Strengthen Your Cyber Defences in 2026 | 

Every dealership requires uninterrupted access to data and IT systems for virtually every part of their operation—stock control, sales, service bookings, payroll, financial reporting, customer communication, and compliance. This dependence means even a short outage can cascade into lost revenue, reputational damage, and major business disruption. Even fines.

With cyberattacks becoming more frequent, more sophisticated, and more automated, every dealership—large or small—needs a clear, layered protection strategy. The goal isn’t to eliminate risk (that’s impossible) but to harden the business enough that incidents are detected early, damage is minimised, and recovery is fast and predictable.

Below are the most important defence measures every dealership should prioritise in 2026.

1. Treat data loss as a business risk, not an IT problem.

Many dealerships assume their backups will work when disaster strikes—right up until they need them. Incomplete or corrupted backups are far more common than most people realise. A proper backup strategy should include:

• Hourly on-site backups of your entire server environment
• Daily encrypted off-site backups stored for months or years
• Automated monitoring so failed backups are detected and fixed early

This approach eliminates risky, outdated habits like relying on USB drives or staff-driven manual routines. It also ensures business continuity: if a server fails, or even if the dealership is hit by fire, flood, or ransomware, operations can be restored to a remote environment within hours—not weeks.

2. Most attacks happen after hours. Plan for that.

Attackers don’t work business hours. In fact, most serious incidents occur late at night or on weekends, when no one is watching. By Monday morning, the damage is often done—encrypted data, compromised credentials, or systems already offline.

That’s why 24/7 threat monitoring and response is becoming essential. Modern Managed Detection & Response (MDR) services combine AI-driven threat detection with real human analysts who watch your network day and night. They investigate anomalies, contain active threats, and neutralise attacks within minutes.

This constant vigilance closes the dangerous gap between an attack starting and someone discovering it. For dealerships, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to strengthen their security posture.

3. Strengthen your defences against human error.

While cyberattacks make headlines, the biggest cause of system compromise is still staff behaviour: clicking malicious links, opening unsafe attachments, visiting compromised sites, or assuming backups “just work.”

Dealers can reduce this risk dramatically with:

• Email filtering that blocks ransomware and phishing before staff even see it
• Least-privilege access, so users only access the data they genuinely need
• Automated backups, removing the need for staff involvement
• Continuous monitoring, where experts review suspicious activity immediately

Training staff is important, but layered protection turns mistakes into manageable events instead of full-blown crises.

4. Build operational redundancy into your disaster plan.

Dealerships often underestimate the operational chaos caused by a system outage. Without access to your DMS and supporting systems, you lose the ability to:

• Write deals
• Check stock or parts pricing
• View service histories
• Process payments
• Schedule work
• Run end-of-day or end-of-month actions
• Communicate with customers

A good redundancy plan includes at least one encrypted off-site backup location, clear retention policies, and the ability to spin up temporary cloud-based systems if the dealership is physically impacted. This ensures you can keep working while waiting for replacement hardware or repairs.

Running a restoration test once a year is also crucial—it’s the only way to confirm your recovery plan actually works.

5. Monitor the entire IT environment, not just servers.

Threats don’t always enter through the obvious door. They can originate from:

• Workstations
• Remote access tools
• Third-party integrations
• Outdated operating systems
• Poorly configured firewalls

Continuous network-wide monitoring ensures threats are identified wherever they appear, rather than relying on point solutions that only protect individual machines. Combined with robust backup practices, this gives dealerships a strong defence against both opportunistic and targeted attacks.

Delivering Real Gains for Dealers | 

To remain competitive, dealer management systems must not only support daily workflows but actively enhance them—reducing friction, improving accuracy, and enabling teams to work with greater speed and clarity.

The PMDS R7.2 release represents one of the most substantial sets of enhancements Auto-IT has delivered in recent years. Spanning Admin, Parts, Service, Sales, F&I, and mobile stock management, these improvements address real operational challenges faced by dealerships every day. Each feature is built with practicality at its core: fewer clicks, cleaner information, stronger controls, and more consistent cross-department communication. This release builds on a significant year of innovation that has already delivered major new capabilities such as Stock Assist, F&I Introductions, and a substantially upgraded Kaizen Quoting experience.

Here is an overview of the most important updates included in this release, as outlined in the recent email announcements.

SERVICE: Enhanced Visibility, Better Scheduling, Smarter Decision-Making

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Express Indicator on the Workshop Chart

A new indicator now highlights Express Bookings on the workshop chart, mirroring the icon already used on the whiteboard. This update allows workshop controllers to identify Express jobs instantly, improving prioritisation and ensuring delays are addressed quickly.

Booking List Now Displays “Date Lodged”

Within the Kaizen Booking Load Report, advisors and managers can now view the date each booking was originally taken. This is especially valuable when analysing online booking behaviour, lead-time accuracy, and advisor workload trends.

RP.444 Summary View – Aged Repair Order Breakdown

A new summarised output in the R/O WIP Report provides cleaner visibility across ageing categories—Current, 31–60, 61–90, 91–120, and 121+ days—grouped by franchise. Empty age buckets are automatically suppressed to keep the report focused and concise.

View & Email Service Invoices from WebCRM

From within the Vehicle Service History enquiry, staff can now view or email historical service invoices with a single click. This eliminates unnecessary navigation and speeds up customer communication, particularly for documentation requests.

Convert & Print Parts Picking Ticket from Kaizen Bookings

Advisors can now convert a booking to an R/O and print only the parts picking ticket without producing the full repair order. This enhancement allows parts teams to begin processing immediately while advisors finalise customer-facing documentation later.

Highlighting Technician Absences in Kaizen

One of the most requested features from PUC2024, this update allows advisors to see technician leave directly within the Kaizen Booking Calendar. Misallocated work, last-minute rebookings, and unnecessary customer frustration can now be avoided with clear visibility of staff availability.

These improvements collectively enhance scheduling accuracy, streamline communication, and reduce operational disruption across the service department.

SALES: Improved Workflow, Faster Retrieval, and Clearer Performance Data

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Offer Sheet Emailing for Proposals

Dealers using Offer Sheet functionality can now email proposal documents directly to customers, complete with attachments such as brochures or media. This enables earlier engagement, more efficient follow-up, and smoother progression from enquiry to commitment.

Enhanced Showroom Super Search

Super Search has been expanded to include Rego, VIN, Body, and Customer Order Reference in addition to existing criteria. This significantly accelerates the retrieval of proposals, quotes, and deals, particularly in high-volume environments.

Additional WebCRM Stock Report Options

Dealerships now have greater control over stock reporting with new outputs, including:

• Yard (for multi-yard operations)
• Opportunities Count (interest measurement)
• Current Location (integrated with Stock Assist)
• Vehicle Highlight (custom free-form tagging)

These enhancements support more precise reporting and inventory oversight.

Upgraded Sales Quick Stats

Quick Stats now provides enhanced visuals and richer insights, including lead-origin rankings, conversion rates, and road-to-sale progress. A cleaner layout and colour-coded elements make performance trends significantly easier to interpret.

Sales Log CDM Status and Access Enhancements

New Traffic Light indicators provide immediate visibility into overdue and upcoming Client Delivery Management (CDM) requirements within the Sales & Delivery Log. With direct access to full checklists, delivery management becomes far more controlled and predictable.

These updates strengthen sales management oversight while reducing manual effort and administrative delays.

PARTS: Stronger Control Measures, Cleaner Processes, Faster Data Access

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Restrict Parts Charge Codes by Operator (F.338)

Dealerships can now restrict access to specific Parts Charge Codes, allowing only approved operators to use selected codes. This is particularly useful for managing internal charge codes and preventing unauthorised or inaccurate postings.

“Email & Print” Combined Action

Parts Quotes, Orders, Invoices, and Credit Notes can now be emailed and printed simultaneously, streamlining operator workflows and reducing repetitive actions.

Prompt Setting for Suppressing Part Numbers

A new “P” (Prompt) option allows operators to decide at print-time whether to show or hide part numbers on quotes—an ideal improvement for customer-facing situations requiring flexibility.

View Quantities Directly from the Parts Order Book (F.606)

Operators can now view AVL, SOH, QSO, and QEO quantities directly from any part line, with a shortcut to a full quantity enquiry. This provides immediate insight when determining availability or ordering requirements.

Archive Obsolete Parts Charge Codes

Parts Charge Codes can now be archived, preventing their accidental use and keeping lookup lists clean and relevant.

Collectively, these Parts enhancements strengthen operational accuracy, improve internal governance, and reduce the likelihood of rework.

F&I: A New Standard for Opportunity Tracking and Conversion

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Introducing F&I Introductions

The new F&I Introductions module provides a dedicated workflow for identifying, managing, and converting finance, insurance, and warranty opportunities—sitting seamlessly between WebCRM and Web Showroom.

Key advantages include:

• Automated generation of F&I opportunities
• Assignment and tracking across business managers
• Multiple quote creation for finance, insurance, and warranty
• Visibility and note-sharing between teams
• One-click conversion of accepted quotes into a deal
• Comprehensive logging and reporting with custom filters

This solution gives dealerships a more structured, accountable, and data-driven approach to F&I performance. Web v3.3.1 also introduces new dashboard widgets and improved Business Manager look-ups, giving clearer oversight of F&I performance and opportunity assignment.

KAIZEN SERVICE QUOTES: Transforming the Advisor Workflow

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A top request from PUC2024, Kaizen Service Quotes enables advisors to generate professional, accurate quotes in seconds. Built directly on PMDS pricing and customer data, it eliminates manual workarounds and ensures complete integration with Kaizen bookings.

Key capabilities include:

• Instant email quotes with previews and follow-up reminders
• DMS-driven pricing accuracy
• Easy conversion from quote to booking
• Template-based presentation with free starter designs
• Complete quote history and reporting tools

These enhancements are further supported by improvements in Web v3.3.1, including better search and retrieval of original Kaizen quotes after conversion—ensuring advisors always have full visibility of quotation history, improving quoting speed, accuracy, and customer responsiveness.

STOCK ASSIST: Real-Time Mobile Stock Data in the Yard

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Built for iOS and Android devices, Stock Assist provides mobile access to key stock unit information, enabling staff to update and verify data directly from the yard.

The app supports:

• Delivery check-ins
• Mileage and location updates
• Photos, notes, and alerts
• Barcode scanning for instant identification
• Real-time confirmation of sales allocation and availability

This mobile capability significantly reduces stock discrepancies and ensures sales and management teams have accurate, up-to-date information at all times.

A Release Built Around Operational Reality

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The breadth of enhancements in PMDS R7.2 reflects a clear commitment to supporting dealerships with practical, meaningful improvements—improvements that reduce complexity, enhance accuracy, and strengthen decision-making across every department.

Rather than introducing isolated features, this release reinforces the broader PMDS ecosystem: Kaizen, WebCRM, Web Showroom, Service, Parts, and mobile tools now share information more fluidly, with fewer blind spots and more consistent workflows.

Likewise, dealers continue to benefit from our free training initiative, with over 40 webinars delivered this year, 3,700+ registrations, and overwhelmingly positive feedback describing the program as a ‘game changer.’ These initiatives ensure clients get the full value from new features like those introduced in R7.2. PMDS is now a more cohesive, capable, and efficient platform designed to meet the evolving demands of modern automotive retail businesses. 

A New Era of Predictable, High-Value Quarterly Releases | 

Auto-IT will soon launch UNITS and EQUIP 25.2.0—the first major milestone under our new structured release program. More than just a version update, 25.2.0 marks the beginning of a modernised, more predictable delivery cycle in which improvements arrive quarterly, with each update carrying meaningful operational value for dealership teams.

A Foundation for Faster Innovation

25.2.0 introduces the most significant technical uplift since the 2085 release in 2019, laying the groundwork for more consistent, more frequent enhancements across the entire platform. Key upgrades include:

• A new Launcher and Update System, providing a unified identity and authorisation experience across desktop, mobile, and web
• Migration to PowerBuilder 2025, giving us modern performance, stability, and long-term supportability
• Integration of modern .NET libraries, enabling faster development and more sophisticated web functionality
• A modernised structure for hotfixes and bugfixes, allowing corrections to flow directly into the version already in production

These foundational changes ensure dealerships receive improvements faster and with greater reliability than ever before.

ENABLE: A Major Leap Forward for Service Scheduling

A major highlight of the release is Enable Workshop Scheduling, our new web-based service module that introduces modern scheduling tools and the first step in a long-term platform evolution.

Enable addresses one of the strongest pieces of customer feedback: the need for a daily, technician-allocated scheduling tool that is easier, clearer, and more intuitive than traditional control-board workflows.

Enable’s New Service Scheduling Capabilities

• Drag-and-drop repair order allocation at RO or job-code level
• Technician-level scheduling, replacing the physical whiteboard
• Allocation of additional jobs or hours on the fly
• Traffic-light indicators providing at-a-glance progress visibility
• Schedule-at-booking capabilities for tighter planning and throughput

This represents a major step toward our long-term direction: a modern, flexible, web-based DMS that coexists with your current Units / Equip database without requiring disruptive migrations.

New Service Improvements Beyond Enable

While Enable introduces major new capability, 25.2.0 also delivers a long list of practical workflow improvements within the existing Units / Equip service module.

Streamlined Sublet Handling and Creditor Invoicing

One of the most requested improvements is now complete:

• Sublets now appear on a dedicated tab, improving visibility of open vs. closed sublet orders
• A new Update Creditor function allows creditor invoices to be processed directly inside the service module
• Multiple new menu parameters give dealerships greater control over sublet processing flows

Technician Profile Copying

Creating technician profiles used to be time-consuming. A new Copy Technician function now allows a profile to be duplicated to a new employee code with one click—removing repetitive setup work.

Expanded Leave Sub Type Tracking

Sub-Types for Special Leave have now been extended to all leave types (Annual, Sick, Training, etc.), allowing teams to capture more detailed reasons such as Carer’s Leave under Sick Leave.

Improved RO Progress Status at Invoicing

The progress-status window now supports any available status, providing more precise control at invoicing and eliminating the need to manually relocate the RO to change statuses.

New RO and Quotation Bulk Deletion Utility

Based on strong demand from Service Managers, a new utility now allows bulk reviewing and deletion of open ROs that contain no WIP—ideal for clearing No Shows, Unconfirmed ROs, and outdated quotes.

Job Code Attachments for Mandatory OEM / OHS Forms

Users can now attach PDFs at the Job Code level with auto-print or manual-prompt settings, ensuring mandatory forms print automatically with the Repair Order.

More Informative Open-RO Warnings

Opening a new RO now displays detailed information about any existing open ROs—including advisor, creation date, progress status, WIP start date, job code, and job type—each of which can be opened via double-click.

These improvements reflect direct customer feedback and are designed to streamline service operations, reduce workload, and eliminate process blind spots.

Additional Enhancements Worth Noting

The release includes dozens of fixes and refinements. Several stand out for their practical daily impact:

• RO deletion rules refined to allow deletion if parts are not issued or allocated
• Back Order fields remain highlighted for easier visual scanning
• New “Outstanding Jobs” prompt when invoicing partially completed ROs
• Fixes for GST behaviour on Internal ROs and Debtor-attached stock-unit repairs
• Create RO now available directly within Service Vehicle Maintenance
• Parts Sale to Fixed Asset is now supported
• Warranty Claims now include Total Ex GST fields and expanded search criteria
• Counter Receipt Entry now includes RO number, Reg, VIN, and Parts Sales Order Number to assist with invoice retrieval

For dealerships, these quality-of-life enhancements remove friction from high-volume service environments and strengthen overall operational accuracy.

A Stronger Product Roadmap, Led by Customer Needs

This release also marks the introduction of Auto-IT’s product-management-led roadmap under Constellation Software—focused on:

• Partnering closely with dealerships
• Understanding business and operational pain points
• Co-creating solutions
• Delivering improvements through meaningful quarterly releases

This framework ensures each update solves real problems and reflects genuine dealership priorities.

Looking Ahead

UNITS® / EQUIP® 25.2.0 is the first milestone in our new release direction—one that prioritises modernisation, operational value, and continuous improvement. With Enable now launched, a stronger technical foundation in place, and a structured quarterly cadence, dealerships can expect more momentum, more clarity, and more capability delivered throughout the year.