Vehicle costs, holding cost and overhead

To know what you really make on a unit, MotoDealerHQ needs what it cost you: acquisition, auction fees, transport and reconditioning. Add holding cost (what a unit costs you each day it sits) and monthly overhead, and your reports and metrics can show front-end gross, contribution margin and net profit.

Costs are internal only. They never appear on your website, in marketplace feeds, in the inventory CSV export or in API vehicle responses.

Before you start #

You need the costs permissions (see Permissions). People without them don't see the Costs panel at all.

Add costs to a vehicle #

1. Open the vehicle and find the Costs panel.
2. Choose a Category: Acquisition, Auction fee, Transport, Detailing, Recon labor, Recon materials or Other.
3. Enter the Amount (a negative amount records a credit), the Date, and optionally the Vendor and a Note.
4. Select Add cost.

To change or remove a cost, open Edit in its row.

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1. Cost basis and holding cost: the total of all costs, a No acquisition cost warning when there isn't one, and the holding cost so far (or until the sale). Once the unit is sold, the panel also shows the sale price and front-end gross.
2. Category of the new cost.
3. Add cost saves it.
4. Import CSV opens the cost import.

Import costs from a spreadsheet #

1. Open Inventory › Cost import.
2. Prepare a CSV with a header row and one row per cost. Columns: stock_number and/or vin, category (acquisition, auction_fee, transport, detailing, recon_labor, recon_materials or other), amount, incurred_on (YYYY-MM-DD; blank means today), vendor and note.
3. Choose the file, or paste the CSV into the box.
4. Select Preview (dry run). Nothing is saved yet.
5. Check the preview. Rows with problems (an unknown vehicle, a bad category or amount) are shown with the reason and will be skipped. A row that repeats a cost already recorded is skipped too.
6. Select Import n cost(s) to save, or Start over.

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1. CSV file, up to 2 MB and 2,000 rows.
2. Or paste CSV straight from a spreadsheet.
3. Preview (dry run) checks every row first.

stock_number,category,amount,incurred_on,vendor,note
PU20-220,acquisition,3150.00,2026-10-10,Auction house,
PU20-220,recon_labor,180.00,2026-10-12,,New chain and sprockets

Rows are matched to vehicles at your own rooftops by stock number or VIN.

Set holding cost #

Holding cost is calculated, never stored: for each day a unit is in stock, the daily holding cost plus floorplan interest on its acquisition cost (APR ÷ 365).

1. Open Finance › Holding cost.
2. Enter the Daily holding cost in dollars per vehicle per day, and the Floorplan APR (%).
3. If you have more than one rooftop, give any rooftop its own rates under Rooftop overrides.
4. Select Save.

Leave both fields blank to leave holding cost out of your reports.

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1. Daily holding cost per vehicle per day.
2. Floorplan APR, applied to the acquisition cost.
3. Rooftop overrides replace the dealership's rates for that rooftop.

Allocate overhead #

Overhead (payroll, rent, utilities, insurance, marketing, administration and other) is entered by month.

1. Open Finance › Overhead.
2. Under Add overhead, choose the Month, the Rooftop (or Whole group (not allocated) if you have several rooftops), the Category and the Amount, and add an optional Note.
3. Select Add.
4. Use From, To and Show to review past months. Select Delete to remove an entry.

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How reports use it:

• Net profit is only shown for whole months that have overhead for every rooftop in the report. Otherwise reports show contribution margin.
• Overhead in the Marketing category is the spend used for cost per lead.
• Whole-group entries count only in all-rooftop results.

Tips #

• Always record an Acquisition cost. Without it, front-end gross and holding interest can't be calculated, and the unit counts as "missing cost" in data-quality metrics.
• Import costs weekly from your accounting system instead of typing them.
• Close each month by entering overhead for every rooftop, so net profit appears.

Permissions #

Limitations #