Run the whole dealership from one screen.
TruFlow Premium is your DMS — stock, leads, deals, documents, finance and your website, in one place. This guide walks every screen, in the order a dealer actually works: get a car listed, then win the deal, then know your money. It runs on desktop and tablet; your phone gets the companion app.
Stock → website
A new arrival goes from the floor to live on your showroom site.
- Add vehicle
- →
- Shoot in TruLens
- →
- Web-ready
- →
- Publish
Lead → sold
An enquiry becomes a signed, compliant, closed deal.
- Lead
- →
- Negotiating
- →
- Deal Readiness
- →
- DocHub
- →
- Sold
The top bar has a Guides button — it opens the “How do I…?” panel, a set of short job walkthroughs tuned to the screen you're on (the main one is badged Start here). It can print itself or Save-as-PDF, and if a written step isn't enough it hands off to Ask Dealer Assist. This document is the deep version of the same thing.
00 · Before you start
Where it runs & who it's for
TruFlow Premium is the full DMS, built for a desktop or tablet — that's where you'll run stock, leads, deals and the books. Open a phone browser to it and it sends you to the companion app instead.
https://premium.tru-saas.com in any modern browser. The deep workflows — Deal Readiness and Documents (DocHub) — need the room a desktop or tablet gives, so they're desktop/tablet jobs.app.tru-saas.com — see TruFlow on your phone.01 · Get in
Sign in
One field, no password. The splash reads “Dealer management — stock, leads, F&I and reporting.”
- Enter your access code
Type it into Dealership access code (“Enter your code”). Tap the eye to reveal it; a note warns if Caps Lock is on.
- Choose whether to stay signed in
Tick Keep me signed in on this device on your own machine; leave it off on a shared one.
- Tap “Enter”
It shows Checking…, then lands you on your Overview. If it says “Sign-in failed. Try again,” the code is wrong or not set up — check with your dealer principal.
02 · The lay of the land
The workspace
A fixed sidebar on the left, a top bar across the top, and the screen you're working in filling the rest. The sidebar is grouped by what you're trying to do.
The sidebar
| Group | Screens |
|---|---|
| Showroom Floor | Overview · All Vehicles · Add vehicle · Bulk Import |
| Operations & CRM | Lead CRM · Clients · Tasks · Showroom Diary · Stock health · Finance & Recon |
| Deals & Finance | Deal Readiness · Documents · Repayment calculator |
| Media & Web | Web Management |
| Dealer Settings | Team & Users · Settings |
Sidebar items carry an attention badge when something needs you — a count on Lead CRM for unanswered replies, on Tasks for overdue items, and on All Vehicles for cars blocked on photos. At the bottom sit Support (WhatsApp) and Log out.
The top bar
Salespeople don't see Stock health, Team & Users or Settings, and cost-price columns stay hidden for them. Managers and owners see everything. If a screen named here isn't in your sidebar, that's your role — ask a manager.
03 · Your morning read
Dashboard (Overview)
The landing screen — “Dealership overview” — is a triage board. Read it top to bottom and you know what needs you before you've touched a menu. New inventory at the top jumps straight to Add vehicle.
The five numbers
Each tile carries a one-line read underneath — “oldest {wait}” or “all clear,” “{n} late” or “on track,” “{n} aged” or “fresh,” “{pct}% moved,” “{n} deals.” They're your priorities in five glances.
Below the numbers
- Today's activity — counters for test drives, visits, trade-ins and new leads; click any to jump to it.
- Leads — the newest enquiries with Open Pipelines and a Review File on each row.
- Recent Showroom Inventory — latest units with age (60+ days flagged amber) and View Database.
- Web readiness — either “all cars have galleries” or counters for not online, no photos, short and ready, with Manage into Web Management.
04 · Journey A
Stock & inventory
Everything about the cars on your floor: create them, shoot them, get them web-ready, publish them, and sell them. Photos are never captured here — they're shot in TruLens and flow back automatically.
Add a vehicle
- Pick a showroom category
On Add vehicle, leave Auto — decide from price & model and your website guesses the tier, or set Premium Used / Premium Select / Premium Performance to override.
- Fill the specs and price
Complete the Showroom Vehicle Specifications (year, make, model, trim, engine, transmission, fuel, body), then Retail Price (ZAR), Cost Price (ZAR), Mileage (km) and a Stock Number. The stock number is how the car is matched everywhere else — get it right.
- Publish to Active Stock
Tap Publish to Active Stock and the unit lands on the floor. If you run TruLens, it offers to open TruLens to shoot this stock number now — photos come from there via Export to DMS and appear against the car automatically.
Bulk Import takes a CSV — “switch from VMG, an AutoTrader export, or your own spreadsheet.” Drop the file, map the columns, done.
The vehicle list
Filter the floor by status (All In stock Sold Archived), by photos (All Needs shoot Partial Web-ready) and by age (Any 30+ 60+ 90+). Each row has a Web toggle to publish/unpublish, a status badge, and quick actions. The toolbar's Export stock list CSV downloads TruFlow_Stock_List_{date}.csv — a snapshot of right now, for the bank, an audit or a buyer.
Open a car — the vehicle detail
Click any car for its detail, with tabs specs recon publish docs extras. Here you'll find:
Get a car web-ready
All Vehicles carries the gallery work: photo filter chips — Needs shoot, Partial, Web-ready — and a camera button per row that opens TruLens for that stock number. Complete the guided slots, Export to DMS, then refresh — the readiness chip turns green. The dashboard's Web readiness card keeps the counters. Your public stock feed lives at /api/public/stock?dealer=your-slug — that is exactly what your website receives. Web Management — reachable from that card's Manage button — is the power-user grid: inline-edit every field and flip Online per row, changes saving as you go.
Sell it, or pull it back
The public stock feed is a live API — publish or unpublish a car and it reflects immediately, no export step. Your dealer website already reads it; aggregators or your own tools can call the same URL and get JSON with every published vehicle, photos included.
05 · Journey B begins
Leads & CRM
Every enquiry, in one pipeline, with the next step never more than a click away. The header tells you where you stand: “{n} overdue · {n} due today · {n} open.”
The pipeline
Switch between Board (kanban) and List. The stages run:
Cards show an intent badge — Hot (≥80), Warm (≥50), Cold — the linked car, the source, and the next step (with a ● when overdue). WA opens WhatsApp; Done marks contacted and sets the next step. Auto-assign new shares fresh leads out to the team.
Work a lead
- Open the Customer File
Review opens the lead — “Customer File — {name}” — with tabs Overview, Digital Journey Tracker, Automated Dispatches, Comms Timeline, Tasks & Follow-up, Deal Sheet, Readiness, and (on desktop) Compliance.
- Reply and log the next step
Use the composer — Send template, pick how to Send by, or draft a reply with AI — then Dispatch Outbound Message. Log a call or WhatsApp with an outcome (Connected No Answer Voicemail) so the timeline stays honest.
- Move the stage
Set the status and Save Status Changes. Anything past its next-action date shows as due on the dashboard so nothing goes quiet.
Add a lead by hand
New lead captures First/Last name, Phone, Email, the vehicle, an Ad Source (Website Form / Walk-in Showroom / Facebook Lead Gen / AutoTrader) and requirement notes, then Commit Lead File. There's also a public “Dealership Enquiry” form for remote capture.
Showroom Diary
Showroom Diary is your bookings calendar — test drives, viewings and trade-in appraisals, including bookings that come off your website. Summary tiles show Today / Upcoming / Completed / No-Shows. Booking a test drive can push its lead to Test Drive Scheduled; completing one moves it to Negotiating — which is exactly when the deal appears in Deal Readiness.
Assist (top bar) opens Dealer Assist: “Ask me what to chase, what a unit should be priced at, or what's sitting too long.” It can see your stock and leads — try “What's over 60 days?” or “How many new leads this week?”
06 · Journey B · close it Desktop / tablet
Deals & documents
Once a lead reaches Negotiating, the deal shows up here. Two linked screens carry it home: Deal Readiness (the checklist) and Documents / DocHub (the paperwork). Both are desktop/tablet jobs.
Deal Readiness
A deal lands on Deal Readiness the moment its lead hits Negotiating. Work the checklist and watch the progress bar fill:
Set the Finance state alongside it — N/A Submitted Approved Declined. A thin five-segment strip shows the DocHub stages, with Open Compliance Hub to jump in. An amber triangle next to an item means the checklist and the paperwork disagree — e.g. “Compliance is signed off, but NATIS is un-ticked” — open DocHub to resolve it.
Documents — the DocHub
The document pipeline runs five stages, in order:
- Work each stage
For each stage, Generate the document, Upload a signed copy, Export CSV (or Send to accounting if you've connected a package), or Skip with a reason (logged in the audit trail). The Invoice stage can Issue via Imagin8. Compliance is tick-box only — check NATIS in hand and Roadworthy certificate on file, then Confirm compliance.
- Sign & finalise
Tap Sign & finalise, then Type name or Draw the signature and Confirm & finalise. If it blocks you, a required field is missing — a proforma needs the VIN and price breakdown, for example — the amber “required” list tells you exactly what to fill.
- Finish the deal
Advance all five stages. When Handover is done the deal reads Complete — handed over {date} and drops off the active Documents list.
When the car is finally Mark sold, its deal closes as Closed Won and it comes off the website in the same tap. The paperwork you did here is what makes that clean — and what an audit will want to see.
07 · Know your money
Finance, recon & stock health
Three tools tell you where the money is: a live Repayment calculator to quote a buyer, Finance & Recon for the books, and Stock health for the capital tied up on your floor.
Repayment calculator
Model a finance deal on the spot — it's seeded with a car's price so you can start fast. Set:
The Monthly Installment updates live, with Net Principal Aggregate Interest Balloon Value Lifetime Total Cost beside it. Nothing to save — it's a working calculator.
Finance & Recon
The ledger, in five tabs: Profit & Loss (Sales Revenue, Cost of Sales, Gross Profit, Operating Expenses, Net Income — with a Log Expense form), Deal Profit (deals closed, 1st and total gross), Stock Aging (units, avg days, floor value, over-60), Reconditioning (per-vehicle recon tasks and totals) and Floor Plan (exposure and interest at your floor-plan rate). If you've connected accounting, reconciled expenses and signed invoices flow to your books.
Stock health Manager / owner
The one screen that answers “what is my stock costing me?” Four headline numbers:
Ageing bars split your capital across bands (Under 30 / 31–60 / 61–90 / Over 90 days), and the Oldest stock first table lists units worst-first — click a row to open the car and act (reprice, push on social, or move it). Aged stock is the cheapest margin you'll ever recover.
Commission & accounting
The Commission estimate (on the Team screen) projects the sales pool from closed-deal margins under three models — Flat % Volume-Based Margin-Tiered. To keep the books current, Settings lets you turn on Accounting and connect Xero QuickBooks Zoho Books via a secure popup, so the DocHub Invoice stage pushes straight through instead of exporting a CSV.
08 · Get it seen
Media, web & TruSocial
Your website reads TruFlow directly, and — with TruSocial switched on — a car can go to your social channels from its own page.
Post a car to social & marketplace
- Open the car's Social & Share tab
Every vehicle in your stock includes a dedicated Social & Share command hub. It instantly generates tailored copy and hashtags for 6 major platforms: Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Page, Instagram, WhatsApp Status, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile.
- 1-Click Copy & Deep-Link
Tap Copy to copy the tailored text with compliant specs and pricing, then tap the platform button to launch straight into that composer. For Facebook Marketplace, tap Download 8-Photo Pack to get your studio photos instantly ready to drag and drop.
- Zero token expiry
No fragile third-party OAuth connections or expired API keys — you publish with 100% native platform fidelity and zero middleman friction.
You can also share straight from your dealer website: open the car and tap Share for WhatsApp, Facebook, Copy link, or your device's full share sheet. It shares the car's live listing page, so the buyer lands on the real thing.
09 · Your people Manager / owner
Team & Users
Give each salesperson or manager their own login, scoped to your dealership. The screen shows everyone with access and, per person, a way to reissue or revoke.
- Add staff
Add staff opens the form. Note it adds a billable seat.
- Enter their details
Full Name, E-mail Address, Account Role (Salesperson or Manager) and Contact Number, then Add & issue code. They'll only ever see this dealership's stock and leads.
- Hand over the code
Copy the one-time access code and give it to them — it won't be shown again. Tap Done. Later, New code rotates it and Remove access revokes it (Restore brings them back).
10 · Set it up once Manager / owner
Settings & branding
What Settings holds is what makes your documents and listings look like you. Fill it once and everything downstream inherits it.
INV-0001), ownership & warranty clauses and a footer note — the content baked into generated documents.Beyond the core DMS, your dealership can have TruLens (capture), TruInspect (condition reports), TruSocial (social posting), TruLive / TruValue and the TruFlow Mobile companion switched on. Which you have is set for your dealership — features you don't have simply won't show.
11 · Off the desk
TruFlow on your phone
Premium lives on desktop and tablet — but there's a phone app that goes where you go.
Open app.tru-saas.com on your phone and sign in with the same dealer code. Add it to your home screen (Share → Add to Home Screen on iOS, or the install banner on Android) and it runs full-screen like a native app. Leads, stock, walk-in adds and activity all sync both ways with your desktop Premium.
This document covers Premium on desktop/tablet. The phone app has its own walkthrough in progress — ask your TruSaaS contact for the TruFlow Mobile guide.
12 · When you're stuck
Getting help
Three levels, closest first — none of them leave TruFlow.
Beyond those, the sidebar's Support button opens WhatsApp to a human. And most screens carry a small Desktop / tablet hint where a job genuinely needs the bigger screen — if a deal or its documents look thin on a small tablet, that's why.
Work the two journeys and everything else falls into place: get the car listed (Stock → TruLens → Web), then close the deal (Lead → Negotiating → Deal Readiness → DocHub → Sold). The money screens read themselves once those two are flowing.