Switching From Reynolds and Reynolds: DMS Migration Guide

We sell nothing that competes with a dealer management system, so this page has no stake in whether you leave. It has a stake in your sales floor surviving if you do.

LeadLocate does not sell a dealer management system. No general ledger, no accounts payable or receivable, no payroll, no bank reconciliation, no deal posting to accounting, no vehicle or floorplan accounting, no sales tax filing, no title and registration work, and no OEM or franchise reporting. There is no parts inventory, no repair order management, no technician time clock or dispatch, no shop loading and no warranty claim handling.

That means we have nothing to sell you as a replacement for Reynolds, and no reason to push you toward a conversion. Almost everything written on this subject comes from a competing platform vendor and reads exactly like it. This page is written from the other side of the fence.

What we do sell is the layer that sits beside whichever system you land on: lead capture and routing, SMS, MMS and RCS messaging, a dialer with recording and transcription, follow up automation, desking, credit application intake through SecureWebX, and exclusive local buyer and seller leads. That layer is relevant during a conversion for a specific reason covered further down, which is that sales is usually the department nobody protects while the back office is being rebuilt.

Reynolds and Reynolds has been in the dealership software business for a very long time and is one of the small handful of platforms that a large share of franchise stores run on. Publicly, it is associated with a tightly integrated approach: the operating platform, the documents and forms business that grew out of its printing heritage, and a wide set of dealership products sold as a coordinated stack rather than assembled from parts.

The forms and document side is worth calling out because it is genuinely distinctive and it is often the piece stores forget to plan for. A dealership that has standardized its paperwork around one vendor's forms ecosystem has more to unwind than the software licence suggests.

Beyond that, we are not going to characterize their pricing, contract terms, roadmap or current feature set. Packaging changes, regional terms differ, and a comparison page that invents specifics is worse than useless. Verify anything that will drive your decision directly with the vendor, in writing, including what your current agreement actually says about notice and data extraction.

Name your reason precisely before you shop, because only some of these are solved by changing platforms.

Total cost and packaging. Spend has grown across modules, forms, and the fees that come with letting other vendors touch your data. This is a legitimate reason to look, and it is also the one most likely to be resolved by a serious renewal conversation rather than a conversion.

Integration friction. What it costs and how long it takes to connect a new tool. Dealers usually discover this line item the first time they try to add a vendor mid term.

Fit. A single point independent store running a platform designed for large franchise operations is carrying surface area it will never use. That is a real mismatch and it does not improve with time.

A group decision. An acquiring group standardizes every rooftop and the choice was made above you. Nothing to evaluate, only to execute well.

Frustration that is really process. Reports nobody trusts, a month end that drags, a service department that will not follow the workflow. Converting makes those problems visible and does not fix them. Stores that convert to solve a discipline problem tend to convert again within three years, having spent a year of management attention to arrive back where they started.

Any honest switching guide has to make this argument, and here it is stronger than most dealers want to hear.

If your franchise reporting flows out of the system without human intervention, that plumbing has real value and rebuilding it costs money and months. If your parts and service teams are fluent, a conversion resets that fluency to near zero for a quarter, and fixed ops absorbs the damage while sales absorbs the distraction.

If you have a dozen third party vendors writing into the system, each one has to be re-contracted, re-certified and retested. Some will not support your new platform at all, and you will find out late. If your paperwork, forms and printing are standardized around your current vendor, that unwinding is its own project with its own budget.

And if the honest trigger was one bad support experience or one price increase, negotiate before you convert. Vendors move at renewal more often than dealers assume, particularly when a store arrives with a documented list of what it actually uses and what it does not. The approach in our contract negotiation guide applies just as well to a platform renewal.

Before comparing vendors, draw the line down your software stack. This is a rough version to adapt rather than copy, and it is the fastest way to work out whether you need a conversion or just a better sales layer.

Features on both sides change, so confirm current capability with each vendor before deciding. The rows that cause trouble are desking and credit application intake, because they sit at the seam and depend on both systems. Decide which side owns them before the cutover rather than during it.

A platform conversion is an operational project with the controller at the center, not a software install. Months, not weeks.

1. Read the termination clause first. Notice windows, automatic renewal dates and data extraction fees all live there, and the date you must act by is usually earlier than anyone expects. Our contract termination exit plan covers the sequence.
2. Decide what history travels. Customer and vehicle records, open repair orders, parts, accounting balances and closed deals are separate decisions with very different price tags. Most stores move customer, vehicle and open transactions live and archive the rest.
3. Clean before you move. Migrating dirty data means paying twice. See data cleanup before migration.
4. Map the chart of accounts. The most underestimated task on the list. Get it wrong and your financial statements will not compare year over year for a full cycle.
5. Inventory every integration. Website, inventory syndication, chat, phone, lead providers, F and I products, payroll, forms. Build the list in week one.
6. Plan the forms and documents change. Deal jackets, printers, preprinted stock and anything a compliance officer signs off on.
7. Train by department, close to go live. People forget what they learned a month before cutover.
8. Cut over at a month end, with a parallel period. Read running two systems in parallel before deciding how long yours runs.

Here is the part that gets skipped, and the reason a conversion so often shows up in the sales numbers three months later.

Every conversion consumes management attention. The general manager is in project meetings, the controller is mapping accounts, the sales manager is being asked to test screens. Meanwhile leads keep arriving at the same rate and nobody is watching response time. Stores routinely give up a measurable amount of gross during a conversion quarter, not because the software failed but because the people who normally hold the floor accountable were busy.

The mitigation is to make the sales layer independent and automated before the project starts. LeadLocate runs without any DMS integration and without an inventory feed, which is deliberate and which matters enormously here. Lead routing rules keep working. Automations send the first response within seconds of a lead landing. Follow up processes and drip campaigns carry the cadence. AutoMail answers inbound calls with an IVR and routing. Desking runs on its own engine, covering loan and lease with a fifty state tax matrix, semimonthly frequency and trade credit caps, so a store mid conversion is not waiting on a back office system to quote a payment.

Do this in the quarter before the conversion, not during it. A sales layer that is already stable and already automated is the cheapest insurance available on a project of this size. There is more on the sales department view in the sales department switching checklist.

Stay where you are if: your franchise reporting and OEM programs flow automatically and are worth real money; parts and service are running well and your staff are fluent; a large integration ecosystem currently writes into the platform and is working; your forms and document workflow is standardized and compliant; or the trigger for looking was a single price increase you have not yet tried to negotiate.

Look seriously at moving if: you are a single point or small independent operation paying for enterprise depth you do not use; your total cost has grown well past what the store gets back and a renewal conversation went nowhere; integration fees are actively preventing you from adopting tools you want; your group has standardized elsewhere; or you are consolidating rooftops and the platform cannot follow.

And regardless of which way you go, treat the sales and lead layer as a separate decision. It has a much shorter payback period, it does not require a conversion, and it is the one area where a store can improve results this month rather than next year. Our Reynolds alternative page covers that split in more detail.

Take this list into every demo. The answers separate vendors faster than a feature grid.

What is the total monthly cost with every module we actually need, and what is it at renewal. What is the term, the notice period and the cancellation process. Exactly what data can we export if we leave, in what format, does it include communication history, and what does the extraction cost. Who owns the customer data. What does the integration cost for a third party vendor to read or write, and who certifies it. How long is implementation and what does the store have to supply. What does support look like at 6pm on a Saturday.

Write the answers down. Vendors comfortable being pinned down in writing tend to be the ones still worth having in year three.

Our own answers, for the layer we sell: CRM Only is $199 a month. Inbound buyer leads start at $799 with exclusive delivery inside a territory you define. Marketplace Acquisitions covers opt in seller leads from local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request, from $999. The Buyers and Sellers Hybrid Plan is $1,599. Month to month, no long term contract, US only, and no DMS integration or inventory feed required. We cannot guarantee results, and any vendor who does is selling something other than software. Figures are on the pricing page, or call 844-376-2274.

Does LeadLocate replace Reynolds and Reynolds?

No. We are not a dealer management system and do not sell one. There is no accounting, parts, service, title or OEM reporting capability. We replace or supplement the CRM, communication, desking and lead generation layer that sits beside a DMS.

Can we change our CRM and lead tools without converting the whole platform?

Yes, and for many stores that is the better first move. The platform runs without a DMS integration or an inventory feed, so the sales layer can change on its own timeline with a much shorter payback than a full conversion.

How long does a DMS conversion take?

Plan in months rather than weeks, with a cutover at a month end and a parallel period afterward. The controller's time is the real constraint, followed by training every department close enough to go live that people remember it.

What is the most commonly underestimated task?

Mapping the chart of accounts, followed by the integration inventory and the forms and document changeover. Getting the account mapping wrong means a year of financial statements that will not compare cleanly.

How do we stop sales slipping during the conversion?

Stabilize and automate the sales layer in the quarter before the project starts. Rule based routing, instant automated first response, follow up processes and an IVR keep the floor running while management attention is consumed by the back office.

Will you tell us whether to leave Reynolds?

No, and be wary of anyone who will. We sell nothing that competes with a DMS, so we have no opinion to sell. Verify current capability, pricing and terms with the vendor, and read your termination clause before doing anything else.

See lead routing, instant response, follow up cadences and desking running independently of any DMS. Month to month, no long term contract.