Can a used-car dealer keep vehicles as stock?

How a used-car dealer can hold each vehicle as a stock item in Achekam, what cannot change once it is created, and why a register beside it still helps.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Automotive businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A used-car dealer's stock is not shelves of identical boxes. Every unit is different: its own make and model, mileage, condition and price, bought from a trade-in, an auction or a private seller. Each one ties up a large amount of money, and each one is sold once.

Can Achekam carry that kind of stock? Yes, with care. A vehicle can be an item with its own cost and selling price, and the till can take it out of stock when it is sold. But there are limits that matter a great deal for vehicles, and a dealer who knows them in advance keeps a cleaner set of books.

Each vehicle as an item with its own cost

Items are created in the Item Master in the Accounting menu. Each has a SKU, name, category, selling price, cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. The Item Master needs the Point of Sale, Warehousing or Wholesale add-on.

For a vehicle, a sensible pattern is:

• SKU: your own stock number, short and unique, written on the windscreen card;
• Name: make, model, derivative and colour, so staff can find it;
• Category: used vehicles, or demo vehicles if you carry them;
• Opening quantity: one;
• Cost price: what you paid, or the trade-in allowance you gave;
• Selling price: your asking price.

Details that cannot be edited once the item is created

This is the limit to understand first. No screen lets a business change a product's price, cost or VAT treatment after creating it, or deactivate it.

For vehicles that bites in three places:

1. The asking price. Used vehicles are often repriced after a few weeks on the floor. The item keeps the price you typed. At the till, line and whole-sale discounts can bring the selling price down, and above the business's cashier limit only a supervisor or manager can give them.
2. The cost. Anything spent after the item was created cannot be added to its cost.
3. Sold units. A sold vehicle cannot be deactivated, so it stays in the list with nothing on hand. Use a clear naming habit so sold units are easy to skip.

Selling at the till versus selling on an invoice

How you record the sale decides whether the vehicle leaves stock.

At the till, the sale takes the quantity off stock in the same step and posts a balanced journal: the payment to its own account, revenue, output VAT, and cost of sales against inventory at the item's cost price. But the server refuses any till sale that is not paid in full. A cash buyer or a buyer who has already transferred the full price fits; a financed deal with a deposit now and a payout later does not.

On an invoice, the deposit and the finance house's payout can be recorded as separate payments against one invoice. But invoice lines are typed in and cannot be picked from the product list, so the invoice does not take the vehicle out of stock and does not post cost of sales.

Why an invoice does not take the vehicle out of stock

If you sell a financed vehicle on an invoice, three things follow:

• the vehicle still shows one on hand in the stock list;
• the inventory account still carries its cost;
• the month's income statement shows the sale but not what the car cost you.

The stock list can be put right with a count if you hold the Warehousing add-on, but stock counts do not post to the general ledger; only till sales and till returns move the inventory account. So the books need a journal from your accountant that moves the vehicle's cost from inventory to cost of sales. Achekam accepts manual journals, refuses one that does not balance or is dated in a closed month, and corrects a posted journal only by a reversal. Agree that journal as a monthly routine, listing every vehicle sold on invoice.

Reconditioning costs and the single cost price

Most trade-ins need work before sale: tyres, a service, panel repairs, a valet, a roadworthy. Cost of sales uses the single cost price typed on the item, with no averaging, and that cost cannot be changed later. So either finish reconditioning before creating the item, which is rarely practical, or keep the extra costs on your register and have them added to cost of sales by journal when the vehicle is sold.

The accounting standard behind this is IAS 2. The IFRS Foundation's summary of IAS 2 Inventories explains how the cost of inventories is determined, which cost formulas may be used, and why inventories are carried at the lower of cost and net realisable value. That last point matters on a car lot: a vehicle that has sat too long may be worth less than it cost, and your accountant will want to know.

A vehicle register to keep beside the ledger

Keep one register, a spreadsheet is fine, with a row per vehicle:

• stock number (the SKU), VIN and registration;
• date bought and where from, with the trade-in deal or purchase invoice reference;
• purchase cost, then each reconditioning bill with its supplier bill number;
• total cost to date;
• asking price, and any price change with the date;
• date sold, the buyer, the till receipt or invoice number, and how it was paid;
• whether the cost has been moved to cost of sales.

Check the register against the stock list every month, before the books are closed.

Where to go next

If you also sell parts, the same item rules apply to them; parts stock, SKUs and barcodes sets them out, and why parts on a workshop invoice do not leave stock explains the invoice limit from the workshop's side. Importers will find the single-cost problem handled in setting cost prices for imported parts. Start by setting up the next trade-in as an item and adding its row to the register.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.