Controller's Checklist for Managing Contracts in Transit Aging

The report itself can live in a spreadsheet, a dashboard in your DMS, or a dedicated workflow tool. The format doesn't matter. What matters is that your controller can see, in one place, every contract that's aging and exactly why.

Here's a sample format:

• Deal #
• VIN
• Customer Name
• Sale Date
• Days Since Sale
• Current Status (Sold / In Reconditioning / Waiting for Title / Scheduled for Delivery / Delivered)
• Next Blocker (Brake job pending / Title office delay / Delivery driver not assigned / Customer not confirmed)
• Owner (Sales consultant name / Service advisor / Delivery coordinator)
• Action Due (Date)

This is the kind of workflow Dealer1 Solutions was built to handle , real-time visibility across reconditioning, title tracking, and delivery scheduling so your controller isn't chasing five different systems.

What are the most common bottlenecks that age contracts?

Your controller needs to know where deals get stuck. Here are the usual suspects:

Reconditioning queue overflow

The single biggest aging factor. A vehicle comes in needing two days of work. But your service bay is booked solid, so the RO gets pushed back five days. Customer's already signed, they're expecting their car, and now they're texting your sales consultant asking where their truck is.

Your controller should check: How many ROs are currently open? What's the average days-to-completion? Are certain types of work (collision, major powertrain) creating bottlenecks? If you're seeing a pattern, you might need to hire contract technicians during peak seasons or outsource certain repairs.

Title and registration delays

You have zero control over how fast the DMV or title company moves. But you can control when you submit paperwork. If your dealership is consistently waiting 5 days before sending paperwork to the title office, that's on you. Some dealerships batch submissions to save on courier costs. If you're doing that and it's aging deals, stop.

Check your title company's SLA (service level agreement). Most reputable title companies can turn title work in 2–4 business days. If yours is taking longer, call them. Your controller should have a direct contact, and should be calling weekly.

Delivery logistics confusion

You sold the vehicle. Reconditioning is done. Title is back. Then nobody picks it up for delivery, or a delivery driver cancels at the last minute, or the customer isn't home and nobody reschedules.

This is a coordination problem. Your delivery coordinator and your controller need to talk every day about what's moving. If a delivery is more than one day away from scheduled pickup, that deal is aging unnecessarily.

Customer not confirmed

You promised delivery Friday. Friday comes. You call the customer. Phone's disconnected. Or they say they're not home until next week. Now the deal is sitting, and your controller is looking at it wondering if the sale will even close.

Your sales team should be calling customers 48 hours before delivery to confirm. If a customer can't be reached or pushes back, your delivery coordinator needs to reset the delivery date immediately so your controller knows what's real.

Paperwork missing or incorrect

Sometimes a contract can't be delivered because the buyer's signature is missing a middle initial, or the insurance certificate hasn't been uploaded, or the addendum page didn't get scanned. These are small things, but they stop delivery cold.

Your controller should have a checklist of what documents MUST be complete before a deal moves to delivery. If a deal is aging for more than 4 days and the reason is "paperwork," that's a process problem, not a customer problem.

Who owns what on your daily checklist?

This is critical. A deal can age for 10 days because everyone thinks someone else is handling it.

Your controller's job is not to fix every bottleneck herself. Her job is to identify the bottleneck and make sure someone owns it.

Here's a clear ownership map:

• Reconditioning delays: Service Manager owns it. They're responsible for scheduling ROs, prioritizing transit deals, and communicating completion dates to sales.
• Title and paperwork: F&I Manager or back-office administrator owns it. They submit documents on time, track turnaround, and flag missing pieces immediately.
• Delivery scheduling and execution: Delivery Coordinator owns it. They confirm customer contact info, lock in delivery dates, coordinate with logistics partners, and reschedule if customer is unavailable.
• Customer communication: Sales Consultant owns it. They tell the customer when to expect delivery. They're the first call if something changes.
• Tracking and escalation: Your controller owns it. She runs the daily report, identifies what's aging, and sends a one-line message to whoever owns that deal: "Deal #4521 has been in transit 8 days. Needs delivery status from you by 3 PM today."

Assign ownership in your DMS or workflow system. Don't just mention it in a meeting. Make it visible so when your controller looks at that daily report, she sees a name next to every aging deal.

What should your controller do when a deal is aging too long?

She's found a deal that's been sitting for 9 days. Now what?

Step 1: Identify the exact blocker. Is the vehicle still in the service bay? Is it done with reconditioning but waiting for a title? Has it been scheduled for delivery but the customer isn't confirmed? Don't ask. Check yourself. Call the service manager. Call the delivery coordinator. Get a real answer, not a guess.

Step 2: Set a clear deadline. Don't say "let's try to get this moving." Say: "This RO needs to be complete by end of business Wednesday. Delivery is scheduled for Friday at 2 PM. Customer is confirmed." Put it in writing (email or DMS note). Make sure the owner sees it.

Step 3: Follow up the next morning. Did the work get done? Was the deadline met? If not, what's the new blocker? Your controller should be checking on deals aging over 7 days every single day. It sounds obsessive. It's not. It's the difference between $500 in cash flow delay and $5,000.

Step 4: Escalate if the deal hits 12 days. At this point, it's a management issue, not an operational hiccup. The manager over that department (Service, F&I, Delivery) should know immediately. Something is broken in that workflow.

Here's the honest opinion: Most dealerships don't do this daily. They do a weekly aging report on Friday afternoon, see that 12 deals are over 10 days old, panic, and then let it happen again the next week. Your controller doing this daily is what separates a dealership managing its cash from a dealership bleeding cash and blaming everybody else.

How to spot patterns in aging contracts

Once your controller has a few weeks of daily data, patterns emerge.

Maybe every deal that needs a timing belt takes 12 days. That tells you either timing belts are complex to schedule or your parts guy is slow getting the belt. Fix it.

Maybe every deal sold on Friday doesn't deliver until the following Thursday. That tells you your team isn't prioritizing Friday sales or your reconditioning queue is too full. Fix it.

Maybe trade-ins age longer than retail. That tells you your trade-in inspection or appraisal process is creating delays. Fix it.

Your controller should run a monthly summary report:

• Average days in transit (should be under 7)
• Deals over 10 days (should be zero or close to it)
• Top three reasons for aging (rank them)
• Which department owns most of the delays
• Month-over-month trend (is it getting better or worse?)

Share this in your monthly controller/manager meeting. Don't blame people. Just show the data. If reconditioning owns 60% of the delays and the Service Manager sees that in writing, they'll respond.

Tools and reports your controller actually needs

Your controller doesn't need fancy software. She needs the right data in the right format every morning.

At minimum, your DMS should be able to run a report showing:

• All closed deals in the last 30 days
• Days since sale for each deal
• Current status (sold, in reconditioning, waiting for title, scheduled for delivery, delivered)
• Ability to filter by status or date range
• Ability to sort by days in transit (oldest first)

If your DMS can't do this, that's a problem. Most modern DMS platforms can. If yours can't, ask your vendor how to get it, or consider that a long-term software conversation.

Your controller should also have direct visibility into:

• Reconditioning queue: Which ROs are open, which are done, which are stuck waiting for parts or tech availability. This should be live or updated every 2 hours.
• Title tracking: Which deals have had paperwork submitted, when to expect return, which are complete. Most title companies offer a portal for this.
• Delivery calendar: Which deals are scheduled for delivery this week, which customers are confirmed, which need rescheduling.

These don't all have to live in one system, but your controller should be able to see them without logging into six different places.

Frequently asked questions

How often should my controller check on aging contracts?

Daily. First thing in the morning, before the sales team starts calling with other questions. It takes 15 minutes to run a report and scan for deals over 7 days. That 15 minutes prevents $2,000–$5,000 in cash flow delays and keeps customer satisfaction from tanking. Make it a standing 8 AM task, non-negotiable.

What's a reasonable target for days in transit?

Most well-run dealerships target under 7 days from sale to delivery. High-volume stores might hit 5–6 days average. Anything over 10 days is excessive and signals a workflow problem. Track your own baseline for 4 weeks, then set a target that's 1 day better than your current average. Beat it, then tighten it again.

Should the controller be responsible for fixing bottlenecks or just reporting them?

Reporting. The controller's job is to make the bottleneck visible, assign ownership, and follow up. The Service Manager, F&I Manager, and Delivery Coordinator are responsible for actually fixing the problem. If the controller is doing the work herself, you don't have an accountability problem, you have a staffing problem.

What if a deal ages because the customer keeps pushing back the delivery date?

That's still aging, but it's a different category. Your controller should track it separately as "customer-requested delay" versus "operational delay." Customer-requested delays are fine , just make sure the new delivery date is confirmed and locked in. If a customer keeps pushing back indefinitely, that's a sales follow-up issue, not a controller issue.

How do I prevent deals from aging in the first place?

Pre-delivery checklist. Before a deal is marked "ready for delivery" in your DMS, require: reconditioning complete and signed off by service, title documents submitted and expected return date confirmed, delivery date scheduled and customer confirmed via phone call, all paperwork scanned and filed. Don't let a deal move to delivery status unless all four boxes are checked. This prevents 80% of aging issues.

What should I do if one department consistently owns aging delays?

Have a direct conversation with that department head. Bring your monthly report. Ask what's blocking them. Maybe they don't have enough staffing. Maybe they don't understand how aging impacts the dealership's cash flow. Maybe the process is broken. Listen, then solve it together. Don't just blame them in a manager meeting.