The hammer falls in four seconds
And by then you have either worked out your ceiling or you are guessing. Buy at the wrong number, price the refurbishment from memory, and the margin only appears months later, after the VAT — by which time the car is somebody else's. This is the system we are building for that, and it is being built now.
This one is not finished, and we are not going to pretend otherwise or promise you a date. It is planned in full and being built in the open, and what follows is what it is being built to do — not what it does today. If your business is this one, the useful thing now is a conversation, not a sale.
Three acts, and a question in each
Buy, prepare, sell. Every car goes through all three, and the money is made or lost in the first.
Buying
What is the most I can pay for this car and still make money?
At an auction the hammer falls in seconds, and the ceiling has to be worked out before the lot comes up — from what the car will sell for, what it will cost to put right, and what the business costs to run. Doing that on a phone calculator in a noisy hall is how a bad car gets bought.
- A maximum bid, worked back from the sale price and the work needed
- Auction lots priced in a batch before the day
- Buying direct from the public: a range on the spot, subject to seeing the car
Preparing
What will this actually cost to get on the forecourt?
The MOT history says more about a car than the seller does — mileage that went backwards, the same advisory three years running, the failure that keeps coming back. And a refurbishment quoted from memory is the difference between a good month and a bad one.
- MOT history read for mileage, tampering and repeat faults
- An estimate of the work before you commit
- A workshop job card, so the real cost lands against the car
Selling
What did I actually make on it, after VAT?
Under the margin scheme you pay VAT on the profit, not on the sale — and the number is only right if the buying price, every cost of preparation and a share of running the business are all attached to that one car. The forecourt window says the price; the accounts have to say the margin.
- A public stock listing, from the same record
- An asking price built from real comparables
- Margin scheme invoicing, and VAT on the margin
- Days in stock and margin, per car
Built for how this trade works here
The margin scheme, so VAT falls on the profit and not on the sale price. MOT history, which is the one honest account of a car's life. Auction, which is where the stock comes from and where the discipline has to be. Software written for another country treats all three as afterthoughts, and that is exactly where the money leaks.
What will stop being needed
- The stock spreadsheet that one person keeps and nobody else can read
- Margin worked out on paper, after the car has already gone
- Writing the same advert from scratch for each marketplace, from photos you have to find again
- Refurbishment costs remembered rather than recorded
- MOT history checked in a browser tab and then forgotten
What it will not do
- Not a garage system for servicing other people's cars — the scope is the work done on your own stock.
- It does not sell or arrange insurance.
- Not an auction platform — it is for pricing what you find at one, not for running one.
- Not a replacement for your accountant — the margin figures are for you to hand over, and the VAT return stays with them.
Cars first. The same shape fits anything with a plate, a price and a history.
Buy at the right ceiling, know the cost of putting it right, sell knowing the margin — the vehicle changes, the arithmetic does not.
So how does this start?
This one is not for sale yet, so the honest first step is the same one we offer everybody: a diagnosis of how you buy, prepare and price today. You get the findings either way, that page explains what has a price and what is quoted.
If this is your trade, talk to us while it is being built — what you tell us now shapes it, and you will see it before anybody else does. See the other systems we have built.
Tell us how you buy and price today
Leave your name and number. No sale — this one is not finished, and we would rather hear how you work.
We reply the same working day.