Glossary
Stocking Loan / Stocking Plan
A stocking loan (or stocking plan) is finance a dealer uses to fund the vehicles on its forecourt, repaying the lender as each vehicle sells.
Buying a forecourt of vehicles outright would tie up huge amounts of cash, so most dealers use stocking finance instead — a lender funds the vehicle, and the dealer repays that specific loan when the vehicle sells.
Why dealers track it closely
- Every vehicle on stocking finance accrues interest the longer it sits unsold
- A vehicle must be settled with the lender before it can be sold and released to a customer
- Stock ageing and stocking costs are directly linked — slow-moving stock is expensive stock
Where this fits in a DMS
A DMS that tracks which lender is funding which vehicle, and flags settlement figures automatically, removes a manual reconciliation step that is otherwise easy to get wrong at the point of sale.
Related terms