File Library and Secure File Sharing

Every dealership runs on documents nobody can find. The Files menu gives the store one library, and a secure way to hand a file to a customer that tells you when it was opened.

The file library is the Files menu in LeadLocate CRM, a library with folders where your store keeps its working documents, and from which any user can send a file to a customer through a secure, tracked share or a QR code instead of an email attachment. That is the whole capability. It sounds small until you count the documents a sales floor touches in a day: the we owe form, the spec sheet for the unit that just landed, the financing checklist, the service menu, the map to the delivery bay, the credit application instructions, the referral flyer, the blank buyer's order a manager wants every rep to use.

Those files live somewhere today. Usually the answer is several somewheres: a shared drive that half the team can reach, a folder on the F&I manager's desktop, a text thread where somebody once sent the right PDF, and a personal cloud account that left with the last salesperson. The Files menu is one place, inside the same LeadLocate CRM the team already has open, organized in folders the store names, reachable by every user on the account. When a rep needs the file, it is there. When a manager updates it, everyone gets the new version because there is only one copy.

A customer is at a desk looking at a used truck. She wants to take the numbers home to her husband, and she wants the trade appraisal sheet and the vehicle spec sheet with them. The old move is to print three pages, or to ask for her email, promise to send it, and forget. The new move takes less time than the printer warms up. The rep opens Files, picks the spec sheet the manager keeps in the Inventory folder, and creates a share. The customer holds up her phone, scans the QR code on the rep's screen, and the file is on her phone before she has stood up. The deal sheet itself goes out from the desking tool as a customer deal page, and the general paperwork goes out from Files.

Across the showroom, a BDC agent is confirming an appointment for the afternoon and wants to send directions and a what to bring list. She sends the store's standard appointment prep document as a secure share from the lead's conversation. Later the share shows it was opened, so she knows the customer read it before deciding whether to call again. Upstairs, the sales manager drops the revised weekend spiff sheet into the Team folder so nobody is working from last week's numbers, and the finance manager keeps the lender stipulation checklist in a folder the whole desk can reach. None of them emailed an attachment. None of them asked where the current version is.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

On the desktop CRM the library is the Files item in the main menu, alongside Workspace, Leads, Contacts, Desking, Inventory, Messaging, Calendar, Email, Calls and Website. Inside it you see folders and the files in them, with the share controls on each file. In User Management, each user can be given default file folders, so a new salesperson starts with the folders the store wants them working from rather than an empty screen.

On the phone, the LeadLocate mobile app carries the same File Library, so a rep on the lot can pull a document and share it from a phone without walking back to a desk. The QR share works especially well there: the rep's phone shows the code, the customer's phone reads it, and the file changes hands in the driveway.

There is a second, separate library on the account side. My LeadLocate, the account portal, has its own file library and secure files for documents that belong to the business relationship, such as the welcome guide and paperwork exchanged with our team. The Files menu in the CRM is for the store's own working documents; the portal library is for the account's. Keeping them apart means a salesperson never wades through billing paperwork looking for a spec sheet.

An email attachment is a copy you lose control of the moment you press send. You never learn whether it arrived, whether it was opened, or whether it was forwarded. A secure share from the Files menu is different in kind. The file stays in your library; the customer receives a link to it, and the CRM tracks that share, so you can see that the document was opened rather than guessing. For a sales team that lives on follow up, that one signal changes the next call. A customer who has opened the trade appraisal is ready for a different conversation than one who has not.

Tracking also settles arguments. When a customer says nobody sent the disclosure, the share record says when it went out and whether it was opened. When a manager wants to know whether the new pricing sheet is actually being used, the shares tell the story. And because the share is generated from the CRM, it is attached to the work rather than floating in a personal outbox. The dealership compliance document management page covers the wider question of which documents a store should be keeping and for how long; this page is about the tool that does the sending.

Most secure sharing tools assume the customer is somewhere else. A dealership's best customers are standing three feet away, and asking for an email address, spelling it back, and waiting for the message to land is a strange ritual to perform in front of someone who is holding a phone. The QR file share exists for that moment. The rep creates the code for a file in Files, the customer scans it with the phone camera, and the document opens. No typing, no address, no attachment size limit, no spam folder.

It works for anything in the library: brochures, a service special, the store's financing checklist, the what to bring list for delivery day, a printable map to the parts counter. Pair it with the print pieces from Design Studio and a store can keep its printed cards short and let the QR code carry the detail. Because the share is generated by the CRM, it is tracked the same way as any other share, so even a handoff on the lot leaves a record.

Ask a store to list the tools it pays for or tolerates to move documents around and the list gets long: a cloud storage subscription with per user seats, a secure file transfer service the finance office signed up for, a shared drive on a server somebody in the parts department maintains, and the informal system where reps text each other PDFs. Each is a separate login, a separate bill or a separate risk, and none of them knows which customer a document went to.

The Files menu folds those into the CRM subscription. It is included with every plan, listed on the pricing page, from CRM Only at $199 a month up through the plans that include exclusive local leads, with no separate storage seat to buy. More importantly, the file library sits next to the lead, the conversation and the deal. A share sent from a lead's conversation belongs to that lead. The communications log for a customer shows the calls, texts, emails and voicemails in one place, and the documents that went out sit beside them rather than in a system that has never heard of the customer.

Documents at a dealership carry personal information more often than people admit: a trade appraisal has a name and a VIN, an appointment prep sheet has an address, a stipulation checklist names the lender and the customer. Every extra copy of that document, in every personal inbox and personal cloud account, is a copy the store is responsible for and cannot see. A single library with shares that are tracked reduces the number of copies to one, keeps the send record inside the CRM, and means a departing employee takes nothing with them because nothing lived on their personal accounts to begin with.

The roles in User Management, User, Manager and Master Administrator, decide who sets up the store's folders and defaults, and the default file folders per user keep new hires inside the structure the store intends. Documents that belong to a specific deal, the license copy, the signed buyer's order, the insurance card, belong in the Deal Jacket on that deal, which has its own QR intake from a phone camera. The credit application and its supporting documents belong in SecureWebX. Files is for the store's reusable library. Knowing which document goes where is most of a document policy, and the CRM makes the three homes obvious.

There is nothing to turn on. The Files menu is part of LeadLocate CRM from the first login on every plan. The useful first hour is spent on structure rather than settings: a Master Administrator creates the folders the store actually uses, Inventory, Finance, Service, Team, Customer Handouts, uploads the current version of each standard document, and sets default file folders for each user in User Management so reps land in the right place. Then the team stops emailing attachments, which happens naturally once the QR share has been used in front of a customer once. The help center article walks through the clicks.

Pair it with three neighbors. The Deal Jacket keeps deal specific paperwork on the deal. Design Studio produces the printed cards and flyers whose QR codes can point at library files. And the texting inbox is where most shares actually get sent, because the customer is already in a conversation there. If you want to see the share and the QR handoff before you sign up, the pre-recorded live demo shows the CRM in use, and the contact page reaches a person who can answer a specific question about your store's documents.

Where is the file library in LeadLocate CRM?

It is the Files item in the main menu on the desktop CRM, next to Workspace, Leads, Contacts and the rest, and the File Library in the LeadLocate phone app. My LeadLocate, the account portal, has a separate file library for account documents.

What does tracking mean on a secure file share?

The file stays in your library and the customer receives a link to it. The CRM tracks that share, so you can see that the document was opened instead of wondering whether an attachment ever arrived.

How does the QR file share work?

Pick a file in Files, create the QR code, and the customer scans it with a phone camera. The document opens on their phone with no email address typed and no attachment sent, and the share is tracked like any other.

Can each salesperson have their own folders?

User Management lets a Master Administrator set default file folders per user, so a new salesperson starts inside the folders the store wants them working from. The library itself is shared by the store.

Is the file library the right place for deal paperwork?

Deal specific documents such as a license copy or a signed buyer's order belong in the Deal Jacket on that deal, which has its own QR intake. Credit application documents belong in SecureWebX. Files is for the store's reusable library.

Does the file library cost extra?

No. It is part of LeadLocate CRM on every plan, including CRM Only, with no separate storage seat. Plans are month to month and listed on the pricing page.

The Files menu is included with LeadLocate CRM on every plan, month to month. See the QR handoff and the tracked share in the demo, or ask us about your store's documents.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.