Every tool a SA dealer needs. Nothing they don't.
AutoMargin tracks the money side of a used-car dealership — every unit, every cost, every sale — and feeds it back as live profit per stock number. WhatsApp on the front, proper engineering on the back. Here's everything in it.
Capture
Get costs in, the way they actually happen
Recon costs, valets, parts, mechanic invoices, auction vouchers — they arrive on WhatsApp or as paper receipts. AutoMargin takes them where they are.
WhatsApp AI agent
Your dealership gets its own dedicated WhatsApp number. Send text, voice or photo — the AI matches the cost to the right unit and confirms before saving. Built on the official WhatsApp Business Cloud API, ICASA-compliant.
Receipt photo → auto-categorised
Forward a mechanic invoice, valet slip or parts receipt. Vision AI reads the supplier, amount, line items and category. You confirm; it's filed against the right stock unit forever.
Voice notes work too
On the road and can't type? Send a voice note. “R450 valet for the white Hilux” → logged, attached, confirmed. Perfect for dealers running between auctions and the workshop.
Licence disc scanning
Photograph the licence disc. AutoMargin reads make, model, year, VIN and registration. Cuts unit creation from 5 minutes of typing to 30 seconds of pointing your camera.
SA paperwork recognition
RC1 registration certificates, MVL1 renewal forms, eNatis docs — AutoMargin knows what they are, files them as documents (not expenses), and stores them against the right unit.
No extra app to install
Your team already has WhatsApp on their phones. That's the interface. No app icon, no login screen, no training session — if they can WhatsApp, they can use AutoMargin.
See the WhatsApp flow in action on the WhatsApp guide.
Track
See the real number, all the time
The whole point: a dealer who knows what every unit is making, right now, not after the bookkeeper's done at month-end.
Live profit per unit
Every car on the floor shows asking price minus paid minus all recon costs — recalculated the moment a new cost lands. No end-of-month surprises, no manual spreadsheet maths.
Cost categories that fit
Pre-sale recon, post-sale comebacks, parts, paint, valet, mechanical, sales prep. Categories are built for SA dealers, customisable per tenant, and they roll up into proper reports.
Days-on-floor tracking
Each unit shows how long it's been on the lot. Colour-coded pill on the dashboard turns warning then critical as aging stock starts eating margin. Floor-plan add-on extends this with accrued interest per day.
Asking-price + selling-price separation
Track what you're asking versus what you actually sold for. Margin is calculated on the real number, not the wishful one. Useful for measuring how good (or generous) each salesperson really is.
Status pills + sold flow
In-stock, reserved, sold, demo, wholesale — each unit has a status. Marking sold opens the sale flow: customer details, sold price, VAT invoice, customer receipt, all in one shot.
Linked documents per unit
Photos, licence discs, receipts, eNatis papers, customer ID copies, signed agreements — all stored against the unit. One link to email your accountant when the sale is queried.
Sell
Close the deal, paperwork included
The sale isn't really done until the customer has an invoice, the records are filed, and your bookkeeper has the data. AutoMargin handles all three in the same step.
VAT 412–compliant invoicing
Every sale produces a full SARS-format VAT 412 invoice. Your business name, VAT number, address, customer details, line items, VAT calculation, total. PDF generated automatically and emailed to the customer.
Customer receipt + records
On sale, both you and the customer get an emailed PDF. The unit's full cost history stays linked — useful when a customer comes back with a query in six months.
Mark sold from WhatsApp
Voice or text — “mark the white Hilux sold for R380k to John Smith” — and AutoMargin asks the right confirmation questions, generates the invoice, sends the PDFs. Whole sale finalised in under a minute.
Net-to-owner on consignment sales
When a consignment unit is marked sold, AutoMargin calculates the payout to the consignor automatically based on the deal structure you set. No spreadsheet, no recalculation, no awkward conversations.
Report
Numbers your accountant trusts
What gets reported gets managed. Clean reports, clean exports — no shoeboxes of receipts, no last-minute SARS panic.
Profit reports that read clearly
Monthly profit per branch, per salesperson, per make, per model, per cost category. The reports are designed for a dealer to read in two minutes — not a 47-page export nobody opens.
CSV export for any period
Year-end, monthly, custom date range — export units, costs, sales and invoices to CSV. Your bookkeeper imports it into Sage, Pastel, Xero or QuickBooks. Direct integrations on the roadmap.
Activity log + audit trail
Who added that cost? When was the unit marked sold? Who changed the asking price? Every action is logged with user, timestamp and previous value. Settles arguments fast.
Per-branch and per-rep filtering
Multi-branch dealerships filter reports by branch. Owners filter by salesperson to see who's actually moving cars. Used wisely, this becomes the basis for commission calculations.
Preview the reports layout at /reports-preview.
Power add-ons
Bundle on what your dealership actually needs
Floor Plan and Consignment are full sub-platforms in themselves. Add them to Pro when they fit; ignore them when they don't. Either way, one Paystack debit per month with separate invoice lines for your accountant.
Floor Plan
For dealers running floor-plan finance with WesBank, MFC, Absa, SBSA or Investec.
- Daily accrued interest per unit, automatically calculated
- Live floor-plan days pill on every in-stock unit
- Break-even alerts (orange / red) when interest is eating asking price
- Per-period rate history when prime rate moves
- Configurable interest rates per finance provider
- Pairs with reports — see total floor-plan exposure at a glance
Consignment
For dealers who take in third-party stock on consignment from private sellers or other dealers.
- Five deal structures supported (flat fee, percentage split, hybrid, top-end split, minimum-guaranteed)
- Per-consignor banking details + payout ledger
- Net-to-owner automatically calculated on every sale
- Consignment-specific dashboard cards alongside owned stock
- Consignment agreement PDF generated from your template
- Bulk mark-paid for end-of-month consignor payouts
See pricing for the add-on bundles on the pricing page.
Team and access
Built for how dealerships actually staff
Owners want full visibility. Sales staff don't need to see purchase prices. Accountants need read-only across the lot. AutoMargin handles all three without you having to maintain a permissions spreadsheet.
Unlimited team members (Pro)
Add as many users as you need on Pro. Basic includes 3 users for solo-dealer setups. No per-user pricing, no minimum spend, no surprise bill at quarter-end.
Per-user permissions
Owner sees everything. Sales staff see units and asking prices but not what you paid. Accountant sees costs and invoices but can't edit unit details. Toggle every visibility flag per user, individually.
Multi-branch support
Run multiple branches in one account. Users can be scoped to specific branches or have full multi-branch access. Reports filter by branch. One subscription covers them all.
Unit transfers between branches
Move a unit from Cape Town to Pretoria? Three taps. Full history (costs, photos, documents) follows the unit, branch-attribution stays correct on the per-branch P&L.
Trust and data
Your data is your data
The boring stuff that turns out to matter: where is it, who can see it, how do you get it out, what happens if you cancel. All answered up-front — no buried clauses.
Your data, always exportable
CSV export of units, costs, sales and invoices any time. Cancel and you can take it all with you. We never sell, share, or use your data to train AI models outside your own dealership.
POPIA-compliant
Compliant with the Protection of Personal Information Act. Encrypted at rest and in transit. Customer details stored only as long as legally required for SARS audit (5 years for VAT records).
Continuous backups
Database is backed up continuously to the EU region. Every action is in the activity log. If something goes wrong on a Friday afternoon, we restore Monday morning — your data is never the failure mode.
Mobile-first, web-anywhere
WhatsApp from any phone. Web app from any browser (laptop, tablet, phone). No app store install, no IT involvement, no version upgrade tickets — it just works.
Full data-handling detail in the privacy policy.
One platform. The whole dealership.
30 days of full Pro — every feature above included. No card required to start. Cancel any time. The fastest way to know whether AutoMargin works for your floor is to put your floor on it for a week.