Press Sold on a car and the invoice is raised, the part-exchange is recorded and your VAT margin scheme stock book is written — without leaving your website admin. Included in the £79 plan.
The invoice form opens with the car, reg and price already filled in from your stock
2
Add the buyer, extras and part-exchange
Warranty, admin fee, deposit paid. Look the part-ex up on DVLA, enter the allowance, say whether it is going on the forecourt
3
Raise it
A branded PDF with your numbering and terms. The sale goes into the stock book, the part-ex goes into stock with its buy-in price, the car comes off your website and off Google
INVOICE INV-0142Regent Street Automotive · 14 August 2026
VAT Margin SchemeSold to: J. Patel
2019 Ford Focus 1.0 EcoBoost Titanium · YK19 XPL£11,495.00
This is a second-hand margin scheme supply. Input tax deduction cannot be claimed by the purchaser.
What it does
The paperwork an independent dealer actually does every week
Not a finance desk or a workshop system — the sales, purchase and stock-book side, done properly and done once. Everything is a PDF you can print, email or hand to your accountant, and everything is kept so you never rebuild a record from an email.
Sales invoices
Your logo, your numbering, your terms. Extras as separate lines, deposits deducted, the balance due worked out. Margin scheme, standard VAT or not VAT registered — the wording and totals change to suit.
Part-exchange built in
DVLA lookup on the reg, the allowance comes off the invoice, and one click decides whether the car goes on your forecourt with the allowance as its buy-in price, or is recorded as gone to trade or auction.
Buy-in receipts
Buying from a private seller? Type the reg, DVLA fills the vehicle, you add the seller and price. It prints with the seller's declaration and two signature lines — the purchase invoice HMRC expects under the margin scheme.
Stock book
Every car, what it cost, what it sold for, margin, VAT due and days in stock. Filter by tax year or any dates, print it, or export a CSV your accountant can open.
VAT margin scheme, done right
No VAT line on the invoice, the required HMRC wording, and VAT due calculated per car as one sixth of a positive margin — losses never offset gains, exactly as the rules say.
Buy-in checks from DVLA
Before you pay, see MOT and tax status, when the V5C was last issued, whether the car is marked for export or was imported, and a prompt for what to check on the car itself and when to run an HPI check.
The stock book
The page your accountant asks for in April
Written for you from your invoices and receipts. Defaults to the current tax year, one click to print or export.
Reg
Vehicle
In
Out
Days
Cost
Sold
Margin
VAT due
MOT
YK19 XPL
Ford Focus 1.0 Titanium
02 Jul
14 Aug
43
£8,900
£11,495
£2,595
£432.50
—
FD12 HNR
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXi
14 Aug
21
£1,500
47 days
LR66 TVW
Nissan Qashqai 1.5 dCi
19 Jul
27 Aug
39
£9,750
£9,495
−£255
£0.00
—
BJ68 OPM
VW Polo 1.0 TSI Match
28 Aug
7
£7,200
Feb 2027
Tax year 2026/27 · 2 sold · 2 in stock
£27,350
£20,990
£2,340
£432.50
Illustrative figures. VAT due is one sixth of each positive margin; the Qashqai loss does not reduce the Focus VAT.
Making Tax Digital
Digital records, as you sell
From April 2026, sole traders with income over £50,000 must keep digital records and send HMRC quarterly updates under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax; VAT-registered businesses have had to for years. The hard part is not the filing — your accountant or any MTD-recognised package does that — it is having every sale and purchase recorded digitally at the time, not reconstructed from a drawer of receipts in March. That is what the stock book is: one CSV export and the quarter is accounted for.
What it is not — said plainly
This is not a full dealer management system and we do not sell it as one. It is the half an independent dealer uses every week. It does not do:
Lender integration — your car pages already show a monthly figure at your APR with an Apply button to your own broker, but the proposal itself is written on the lender's system, not ours
Workshop job cards or parts
A full nominal ledger or bank reconciliation — your accounting software or accountant does that from the export
If those are daily needs, a UK DMS such as Dragon2000, Click Dealer or MotorDesk is the right buy, and a CarDealerCMS website runs happily alongside one. More on that: Is CarDealerCMS a DMS?
FAQ
Invoicing and stock book questions
Yes. Sales invoices, part-exchange allowances, deposits, extras such as warranties and admin fees, and a buy-in receipt (purchase invoice) for every car you buy. Each one is a branded PDF with your logo, numbering and terms, and every sale and purchase is recorded in your stock book automatically. It is included in the £79 plan.
Yes. Choose VAT Margin Scheme in your invoice settings and sales invoices print with a single total, no VAT line and the HMRC margin-scheme wording. Your stock book works out the VAT due as one sixth of the margin on each car sold at a profit, with no offset for cars sold at a loss, which is how HMRC requires it.
If you use the margin scheme, yes. HMRC expects a purchase invoice for every car, and when the seller is a private individual the dealer makes it out and both parties sign. CarDealerCMS produces one from the registration: DVLA fills in the vehicle, you add the seller and the price, and it prints with a seller declaration and two signature lines.
A stock book records every vehicle you buy and sell: what it cost, when it came in, what it sold for, the margin and the VAT due. Under the margin scheme it is a legal requirement, and every dealer's accountant wants one anyway. CarDealerCMS keeps it for you from your invoices and lets you print it or export it as a CSV for any tax year or date range.
It keeps the digital sales and purchase records that Making Tax Digital requires and exports them as a CSV. The quarterly submission itself is made through MTD-recognised accounting software or by your accountant. From April 2026 sole traders and landlords with income over £50,000 must keep digital records and file quarterly, so having every car recorded digitally as you sell it is the part that matters.
No. It is the sales, purchase and stock-book side that an independent dealer uses every week. Finance is covered on the website side: every car page shows a monthly figure at your APR with an Apply button through to your own broker or lender. What it does not do is lender integration (writing the proposal inside the system), workshop job cards or a full nominal ledger. If you need those, buy a UK DMS such as Dragon2000 or MotorDesk and keep your website with us.
No. Sales and invoicing is part of the one £79 a month plan, switched off by default so it never gets in the way if you do not want it. There is no per-invoice charge and no higher tier.
Stop paying for a DMS you open twice a month
Website, stock, marketplace listing and the invoicing that goes with it — one plan, £79 a month, switch invoicing on when you want it.