When Excel is enough
If one person buys, sells and keeps the books, the dealership has one location, no outside partners fund cars, and stock is a few cars at a time, a well-kept sheet works. We say this on purpose: a tool you do not need is not a good purchase, and plenty of small dealers are right to wait.
Where it breaks
- Cost lives in three places. The purchase is in the sheet, the denting and servicing bills are in WhatsApp, the RTO papers are in a drawer. Profit per car becomes a guess.
- Two people editing one file. A salesperson updates a status on their phone while the owner edits the same sheet on a laptop. One of those edits is lost.
- Partner settlements by hand. A forgotten expense or a loan return counted twice turns a settlement into an argument.
- The second branch. Two sheets, two truths, and the owner learns branch performance from a phone call.
- GST typed into a bill template. The margin is calculated by hand, and the tax paid is not tied back to the car.