Your true acquisition cost — what belongs in it
The price on the auction sheet, or the check to a private seller, is only the start of what a car costs you. Buyer's fees, transport, an inspection, a missing key cut and programmed — each is paid from a different place on a different day, and the ones that never make it back to the car quietly shrink the margin on it.
The short version: a vehicle's acquisition cost is everything you spent to get it onto your lot in the condition you bought it. Record each cost against the car the day you pay it, and your recon and pricing decisions start from the real number instead of the hammer price.
The full piece — where acquisition cost ends and reconditioning begins, how to handle costs that arrive after the car does, and how to split the cost of cars bought together — is still being written. Check back soon, or tell us what you'd want covered first.
In GARAGEBIRDS: Cost tracking with true profit per vehicle (Free plan).