In this guide
Verifying Vehicle Stock Against Lender Records
A floor-plan audit verifies vehicles one by one against the list the financier has funded, matching chassis and engine numbers to the funded schedule rather than counting units on a forecourt. The identity check is the whole exercise, because a unit count proves nothing when each vehicle is separately financed. What the lender is protecting against is specific and well understood in the trade: a vehicle sold to a customer and delivered while the funding against it remains outstanding, so the financier is carrying an advance against an asset that left the premises. Vehicles moved between branches to be present at two audits, demonstration units treated as stock, and units at a body shop or awaiting registration all create the same exposure. The audit reports each funded unit as sighted, sighted elsewhere, or not sighted, with the location and the odometer where relevant, and the aggregate value of anything unaccounted for.
How Floor-Plan Funding Works
Floor-plan funding finances a dealer's vehicle stock unit by unit rather than as a working capital limit against an aggregate. The financier pays the manufacturer for a specific vehicle, identified by chassis and engine number, and holds an advance against that unit until it is settled. Each vehicle on the forecourt therefore has its own outstanding balance, its own funding date, and its own place on a schedule the financier maintains. Release against payment is the mechanism that closes each advance. When the dealer sells a vehicle, the proceeds are used to settle the advance on that specific unit and the financier releases its interest, so the funded schedule shrinks by exactly that vehicle. The discipline depends entirely on the settlement following the sale promptly. Why the lender needs physical confirmation is a direct consequence of the structure. The security is a set of identifiable assets that can each be sold in an afternoon, held on premises the financier does not control, by a dealer whose cash flow depends on turning them over. Nothing in the paperwork establishes that any particular funded unit is still there, and only somebody standing on the forecourt reading a chassis number can.
Units Sold but Not Settled
The exposure the whole exercise exists to detect is a vehicle that has been sold and delivered while the advance against it remains outstanding. It arises without anybody necessarily intending fraud: a sale completes, the customer takes the vehicle, the proceeds are absorbed into working capital, and the settlement to the financier is made a few days later than it should be. Repeated across many units, or extended in time, the dealer is financing its own operations with money that belongs to the lender's security. How it shows up at a count is straightforward and unmistakable. The funded schedule lists a unit; the unit is not on the premises; and the explanation offered is that it was sold. The delivery documentation and the registration record then establish when it actually left, and the gap between that date and the settlement date is the exposure. A pattern of such gaps across several units is a considerably more serious finding than any single one. Why surprise timing matters is that a scheduled count allows units to be brought back, transferred temporarily from another branch, or held for a day, and any of those makes the schedule appear complete when it is not.
Unit-Level Verification on the Forecourt
The work is identity checking rather than counting, and the distinction governs everything about how it is done. Chassis and engine number verification means reading the numbers from the vehicle itself and matching them to the funded schedule, one unit at a time. A count of vehicles present agreeing to a count of vehicles funded proves nothing, because the units present may not be the units funded, and substitution between branches is exactly the behaviour the check exists to find. Units off site are ordinary and each needs its own treatment. Demonstration vehicles, units out on a test drive, vehicles at a workshop for accessory fitting or rectification, and units awaiting registration are all legitimately absent, and each is verified from a document rather than from sight. The exposure is not the absence but the absence of an explanation. Documentation for each absent unit is what the report turns on. A demonstration register entry, a job card, a transfer note or a registration receipt naming the specific chassis number resolves the item; a verbal explanation does not, and the report records it as unresolved with the outstanding advance stated beside it.
Evidence the Lender Requires
The deliverable is a reconciliation rather than a count sheet. Every unit on the funded schedule is accounted for individually, matched by chassis and engine number to a vehicle physically sighted, and the schedule is returned marked unit by unit rather than summarised. A total agreeing to the schedule while individual units do not match tells the financier nothing, because each unit carries its own advance. Exceptions are the substance of the report. A unit not sighted at the premises is stated with the explanation offered and whatever support exists for it: a delivery note showing the unit went to a customer, a transfer note showing it moved to another branch, a job card showing it is at a body shop, or a registration receipt showing it is with the authority. An explanation without a document is recorded as an explanation, not as a resolution. Photographic evidence supports the sighting, showing the vehicle with its identification visible, and the count date is stated prominently, because a floor-plan position is valid only for the moment it was taken and every party knows it.
Preparing for a Floor-Plan Count
Certain records have to be current continuously, because a floor-plan count arrives without notice by design. The funded schedule reconciled to your own stock record, the delivery documentation for every unit that has left, the transfer notes for units moved between branches, and the job cards for units at a body shop all need to be complete on any given day rather than assembled on request. A dealership that can produce those four accounts for its position in an hour; one that cannot spends the day explaining. Manage units legitimately off site deliberately. Demonstration vehicles, units awaiting registration, units at a workshop and units on a test drive are all ordinary, and each is verifiable if there is a document saying where it is and why. The exposure is not the absence of the unit but the absence of the document. Expect the count to be unannounced and stop treating that as adversarial. The financier is protecting an advance against assets that can be sold in a morning, and continuous readiness is simply the cost of the facility. Auto component audit work applies the same unit-level discipline.
