing and profitability dashboard).

From purchase to inventory #

Once a purchase is confirmed (a bid recorded as won, a trade-in, or a private-seller or dealer purchase), record it under Acquisition › Acquisitions:

1. Select the type and enter the purchase price, fees, transport, title fees, other costs, purchase date, receiving rooftop and the vehicle.
2. Enter the Evidence of the confirmed purchase, such as the auction invoice number. Select Record purchase.
3. MotoDealerHQ creates a draft unit at the receiving rooftop, posts the costs to the unit's cost ledger, creates the payable under Finance › Vendor bills (none for trade-ins) and shows the landed cost.
4. Work through Before it can be sold. By default: title or ownership documents received, receiving inspection completed and vehicle history reviewed. Start receiving inspection and Open recon RO create internal repair orders whose parts and labor post to the unit's costs.
5. Select Mark ready and make available. Until every required check is done or waived (a waiver needs a reason), the unit cannot be made available from any screen, import or connection.

The AI assistant #

On the Sales Manager and General Manager role assistants, the assistant can prepare a buying-desk worksheet and run maximum-bid and acquisition evaluations. These lookups are read-only and only show cost figures to people allowed to see them. The AI never bids, buys, accepts a trade-in or approves anything.

Permissions #

Limitations #