Midwest auto dealer accounting and financial services firm Brady Ware Dealership Advisors wants to help dealerships with more than their accounting functions.

Brady Ware is launching a new business model that includes providing consulting services to help dealers focus on being more tax-efficient. The company says that will help safeguard dealership assets and help dealerships with succession.

Brady Ware director Sam Agresti said dealerships see several high-expense areas that make measuring return on investment challenging for management.

“From a CPA’s viewpoint, it’s necessary to understand and control these expenses,” Agresti said in a news release.

In response, he added, the company is changing how it approaches its relationship with dealerships.

“As we review the numbers monthly, quarterly or annually for our dealership partners, we’re now able to pinpoint inefficiencies and provide strategic solutions to address those areas and increase profitability,” Agresti said.

Some of the new services focus on fixed and variable operations enhancement, fraud and safeguarding assets, employee placement services, warranty reimbursement and digital marketing. To provide those services, Brady Ware has put together a team with extensive experience within dealerships and from consulting firms and support services with a focus on dealerships. 

The company, which serves more than 80 dealerships throughout the Midwest and Georgia from offices in Ohio, Indiana and Georgia, says its new services are designed to improve processes and procedures in different departments. Many of those services are in response to evolving technologies and business practices.

For example, other than labor, digital marketing and advertising are one of the largest monthly expenditures, but for many dealerships, they are challenging to measure.

“The way people buy cars is very different today than it was 10 years ago,” Brady Ware digital marketing consultant Justin Ward said.  “By the time a person hits the lot, they’ve done their research, picked out their car, and are likely just coming in to pick it up. They know it’s a necessary evil but don’t have a full understanding of what their dollars are buying and how that translates to ROI.  That’s where we come in, and our approach as part of Brady Ware is coming from a very analytical and finance-forward place in the interest of improving their bottom line.”

“For more than 30 years, I’ve crunched numbers for automotive groups and, from where I’m sitting, the math is the easy part,” said Sean McCarthy, who recently merged his practice with Brady Ware to offer CFO-level services to dealership partners.

“But you can’t manage what you can’t measure. This team allows us to measure every aspect of the dealership business and create solutions that help them fill a need, grow their operation and best position them for the future.”