PHOENIX — Despite a troubled economy that has impacted auto purchasing, charge-offs and defaults, buy-here, pay-here dealer group NowAuto said its performance across various metrics have actually improved.

More specifically, NowAuto Group reported that purchases, charge-offs and defaults have, in fact, improved significantly over both the previous quarter and prior year. The company attributes these improvements to increased credit criteria, improved contract management and system upgrades.

Furthermore, officials said they increased net investment 11 percent-over-year, even while the allowance allowance for doubtful accounts showed a 13-percent upswing.

During the company's fiscal first quarter, NowAuto posted revenue of $1.4 million, which calculated into a net loss of 5 cents per share. As a comparison, the company had a revenue total of $1.1 million during the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. That total led to a net loss of 6 cents per share.

Additionally, executives also pointed out that gross margin during the quarter improved 51.5 percent. They indicated this rise happened because of higher sales volume of higher margin vehicles.

Talking about the new system which helped results, NowAuto chief financial officer Faith Forbis said, "We converted into the new system a year ago and we are seeing real results. It has allowed us to better capture costs and recover them in the sales price of the vehicle. The result has been a significant improvement in gross margin."

Meanwhile, chief executive officer Scott Miller shared his thoughts about NowAuto's entire financial report and what the company can do to maintain its strong market standing.

"The present condition of the subprime and below subprime auto market has continued to impact our industry and our company," Miller conceded.

"While we have managed to increase year-over-year sales revenue, our challenge has been, and will continue to be on, collections. Our challenge in the current environment is to aggressively work with our customers to maintain active contracts," he went on to say.

"Tighter underwriting criteria yielded positive results in the September 2010 quarter. Nevertheless, we expect a difficult environment for the foreseeable future," Miller continued.

"Our commitment to customers and shareholders alike remains; NowAuto will do whatever it can to maintain productive contracts without placing imprudent demands on our customers," he added.

To achieve those objectives, chief operating officer Tino Valenzuela discussed some of the other initiatives NowAuto is undertaking.

"Programs initiated in fiscal 2009 have resulted in solid year-over-year volume and lease revenue," Valenzuela indicated.

"We successfully consolidated our corporate and reconditioning operations during the September 2010 quarter, resulting in a significantly faster and more efficient turn-over of inventory," he added.