Cox Automotive’s vAuto announced the launch of two enhancements to ProfitTime GPS and its Provision platform.

The company introduced Centralized Inventory Management to support dealer group oversight by streamlining operations, enhancing transparency and delivering actionable insights; and a new appraisal experience, designed to help dealers win more trade-ins in the current supply-constrained used-vehicle market.

The company plans to unveil the new tools at the NADA Show, which opens Thursday in New Orleans.

Cox vice president of inventory solutions management Derek Hansen said vAuto added the new tools to better serve its client base.

“With 80% of clients having multiple rooftops, we saw an opportunity to improve our enterprise dealer solutions,” he said. “By leveraging Cox Automotive’s data and expertise, these tools are designed to improve operational efficiency while empowering our clients with actionable insights.”

Centralized Inventory Management

Centralized Inventory Management is designed to create greater efficiency, consistency and visibility across all dealership locations by optimizing vehicle management, enabling dealers to align decisions with enterprise-wide strategies and maximize vehicle ROI across all locations.

Its features include an enterprise transfer portal to handle vehicles across multiple locations with centralized actions, allowing dealers to quickly identify inventory issues, transfer vehicles where needed and optimize retail potential across all locations; reporting and actionable insights to deliver a clear, real-time view of performance at the individual location and group level; and dashboards to track performance and drive accountability throughout the group.

Appraisal Experience

Based on data from vAuto and Dealertrack there’s an estimated gap of more than $1,000 between estimated and actual reconditioning costs on 39% of vehicle identification numbers.

Cox said vAuto’s new appraisal tool addresses that gap by minimizing mistakes for consistent and transparent offers that build consumer trust and help dealers acquire vehicles aligned with their inventory strategy.

Features include a mobile capture app, enabling dealers to capture high-resolution, 360-degree vehicle images and document damage for hand off to appraisers; reconditioning estimations designed to calculate each vehicle’s unique reconditioning costs using advanced tools that integrate with OBDII to improve accuracy and reduce errors and access to Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer-branded offer reports in their appraisal screen, detailing the offer amount and how it was generated.

“Vehicle appraisals are critical to profitability,” Hansen said. “By integrating these advanced tools that minimize inconsistencies, dealerships can increase profitability, ensure more accurate pricing, streamline inventory management and enhance the overall customer experience.”