Dealership DMS Integration Inventory Template

Every system wired into your DMS has to be found, documented and repointed. Find them before the cutover, not during it.

Ask a general manager how many systems are connected to the dealer management system and the answer is usually four or five. Ask the same question after two weeks of digging and the answer is commonly north of fifteen, and at a franchise point with an active service department it can be considerably more.

The gap exists because integrations accumulate quietly. A vendor was added three years ago by a manager who has since left. A feed was set up during a website change and nobody wrote it down. A reporting tool pulls a nightly extract that only the controller knows about. None of that is negligence, it is just what happens to any system that has been running for a decade.

The cost of missing one is not evenly distributed either. A missed reporting connection is an annoyance. A missed inventory feed means your vehicles stop appearing on third party sites and nobody notices for four days. A missed lead routing connection means leads land nowhere while your salespeople stand around wondering why the phone is quiet. Those are the expensive ones, and they are all on the front end where the revenue is.

So the inventory is not documentation for its own sake. It is the artifact that decides whether your cutover weekend is uneventful or memorable.

LeadLocate does not sell a dealer management system. No general ledger, no accounts payable or receivable, no payroll, no deal posting to accounting, no parts, no repair orders, no title or registration work. We are the lead generation and CRM layer that sits next to a DMS, and we deliberately do not require a DMS integration or an inventory feed to operate.

That last detail is why we see this problem so often from the outside. Stores in the middle of a conversion call us because the front end has gone quiet and they need something that keeps working while the back office is being rebuilt. The pattern in those calls is nearly always the same: the integration list was incomplete.

The template below is what we would build if it were our store. It pairs with the DMS cutover checklist and the migration checklist, which cover the sequence once the list exists.

Keep it in a spreadsheet everyone can reach, not in someone's notebook. Twelve columns cover it.

The criticality column is the one that changes behaviour. Sort by it and you have your cutover order. Anything marked revenue stops gets tested in the sandbox before the weekend and verified within the first hour after go live, by a named person, with a written pass or fail.

Work through these systematically rather than trying to remember. Each line has caught at least one store we have talked to.

Front end. Website provider and its form handlers, third party lead providers, chat and messaging vendors, your CRM, the phone system and any call tracking, digital retailing tools, trade appraisal tools, and every marketplace or listing site that receives your inventory.

Inventory. Feed syndication, photo and video hosting, window sticker and pricing tools, market pricing tools, and the imaging vendor that uploads by folder rather than by connection.

F and I and compliance. Credit application intake, identity verification, compliance record keeping, eSignature and document storage, and any lender facing system.

Fixed operations. Service scheduling, the multi point or digital inspection tool, tire and parts catalogs, loaner fleet, and the OEM systems that expect data at defined intervals.

Back office. Payroll, banking and positive pay files, floorplan lender reporting, expense management, document imaging, and the tax filing service.

The quiet ones. Nightly extracts feeding a reporting tool or a consultant. Spreadsheets a manager maintains from a manual export. Anything a former employee set up. These are found by asking, not by looking at a vendor list.

Four sources, run in parallel, will surface almost everything.

1. Accounts payable. Pull twenty four months of vendor payments and read every line. Anything technology shaped goes on the list even if nobody recognises the name. This finds more integrations than any other method and it takes an afternoon.
2. The incumbent DMS vendor. Ask them for a list of every active integration and data extract on your account. They have it. Ask in writing, and ask for the fees attached to each.
3. Department walkthroughs. Sit with each department head and ask what they open in a normal day and where each screen gets its data. Ask specifically what they export to a spreadsheet, because manual exports are integrations with a person in the middle.
4. Network and login evidence. Your IT provider can list what is talking outbound on a schedule. This catches the connections nobody remembers authorising.

Set a completeness test rather than declaring victory by feeling. Ours is simple: when two consecutive sources add nothing new to the list, you are probably close. Then keep the sheet open through the first month after cutover and add anything that surfaces, because something always does.

Every integration on the list has a maintenance cost, an integration fee and a risk profile. A conversion is the one moment when the political cost of cancelling something is lowest, because everything is already changing.

Go through the list and mark each item keep, replace or retire. You will typically find several tools that overlap, a couple that a single person uses out of habit, and at least one that is still being paid for and not being used at all. Retiring those before the conversion means fewer connections to test, fewer vendors to coordinate and a smaller invoice, and it improves the numbers in your DMS ROI model.

Be deliberate about front end tools in particular. A store paying separately for a CRM, a lead provider, a texting tool and a chat widget is maintaining four integrations and four contracts where the functions overlap heavily. Consolidating the front end during the conversion is far easier than doing it as a separate project six months later, when everyone is exhausted.

Once the inventory is complete, the test plan writes itself. For each connection marked revenue stops, define one observable proof that it works, name the person who checks it, and set the time they check it.

Observable proof means a specific event, not a green light on a dashboard. A test lead submitted from the website appears in the CRM inbox with the source attached. A vehicle marked sold in the DMS disappears from the third party listing within the stated window. A repair order opens and prices correctly. A payroll file exports and reconciles. Vague confirmations from a vendor are not proof, because the vendor is testing their side and your problem lives at the join.

Run every one of those tests in the sandbox before the cutover weekend, then run them again in the first hours after go live, in criticality order. Log the result next to the row. A store that can point at a completed sheet on Monday morning has had a boring weekend, which is the goal.

Plan an overlap period as well. Cutting over with no parallel running is the most reliable way to lose data and leads, and it is covered in more detail in the parallel run guidance.

The part of this that a lead company can speak to directly. Whatever else breaks during a conversion, the thing that costs you money is leads that arrive nowhere and follow up that stops.

Our platform is deliberately independent of the dealer management system you run. No DMS integration and no inventory feed are required for the CRM, the lead inbox, SMS and MMS with RCS and SMS fallback, the click to call softphone with call recording and transcription, voicemail drop, automations and follow up processes, appointments, desking with a fifty state tax matrix, lead pages and salesperson sites to keep operating exactly as they did the day before your cutover.

If you do have an inventory feed, Inventory Link can ingest it and advertise your actual vehicles, and that connection goes on the inventory sheet like any other. But it is optional, which means during the conversion the front end is one fewer thing on the critical path. That is a real operational advantage in a month where everything else is moving, and it is why several stores run our layer through a conversion on purpose.

Terms are month to month with no long term contract, US only, and you can reach us at 844-376-2274 or through contact us.

How long does building a DMS integration inventory take?

A focused week for a single rooftop, longer for a group. The accounts payable review takes an afternoon and finds the most. Department walkthroughs take the most calendar time because they depend on people's availability.

How do we know the list is complete?

When two consecutive discovery sources add nothing new. Even then, keep the sheet open through the first month after cutover, because manual exports and forgotten reporting feeds tend to surface only when someone needs them.

What is the most commonly missed integration?

Nightly extracts feeding a reporting tool or an outside consultant, and manual spreadsheet exports a manager maintains by hand. Neither appears on any vendor list, so both are found by asking people what they open and what they export.

Should we cancel anything during the conversion?

Usually yes. A conversion is the cheapest moment politically to retire overlapping or unused tools. Mark every row keep, replace or retire before you start repointing, and consolidate the front end while everything is already in motion.

Does LeadLocate need to be on this list?

Only if you feed us inventory. The CRM, lead inbox, messaging, calling, automations and desking all run without a DMS integration or an inventory feed, so the front end keeps working through a cutover without being on the critical path.

What counts as proof that an integration survived cutover?

A specific observable event, not a vendor confirmation. A test lead reaching the CRM inbox with its source attached, a sold vehicle disappearing from a listing site, a payroll file that reconciles. Log the result next to the row.

Our CRM and lead layer runs with no DMS integration and no inventory feed required, so a conversion weekend does not take the sales floor down with it. Month to month, no long term contract.