# Vehicle Lifecycle Management on Microsoft 365 | AvantIT > How a Portuguese motorhome retailer replaced spreadsheets with one SharePoint app for every vehicle, from factory order to ISV tax, sale and registration. Canonical: https://www.avantit.pt/en/projects/vehicle-lifecycle-management/ Source: AvantIT — https://www.avantit.pt (Microsoft Partner, Matosinhos, Portugal) --- sharepoint 2026 # From Order to Registration: One Place to Run Every Vehicle Leading Portuguese Motorhome and Caravan Retailer | Vehicle Retail / Importers A SharePoint-native application that tracks every vehicle from factory order to customer delivery and legal registration, with margins, documents and alerts in one view. ![Vehicle management dashboard showing stock, orders, sales and active alerts] One record per vehicle, from factory order to warranty Margin visible before the proposal and again after the contract Automatic alerts replace spreadsheet follow-ups [Back to projects](https://www.avantit.pt/en/projects/) ## 📋 Overview Selling a motorhome or caravan is not like selling a car off the shelf. Each unit is ordered from a European manufacturer, shipped across borders, cleared through customs, homologated, taxed, prepared in a workshop, sold with factory and local extras, paid in instalments and finally registered in the customer’s name. Every step has its own documents, its own people and its own deadlines. Our client, a leading Portuguese retailer, ran all of this on spreadsheets, shared folders and email. We built a single application, on the Microsoft 365 environment they already pay for, that follows each vehicle through the whole journey. ## 🎯 The Challenge Many vehicles, many hand-offs Purchasing, finance, the workshop, sales and the legal back-office each held a piece of the truth in a different file. Nobody could answer simple questions quickly: Where is this unit? Has the supplier invoice been validated? Is the ISV tax paid, so the plate can be requested? What margin will we really make on this deal? What went wrong in practice - Deadlines (COC documents, registration, campaign end dates) were remembered, not tracked. - Margin was calculated late, after the commercial discount had already been promised. - Equipment changes after the contract was signed were not documented, causing disputes at delivery. - Each new colleague needed weeks to learn which spreadsheet held what. What the business needed - One record per vehicle, shared by every department. - Access rules by role, so finance sees finance and the workshop sees the workshop. - Portuguese and EU compliance built into the flow, not bolted on. - No new platform to buy, host or secure. ## 💡 The Solution Strategic approach Build on SharePoint Online, where the client’s documents, users and security already live. The application is a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part: it opens inside the intranet, signs users in with their Microsoft 365 account and stores all data in lists and libraries the client owns. There is no separate database, no extra login and no data leaving the tenant. One vehicle, eight stages Every unit moves through a visible pipeline: Ordered → In Transit → In Stock → Homologated → In Negotiation → Sold → Delivered → Registered . The status bar at the top of each record shows the current stage and the date each stage was reached. Everything about a vehicle, in tabs - Vehicle: identification, technical specifications, factory and local equipment, base price, campaigns and publishing checklist (photos, website, social media). - Finance: order data, supplier invoicing and validation, transport and other costs, and a cost analysis that calculates net margin. - Legal: customs and Form 9, COC, homologation, ISV tax, licence plate, DAV and ownership registry. The plate is blocked in the system until ISV is settled. - Reception: arrival, technician, wash, engine number and equipment confirmation against the order. - Proposals: commercial proposals per prospect, each with its own margin. - Sales: customer, contract, payment schedule, trade-in, financing, delivery, ASAE documentation for sales above €75,000, invoicing, warranty and payment records. - Preparation and Dossier: workshop work, serial numbers, pre-delivery checklists and every document in one place. Margin before and after the deal The cost analysis combines purchase cost, factory equipment, transport, insurance, customs, ISV and preparation, then applies campaign and commercial discounts. Sales see the expected margin per active proposal. Once a contract is signed, the system switches to the real figure. Contracts that stay honest Equipment changes after signature are recorded as dated addenda (+ for added items, − for removed ones). The contract keeps a version history, so what was sold is always what was delivered. The right people see the right things Five roles (Administrator, Coordinator, Finance, Sales, Workshop) get read or write access per section and per tab, managed from an admin screen and synchronised with SharePoint groups. Alerts that chase people, so you do not have to Business rules raise alerts such as COC document awaiting receipt , Workshop preparation overdue , Full payment outstanding or Campaign ending soon . Power Automate flows send immediate and daily notifications by email and Teams, using templates the client edits themselves. Built to be run by the client, not by us - 42 reference lists (brands, models, colours, payment methods, delivery checklists and more) are edited by administrators, with no code change. - Excel import loads existing stock and optional-equipment catalogues, with column mapping and preview. - Vehicle and customer exports to Excel. - A built-in change history and separate development and production environments make updates safe. ## 📈 The Results What changed for the client - One source of truth: purchasing, finance, workshop, sales and legal now work on the same record. - Earlier margin visibility: salespeople see profitability before discounting, not after. - Fewer missed deadlines: alerts are raised from the data, not from someone’s memory. - Cleaner deliveries: contract versions, payment status and pre-delivery checks are verified before the keys change hands. - Faster onboarding: new staff learn one application instead of a folder of spreadsheets. ## ⏱️ Manual Work vs. Vehicle Manager These are the day-to-day tasks that change, based on how the application works. Task Before: spreadsheets, folders, email With Vehicle Manager ”Where is this unit and what is missing?” Ask around, search email and several files Open the record. Stage, dates, documents and open alerts are on one screen Estimating margin on a deal Rebuilt by hand, often after the discount is promised Cost analysis per vehicle and per proposal, calculated from the record’s own data Legal deadlines (COC, homologation, ISV, plate) Remembered or kept in a personal list Tracked per vehicle, with alerts. The plate stays blocked until ISV is settled Equipment changes after signature Email threads and notes Dated contract addenda with version history Checks before delivery Paper or memory Configurable checklists and a visible payment balance Stock and pipeline reporting Compiled from several files each time Live dashboard and Excel export Onboarding a new colleague Learn which file holds what One application, with access matched to the role ## 📊 What the Research Says We do not publish the client’s own figures. These are general benchmarks, not results from this project: - Time spent finding information. McKinsey Global Institute’s 2012 study [The social economy](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-social-economy) estimated that “interaction workers” spend about 19% of their time tracking down information, and judged that better tooling could lift their productivity by 20 to 25%. - Spreadsheet errors. In audits reported by Prof. Raymond Panko, [49 of 54 spreadsheets (91%) contained errors](https://www.computerworld.com/article/1704893/sidebar-oops.html). Later work disputes how widespread the problem is, but agrees that even careful spreadsheets carry errors in around 1% of formula cells, which matters when a margin or a tax figure rides on them. A simple way to size it for your business. If each of 8 people on your team gets back one hour a week that today goes on searching, chasing and re-keying, that is about 370 hours a year (8 people × 1 hour × 46 weeks). Replace the numbers with your own. ## 🎯 How We Measure It With You Before rollout we agree a baseline, then measure the same things after a pilot: - Minutes to answer “what is the status of vehicle X?” - Time to produce a margin estimate for a proposal - Vehicles with an overdue legal or registration step - Deliveries with a missing document or unpaid balance - Hours per week spent compiling stock and sales reports ## 🛠️ Technology Stack - SharePoint Framework (SPFx) and React: the application, running inside SharePoint Online. - SharePoint Lists and Libraries: data and documents, stored in the client’s own tenant. - Power Automate: immediate and scheduled notifications. - Microsoft 365 identity: single sign-on and role-based access. ## 🚗 Is This Your Business? The same engine fits any business that buys, prepares and sells high-value units with a long paper trail: motorhome and caravan retailers, car and van dealers, importers, boat and machinery dealers, rental fleets that sell on. Because it runs on Microsoft 365, there is no new infrastructure to buy. We configure the stages, documents, roles and compliance steps to your process and migrate your existing spreadsheets. Want to see it with your own data? [Explore the product](https://www.avantit.pt/en/products/vehicle-manager/) or [book a demo](https://www.avantit.pt/en/contact/). ### Ready to achieve similar results? Contact us to learn how we can help your business turn challenges into opportunities. ### Send us a message Fill out the form below and we will get back to you shortly. 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Share this success story with your network Share: ### Project Details Client Leading Portuguese Motorhome and Caravan Retailer Industry Vehicle Retail / Importers Year 2026 Technologies SharePoint SPFx Power Automate Vehicle Management Microsoft 365 ### Other Projects [![Vitropor Financial Analytics] Vitropor Financial Analytics Vitropor](https://www.avantit.pt/en/projects/vitropor-financial-analytics/)[![Multilingual Corporate Website for European Services Group] Multilingual Corporate Website for European Services Group European Services Group](https://www.avantit.pt/en/projects/umbraco-multilingual-website/)[![Customer Data Platform for Omnichannel Personalisation] Customer Data Platform for Omnichannel Personalisation Fashion & Accessories Retail Chain](https://www.avantit.pt/en/projects/cdp-personalizacao-retail/)