Stop Spinning Your Wheels: Use Your DMS to Keep Cash Flowing in the Off-Season

When winter comes and golf cart sales slow, your first instinct may be to find a new stream of revenue for your dealership. However, before using your valuable time setting up something new, take a closer look at the business your dealership has already earned.

It may be hiding in a completed repair waiting on an invoice, an unsubmitted warranty claim, or a special-order accessory the customer has yet to pick up. Individually, these may not seem like much. Across your dealership, they can represent a considerable amount of delayed cash.

The offseason is a good time to find that stalled revenue and move more work from “almost finished” to paid. 

Use your dealer management system (DMS) to help you see where to start.

Review Every Open Work Order

An open work order does not necessarily mean one of your techs is working on a cart.

Some jobs may be waiting for parts, customer approval, technician clarification, or a final invoice. Others may have stalled because everyone thought someone else was handling the next step.

Review open work orders in your DMS by age, status, and assigned employee. For each one, ask:

• What is preventing it from moving forward?
• Who is responsible for the next action?
• When should that action be completed?
• Has the customer received an update?

“Waiting on parts” explains the delay. Assigning someone to check on those parts creates a path forward.

Give every stalled order an owner and a deadline to help your team finish jobs, invoice sooner, and free up service capacity.

Close the Gap Between Completion and Payment

A repaired cart does not improve cash flow if it sits waiting for an invoice or pickup.

Look for completed repairs and accessory installations awaiting final paperwork, carts that are ready for pickup, and invoices that have not been sent. Confirm that technician time, parts used, and additional authorized work have been recorded before preparing that final bill.

Then establish a consistent process for notifying customers, collecting balances, and following up. Embedded two-way text messaging in your DMS can help your staff send pickup notifications, coordinate delivery, and answer questions that might otherwise delay payment.

Once your dealership handles these final steps, you can truly close the gap between completion and payment.

Audit Outstanding Warranty Claims

Your technician replaced the component. The customer has the cart back. Has the warranty claim gone anywhere?

Review open warranty repair orders and check that each contains the documentation required by the manufacturer or supplier. That may include labor entries, parts information, photos, serial numbers, and diagnostic notes.

Identify rejected or returned claims that need corrections and assign someone to resolve them.

Your dealership has already invested the labor and parts. Complete, timely claims help turn that investment into collected revenue.

Check Parts and Special Orders

Cash can also be sitting on your shelf.

Review special-order accessories, parts reserved for open work orders, and items customers have not collected. A seat kit ordered for a canceled upgrade or a charger awaiting pickup should not disappear into the background.

Contact customers, schedule installations, return eligible items, and release sellable parts back into available inventory when appropriate.

Also, check for received parts that were never connected to the correct job or communicated to the service team. 

The part holding up a repair may already be in the building.

Follow Up on Outstanding Balances

Use your DMS’s aged accounts receivable report to identify unpaid invoices and balances requiring attention. Prioritize larger and older balances, but don’t ignore smaller amounts that can add up across multiple accounts.

Check whether an unanswered question, missing invoice, or declined payment is holding things up. Give one person responsibility for each balance and record every contact attempt and next step.

A consistent process works better than hoping someone remembers to make another call.

Make It a Repeatable Process

An offseason cleanup can help release cash. A regular checkup can help prevent the same bottlenecks from building up again.

Set a schedule to review aging work orders, completed but uninvoiced jobs, outstanding warranty claims, special-order parts, and unpaid balances. Track the dollars involved and how long items remain in each category.

If the same delays keep appearing, look at the process behind them. Your DMS can make problems visible, but your team still needs a clear procedure for resolving them moving forward.

The Takeaway

Generating more business matters. Before investing all your energy in the next sale, make sure all performed work is documented, invoiced, and collected.

Some of your most accessible offseason cash may just be waiting in your DMS.

About BiT DMS

Founded in 1985, BiT DMS provides a web-based dealer management system that helps golf cart dealerships operate more efficiently and profitably. Its comprehensive platform integrates sales, service, parts, and more, supported by a team dedicated to dealer success. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, BiT DMS is surrounded by some of the most renowned recreational vehicle manufacturers in the world and a thriving outdoor recreation community.

Learn more at bitdms.com/golf-cart/

Contact:
Aaron Killian, Marketing Manager
865-686-6544 ext 104
[email protected]