Inspect and maintain your inventory with a vehicle inventory list

What Is a vehicle inventory list?

A vehicle inventory list helps you keep an overview of all the vehicles in your company/dealership. Keeping track of your inventory is essential in a vehicle business.

Various vehicle inventory checklists make it easier to add new vehicles, inspect them before delivery, and keep track of your vehicle inventory. You can easily record and refer back to any required information. This improves reliability and quality for customer orders.

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What does a vehicle inventory list include?

A vehicle inventory checklist can be structured differently depending on the company. But for a proper inventory, there are certain basic rules to follow. To prepare a proper vehicle inventory list:

1. Include an inventory instruction
2. Specify the inspection location
3. Two people should take inventory; one counting and one writing. If possible, these should not come exclusively from the department concerned.
4. The employees who perform the inventory must receive appropriate training
5. Indicate who is the responsible inventory manager
6. In your vehicle inventory checklist template:
   • Pre-number your templates
   • Do not omit any lines during inventory
   • Don’t write in pencil
   • Make all entries on the spot
   • Everyone involved needs to sign each complete template
7. Take vehicle inventory in order of location
8. Make sure your inventories are recognizable as inventories
9. Divide parking spaces into areas, and assign one employee to take inventory in each area
10. Mark damaged vehicles separately
11. Don’t mark down movement of goods
12. The inventory personnel can’t know the target stocks according to stock accounting.

After taking vehicle inventory, evaluate the finished checklists. First, compare the actual stocks according to inventory lists with the target stocks according to stock accounting. You can disregard vehicles that are not owned by the company, such as consignment goods from manufacturers, vehicles under repair, and vehicles owned by personnel.

Add vehicles to the inventory list if they belong to the inventory but were not physically present during the inspection, such as rental and demonstration vehicles. Vehicles and vehicle parts that have already been ordered but not yet delivered are also part of the inventory.

Why are vehicle inventory lists important?

Generally, vehicle inventory should be taken at regular intervals to lessen the chance of inaccurate inventory numbers and improve access to information. Using checklists to maintain proper vehicle inventory records offers three key benefits for car dealerships, logistics providers, and car rental companies:

1. Knowing exactly what is in your inventory

When you know exactly how many vehicles you own and what condition they are in, you can better plan your vehicle management. You’ll also know what’s still missing, meaning you can plan orders.

If you don’t have a vehicle list, you may order too much or forget to order something important.

2. Higher profitability

Keeping a vehicle inventory avoids both destocking and overstocking. Logistics and car rental companies can also use a vehicle list to identify which vehicles no longer meet corporate standards.

3. Better customer experience

If you know what you have, you know exactly what you can sell, and avoid having to cancel customer orders. Updating your inventory means your customers won’t accidentally order something you don’t stock.

Using vehicle inventory list software

Keeping a vehicle list has many benefits for your business, and digitizing these vehicle inventory lists improves your management by

• Allowing you to ditch paper in no time with the flexible form builder and adapt checklists to new standards
• Providing real-time data about your vehicle inventory. This helps measure quality, service, and safety
• Offering an overview of everything that happens during the on-site inventory
• Auto-generating your vehicle inventory list, which saves time on follow-ups
• Helping youanalyze all vehicle and inventory data and identify areas that need your attention
• Finishing inventories and inspections approximately 30%-50% faster overall, depending on the use case
• Making your internal processes more efficient by optimizing communication between team members