Frazer DMS Alternative for Car Dealerships

An honest map of what a used car DMS does, what it does not, and where LeadLocate sits in relation to it.

Most comparison pages bury this. We will put it in the first section, because it decides whether the rest of the page is worth your time.

Frazer is a dealer management system built for independent used car dealers. It handles the back office work that keeps a store legal and solvent: deal entry and posting, accounting, inventory and floor plan records, buy here pay here note handling, forms and title paperwork, and the reporting that goes with all of it.

LeadLocate does none of that. There is no general ledger, no accounts payable or receivable, no payroll, no bank reconciliation, no deal posting to accounting, no sales tax filing, and no title or registration processing. We do not sell a dealer management system and we are not trying to become one.

What we are is the layer in front of the back office: where leads arrive, how you communicate, how follow up happens, how deals get structured for the customer, and how you buy cars from local owners. Those are different jobs, done by different software, and a store that swaps one for the other ends up with a hole where the other used to be.

So if you are here because you need a different back office system, this page will help you think it through, and then you should shop that category properly. If you are here because the back office system is fine but nothing is happening on the sales side, keep reading, because that is the part we do.

Frazer has been in the independent dealer market a long time and its reputation is built on being straightforward and affordable for small and mid sized used car operations. It is desktop software with a devoted user base, and the reason those users stay is usually some combination of price, support and the fact that it does the paperwork without ceremony.

For a store selling anywhere from a handful to a few hundred cars a month, that is a sensible profile. The back office does not need to be exciting. It needs to produce a correct deal jacket, keep the accounting straight, handle the notes if you carry paper, and not fall over at month end.

Packaging, pricing and capability change over time, and the vendor is the only reliable source on current detail. Verify what is included, what integrates and what anything costs directly with Frazer rather than relying on any comparison page, including this one. We deliberately do not publish competitor pricing or feature claims we cannot stand behind.

Worth saying plainly: if the back office is working and your team is comfortable, there is a real argument for leaving it alone. Back office conversions are the most disruptive project a small store can take on, and doing one to solve a sales problem is a category error.

In our experience the search starts for one of four reasons, and only two of them are solved by changing the back office system.

The store outgrew the software. More rooftops, more users, more remote work, or a need for something that runs everywhere rather than on one machine in the office. That is a genuine reason to shop a different back office product.

A specific missing function. A compliance requirement, a lender or state form, a reporting need. Also a genuine reason, though it is worth asking whether an add on solves it before a conversion does.

Nothing is happening on the sales side. Leads come in and die. Nobody follows up past two touches. Nobody knows which advertising produced anything. The store blames the software it uses most, which is the back office system, but the back office system was never supposed to do this. Changing it will not help.

Process problems dressed as software problems. No accountability, no cadence, no manager reviewing anything. New software makes the problem more visible, which is useful, but visibility is not a fix.

Be honest about which one you are, because the third and fourth are where stores waste the most money. If it is the third, what you need is a CRM and a lead source, not a conversion. Our page on CRM for independent car dealerships covers that specific gap.

We started as a lead generation platform and built a full CRM around it, sold to dealerships and to individual salespeople, month to month.

The lead side delivers exclusive local leads inside a territory you define. Two families: inbound buyer leads from in market shoppers, and opt in seller leads, which are local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request and asked to be contacted about selling their vehicle. Nothing is filtered or scored. We ask prescreening questions at capture and deliver every submitted lead inside your zone, exclusively, and lead problems are handled by post delivery replacement review.

The CRM side is the part most Frazer users are missing. A lead inbox with distribution rules, SMS and MMS with real threading, RCS with SMS fallback, click to call with a VoIP softphone, call recording with transcription, voicemail drop, email with an inbox and composer, bulk email and campaign tools, automations, follow up processes, drip sequences, appointments and reminders, lead pages for landing traffic, a free live chat widget, and three layers of reporting.

Then desking. Loan and lease, a fifty state tax matrix, semimonthly payment frequency, trade in credit caps and three lease tax methods, with print templates and customer facing deal pages that carry e-signature. See the desking tool for that side.

Also worth knowing, because most dealers do not expect it: an email validator and a phone validator built in, and document reading with VIN scanning on mobile.

Features and pricing change on both sides. Confirm anything that will drive your decision with each vendor directly before you sign.

We would rather tell you this now than have you buy the wrong thing and blame the software.

• Your actual problem is accounting, deal posting, forms, titles or note handling. That is back office work and it belongs in a back office system.
• You carry your own paper and need note servicing, payment tracking and collections records in one place.
• Your accountant or controller depends on reports the current system produces and nothing else generates them.
• The back office is stable and your team knows it. Stability in the back office is worth real money and converting it is genuinely disruptive.
• You want one vendor for everything and are willing to accept a weaker sales layer to get it.

If you have decided the back office itself needs to change, work through switching from Frazer and DMS data ownership before you talk to anyone, because the export question is the one that traps people.

The case for us is strongest when several of these are true at the same time.

• The back office is fine and the sales side is where the money is being lost. Leads arrive and nothing systematic happens to them.
• You want leads and the CRM from one vendor rather than stitching a lead source to a separate system.
• You want exclusive local leads instead of shared internet leads that three stores are calling at once.
• Your team communicates from personal cell phones, so you have no record, no oversight and no continuity when somebody leaves.
• You want to buy cars from local owners through inbound opt in offer requests rather than relying entirely on the auction.
• You want month to month terms rather than a multi year commitment on something unproven in your store.

Note the pattern: none of these are back office problems. That is the point. See seller leads for the acquisition side, and CRM for buy here pay here dealers if you carry paper.

The realistic configuration for a Frazer store is not a replacement. It is a division of labor, and it works because the two systems care about different moments in the same deal.

The front half lives with us. A shopper submits a form or calls. The lead lands in one inbox, gets assigned by rule, and the first text goes out in minutes rather than hours. Follow up runs on a cadence that survives a busy Saturday. The salesperson desks the deal, loan or lease, with correct tax for the state, and sends the customer a deal page they can read and sign on their phone.

The back half stays where it is. Once the customer says yes, the deal gets entered in the back office system, the paperwork is produced there, the accounting posts there, and the note, if you carry one, is serviced there.

No integration is required for that split to work, which is the part people do not expect. We do not need access to the dealer management system your store runs and we do not need an inventory feed to operate. That independence is deliberate, and it means you can fix the sales side this month without touching anything in the back office. If you do have a feed, Inventory Link can ingest it and advertise your actual vehicles. More on integration limits at CRM with DMS integration.

Whichever direction you go, these questions save stores from expensive surprises.

If you are changing the back office: what exactly can you export, in what format, and does it include deal history and note records? Who does the conversion work and what does it cost? Can you run both systems in parallel during the changeover, and for how long? What happens to the forms your state requires? Ask the export question before you sign, because your leverage disappears the moment you do.

If you are adding a sales layer: what is the total monthly cost with everything you need, what is the contract length, and what can you take with you if you leave? On our side the answers are on the pricing page, the contract is month to month, and the customer data is yours to export including communication history.

We cannot guarantee sales results, lead volume or close rates, and no vendor honestly can, because those depend on your inventory, your pricing, your people and your market. What we can tell you is where the line sits between what we do and what a back office system does, which is the whole point of this page. Call 844-376-2274 or contact us if you want to talk it through.

Can LeadLocate replace Frazer?

No. Frazer is a dealer management system covering accounting, deal posting, forms, titles and note handling. We do not provide any of that. We provide the lead, CRM, communication and desking layer that sits in front of it, and most of our independent stores run both.

Do we need an integration between the two systems?

No. The platform runs independently of whatever back office system you use and no inventory feed is required to operate. That is why the sales side can be fixed in days without a back office project.

We carry our own paper. Does that change the answer?

It reinforces it. Note servicing, payment tracking and collections belong in your back office system. What we add is the acquisition and follow up side, including subprime shoppers, texting and desking with correct state tax.

What does LeadLocate cost next to a DMS?

CRM Only starts at $199 a month, and plans that include exclusive local leads start at $799. It is a separate line from your back office software rather than a replacement for it. All plans are month to month with no long term contract.

Do you publish a Frazer feature comparison?

Only at the category level, as in the table on this page. Features and pricing change, and we will not invent competitor specifics. Verify current capability, packaging and terms directly with the vendor before deciding anything.

We are looking at a different DMS entirely. Is this page useful?

Yes, because the division of labor is the same regardless of which back office system you land on. Decide the back office on back office criteria, then decide the sales and lead layer separately on its own merits.

We will map a territory around your store, show the CRM running on real lead flow, and give you a straight number. No integration required, month to month.