Smart Publisher | Inventory Management

Introduction

SmartPublisher / SmartPublisher PRO in the Dealer Dashboard is where you can maintain your dealerships (or groups) vehicles, to ensure your inventory is best positioned for success on your own website and selected advertising destinations.

By giving you a multitude of tools and reporting for the overall control of your vehicles, you can have confidence that managing your dealerships inventory with Dealer Dashboard has never been easier.

Widgets

When you first log into Dealer Dashboard, on the right-hand side you will see the Inventory and Standard Reports Widgets.

Regarding Inventory, you can click on any of the Inventory Lists to automatically take you to the Inventory Management page with SmartPublisher / SmartPublisher PRO to view your vehicles.

View Inventory

By clicking on the SmartPublisher / SmartPublisher PRO section in Dealer Dashboard, you will first see that it defaults to the View Inventory section, showing All Unsold Inventory.

The other Inventory Lists you can view are:

In order to identify these Inventory Lists, you will see below that they are colour coded by Green (Active or Sold vehicles), Orange (Vehicles that are excluded or restricted from advertising) and Red (Vehicles that may require your attention). Next to each of the Inventory List options, you will see a count of the vehicles in each list.

Reporting

The first button to the right of the Inventory Lists is the Reporting button, which allows you to use rules within the available dropdowns to create your own reports, so you can highlight points of interest for your dealership e.g. Create a report for all vehicles of a particular Make and Model, with Odometer and Advertised Price data Less than or Equal to a particular value.

1. To create your custom report, you will first need to click the ‘Reporting’ button. This will bring up the Custom Report Builder
2. The first step in the Builder is to use the first drop-down to select the Field that you would like in the report. The images below show the possible Field selections.
   
   
3. Once you have selected a Field, you need to now select the Operator. These will differ between whether the Field is alphabetical (Make, Model, Series etc.) or numerical (Advertised Price, Odometer, Client No etc.).
   The images below show the options you can choose for the Operator.
   
   Alphabetical:
   Numerical:
   
   
4. Now that you have both the Field and Operator you want for the report, you need to enter the Value. This is an open field meaning you can enter anything that you wish as the Value in line with the Field and Operator you have selected. When you have entered the Value, click the ‘Update’ button to set the Rule in place.
5. If you wish to create additional Rules to filter your report even further, simply click the ‘+ Add Rule’ button on the bottom left and you will be able to follow the steps above to add more Rules in.
6. Once you are satisfied with the Rules for your Report, you can either click the ‘Download to CSV’ button to download the report as a CSV file or click ‘Save as a Custom Report’, which will be accessible in the Reporting menu for future use.
   

Edit Column Setup

There is also a button called Edit Column Setup, which allows you to include or exclude various data columns to display in the lists for your vehicles. To remove a column from the Active Columns, simply click the ‘x’. To include any of the columns from the Add Columns list, click the ‘+’.

Once you are satisfied you have the columns selected that are of value to you, click the Save Changes button and the list will update and show the data in these columns automatically.

Dealership Selection, Category and Search

1. Underneath the Inventory List, you will see the Selected Dealership. If you are part of a larger group and you are logged into Dealer Dashboard using the group client number, you will be able to use the dropdown to select either the group or the dealerships within that group should you wish.
2. Next to the dealership you select, you can use the New, Used or Demo filters to only show these vehicle types in the list shown underneath.
3. Lastly there is a Search bar which you can use to search for a particular vehicle using a stock number, VIN or Rego – or perhaps a group of vehicles by Make, Model etc.

Vehicle Details

Should you wish to view the details about any vehicle, identify the vehicle in the Inventory List and click on it to bring up the Vehicle Details page. When you do, you will see an image of the vehicle you selected, as well as the Vehicle Type, Stock Number, Description, Odometer, Rego, Last Price Update, Advertised Price with a link to the Price History of the vehicle, and the Last Edited by name, with the date and time details.

To the right of the Summary you will see the Age section which shows the Days in Inventory which is based on the in-stock date and how many Days Online the vehicle has been advertised for. Lastly, there is a Status sections that gives Yes or No values as to whether the vehicle is Valid, Excluded or Sold or if the vehicle has Manufacturer or Pricing Restrictions, Comments or Photos.

The Status of a Vehicle will let you know whether it is Valid (Able to be advertised on 3^rd party advertising destinations), Excluded (Unable to be advertised on 3^rd party advertising destinations for a variety of reasons) or Sold (The vehicle has been sold and therefore will not be advertised).

Quick Edit

Below this information is the Quick Edit tab for the vehicle. All these sections are collapsible, should you wish to only show specific sections that you want to update them.

• The Status section for Sold or In Stock, Include or Exclude the Stock Item, whether the vehicle is Restricted or Not Restricted by Manufacturer Restrictions or whether to Ignore those restrictions and lastly whether the vehicle is Restricted or Not Restricted for Price Restrictions or whether to Ignore these restrictions as well. If a vehicle is restricted, you will see a question mark appear next to the Restricted status which you can click to view the restriction for that vehicle
• The Stock Details section is for reviewing or updating the Glass or Redbook code for the vehicle (if applicable – if you do not subscribe to Glass or Redbook, this section will not appear). Simply click the ‘Lookup’ button to initiate a search for the relevant code.
• The Pricing section allows you to review or edit the Item Price of the vehicle, whilst showing the Advertised Price of the vehicle as well
• The Dealer Comments section gives you the ability to add or edit the vehicle comments that are sent through from your DMS
• Lastly, the Registration system allows you to input/update the Registration details of the vehicle for Number, Expiry and State

Item Details

The next tab is the Item Details tab, though this data is typically populated by an import from your DMS, you can adjust the fields if you have the access to do so. Also, if you have Glass or Redbook, when selecting a code one of these for the vehicle it will automatically fill in the relevant fields with the details automatically.

Each of the fields in Item Details are collapsible so you can navigate to the field you need easier.

Status

The first field is the Status section. It has toggles where you can control Sold or In Stock, Include or Exclude the Stock Item, whether the vehicle is Restricted or Not Restricted by Manufacturer Restrictions or whether to Ignore those restrictions and lastly whether the vehicle is Restricted or Not Restricted for Price Restrictions or whether to Ignore these restrictions as well. If a vehicle is restricted, you will see a question mark appear next to the Restricted status which you can click to view the restriction for that vehicle.

Stock Details

Lookup by Code

The first part of Stock Details is where you can review or edit the Glass or Redbook guide code that has been entered for the vehicle.

General

This section is where you will find the Stock Type, Stock Number, In Stock Date, Listing Dealership and Vehicle Location.

Vehicle Details

Here you will see details such as the Make, Model, Series, Badge, Odometer, Manufacture Year, Manufacture Month, Factory Model Code and Stock Item Type.

Registration

This is where you can input the Registration Number, First Registered on date, Rego Expiry, Rego State, Compliance Year, Compliance Month and Certification.

Vehicle Specifications

General Specifications

This first section is where you can enter the VIN/Chassis number, Vehicle Category, Drive Type, Gear Count, Gearbox, Steering Side, Body, Body Colour, Trim Colour, Door Count and Seat Count.

Engine & Fuel

The second section is where you will find the Engine Number, Engine Type, Engine Capacity, Cylinders, Induction and Fuel Type.

Dimensions

Lastly, the Dimensions section has the Exterior Length, Exterior Width and Exterior Height fields.

Pricing

Item Pricing

The first section here is Item Pricing where you can enter the Item Price, Additional Fees and Statutory Fees. The Advertised Price is an automated field that will update with the collated value of the previous fields. You can also enter a Price Disclaimer and Price Note.

Promotional Price

In this section, you can enter a Was Price that will update the Advertised Price to show this value so it appears as a discounted Total value.

Wholesale Price

Here you can enter the Wholesale price of the vehicle if applicable.

Comments

The next tab is Comments where you can add information about the vehicle, your dealership etc to make the vehicle stand out to create interest from your customers with your listing.

Options

The Options tab allows you to add any options or features to the vehicle that are not already pre-populated with the imported data. If you are using a guide code, the ‘Additional Features’ will populate for you automatically, if there are any features you want to highlight not covered in that list you will need to add them.

You will also see that in the top-right hand corner of the tab it shows how many options you have added to the vehicle.

Destinations

The Destinations tab is populated from the Export Destinations section and shows the advertising destinations that the vehicle is currently being advertised on, as well as the date and time of the last export You can also remove the vehicle from advertising on any of the destinations by unticking the Allow checkbox on the far right of each advertising destination.

In the top-right hand corner of the Destinations tab, you will see a counter which shows how many advertised destinations the vehicle is exported to next to the total amount possible.

Photos

The Photos tab will show any photos that you have sent through with the vehicle data as part of your DMS feed, and in the Current Photo List you can amend the order the photos that have been entered by clicking and dragging them. If you wish to upload any photos for the vehicle, simply click and drag them into the Upload Photos section and they will be added automatically to the vehicle.

In the top-right hand corner of the Photos tab you will see the number of photos that the vehicle currently has uploaded for it.

Videos

The Videos tab allows you to upload a video about the vehicle such as a walkaround etc. that has been uploaded to YouTube. Simply enter the YouTube link and add the Link Text and it will be automatically applied to the vehicle.

Again, in the top-right hand of the tab you will see how many videos have been uploaded for the vehicle.

History

The History tab will show the vehicles timeline for any adjustments etc. You can also download the full vehicle history at any time by clicking the CSV button in the top-right corner of the page.

Additional Data

Lastly, the Additional Data tab has any custom data information about the vehicle required for certain services.