Counter sales on a customer's Automotive pack record

How parts bought at a dealer's counter reach a customer's record in the Automotive pack, and what a service adviser can look up before that link is on.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Automotive businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.

A regular customer walks up to the parts counter with a failed alternator in a carrier bag. "You sold me this," he says. The service adviser believes him, but where is the proof? The workshop's job history for his vehicle is on one side of the business; the counter, where he bought the part himself and fitted it at home, is on the other.

Dealerships live with this split every day. The Automotive pack in Achekam's Industry CRM keeps the workshop side on the customer's record, and its fourth wave brings the counter's sales onto the same timeline. This article explains how the two halves come together and what to do in the meantime so the adviser at the counter is never guessing.

Two places a customer spends money

A dealership customer can pay you in two quite different ways:

• At the workshop, where a service job is opened, worked on and invoiced.
• At the counter, where parts and accessories are rung up at the till and paid on the spot.

The till belongs to the Point of Sale add-on. A business that holds it rings up counter sales under Commerce & POS, and a business without it neither sees the till nor can use it. The Automotive pack does not replace the till; it is a CRM for the dealership's customers, built around vehicle sales with trade-ins, workshop service jobs with parts and labour, and test drives.

What the pack keeps on a service job

The workshop half is already well covered. A service job in the pack checks the vehicle in, has the customer sign the job card authorisation electronically, records the parts and labour used, and then either invoices the job card or claims the cost from the warranty or plan provider.

All of that sits on the customer's record, so an adviser opening the record sees every visit: what came in, what was signed, what was fitted and how it was paid for. For the full flow from booking in to collection, see the service job card in the Automotive pack.

Linking till sales to the customer's timeline

The fourth wave of the Industry CRM links till sales to the customer's timeline. Once it is on, a sale rung up at the counter for a known customer appears on that customer's record beside their service jobs and vehicle purchases. The alternator in the carrier bag stops being a matter of memory: the adviser opens the record and finds the counter sale, its date and what was paid.

The same wave also turns low stock into a reorder task and adds dashboards read from the ledger, so the parts manager sees the counter and the workshop drawing on the same shelves.

Till sales still post the same journals

Bringing a sale onto the timeline is about seeing it, not about how it is booked. The till keeps doing what it does today: every sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step, with the payment method to its own account, revenue, output VAT, and cost of sales against inventory at the part's cost price.

That matters for your accountant. Nothing about the monthly figures changes because the CRM can now show a counter sale on a customer's page.

What a service adviser can look up meanwhile

Until the link is switched on, a few habits give the counter most of the same reach:

1. E-mail the receipt. The till receipt is a PDF made by the server from the posted sale, showing every payment, VAT by rate and your tax number. E-mailing it to the customer gives both of you a dated copy that can be searched for by name.
2. Use account sales for trade and fleet customers. A till sale can be charged to a trade customer's account, which writes a receivables invoice under that customer's name and checks the account's hold and credit limit unless a supervisor or manager overrides it with a reason. Trade customers are created on the Wholesale screen, which needs the Wholesale add-on. Those sales then appear on the customer's statement of account, which the server produces as a PDF.
3. File what matters. For a part with a long warranty, save the receipt into a Documents folder for that customer and tag it with the vehicle's registration number.
4. Write the receipt number on the job card. If a customer brings in a part they bought at your counter for the workshop to fit, note the counter receipt number on the job. The two records then point at each other.

Why the history is worth keeping

A counter sale can come back as a warranty claim long after the customer has forgotten when they bought it. In South Africa, the Consumer Protection Act gives a consumer an implied warranty of quality on goods, and the Acts Online text of section 56 sets out the right to return defective goods within six months for repair, replacement or a refund. Nigerian and Kenyan dealers face their own consumer rules and their suppliers' warranty terms, and the same point applies: the date of sale decides the answer.

Before the link arrives

Pick the two or three habits above that fit your counter and make them routine now, so the history is already there when the timeline starts collecting counter sales by itself. If you also sell vehicles, the vehicle sale pipeline shows how those deals sit on the same customer record, and parts on workshop invoices explains why parts are best sold through the till rather than typed onto an invoice.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.