Automotive · 2026
CRM for car importing
An import order runs through purchase, shipping, customs and handover. The system carries it end to end, along with the money, the paperwork and the partners.
- Client
- Vantor Motors
- Year
- 2026
- Discipline
- CRM systems
- Timeline
- part of a 1-2 month project
The problem
Importing a car is not a sale from stock. It is a chain that runs for months: buying from a dealer in the US, sea or road freight, customs clearance, repairs, handover to the buyer. Every step brings its own dates, its own documents and its own costs. While that lives in email threads and spreadsheets, nobody can answer two simple questions: where exactly is this car right now, and how much did it earn.
What we did
The order became the central entity. It moves through seven states, and every transition stays in the history. Everything that belongs to it lives inside it: the car with its VIN, the carrier and tracking number, the customs entry and release dates, the documents, the part payments. Total cost is assembled by the system itself out of purchase, freight, repairs, duty, VAT and fees, so profit per order is visible immediately rather than after someone reconciles the spreadsheets. The partner programme is a separate piece: a blogger gets a promo code, the buyer gets a discount through it, and the partner's commission is calculated when the order is saved, under one of three schemes.
The outcome
The system is in use and handles up to 20 orders a month. The dashboard shows revenue, profit and the breakdown of orders by state, so the question of where a car is gets answered by opening its record instead of making a call.
Stack
- React 19
- Vite
- Tailwind CSS
- TanStack Query
- Node.js
- Express
- MongoDB
- JWT
What the system does
Import orders
- Continuous numbering in the form ORD-2026-0001
- 7 states, from enquiry to completion, with a transition history
- The car record: VIN, mileage, engine, gearbox, colour
- Logistics: carrier, tracking number, shipping method
- Purchase, arrival, customs entry and customs release dates
- Search by order number, make, model and VIN
Money on an order
- Cost is assembled from purchase, freight, repairs and fees
- Customs duty and VAT are part of the calculation
- Part payments: cash, transfer, card
- The remaining balance and the profit compute themselves
- Net profit, after the partner's commission
Partners and promo codes
- Three schemes: percent of sale, percent of profit, fixed amount
- A promo code is tied to a partner
- A percentage or fixed discount, limited by date and by number of uses
- Commission is calculated when the order is saved
- A partner's orders and the payouts to them, in one place
Documents and clients
- Documents per order and per client, split into sections
- Upload and download only behind authentication
- A client record with address and company details
- The client's order history
Dashboard
- Clients, orders, revenue and profit on the front page
- Orders broken down by state
- A feed of the latest orders
Screens from the system
The dashboard: orders by state, revenue, profit 
Import orders, searchable by VIN and filtered by state 
An order: the car, the carrier, the customs dates 
Full landed cost and profit on a single order 
Partners and their commission schemes
In numbers
- order states, from request to handover
- 7
- partner commission schemes
- 3
- import orders a monthhandled by the system
- ≤20