Free Worksheet for Dealers
Dealership IT Vendor Inventory: A Worksheet for Every Vendor, Contract and Renewal Date
Built for the controller’s desk. Pull the invoices, give each vendor a row and see every contract and renewal date on one page.
Or download the worksheet as an Excel file, an editable Word file or a printable PDF.
A dealership IT vendor list puts every company your stores pay for technology on one sheet: what it covers, when the contract renews, the monthly cost, who calls it, what data it reaches and who owns the fix.
Last updated: November 4, 2026
Most dealers can’t say what they pay their IT vendors until someone pulls the bills.
We ask dealer principals how many IT vendors their stores pay, and the honest answer is usually a guess. Most dealerships don’t run a formal IT budget. The spend sits in store invoices, on company credit cards and in contracts somebody signed years ago and nobody has opened since. So when we start with a new dealership, we pull every one of those bills into one place before we talk about anything else.
This worksheet is where those bills end up. By the last column of each row you’ll know who to call when that system breaks, and whose problem it is when it runs into another vendor’s system. Bring it to a complimentary assessment and we’ll lay what your stores pay today next to one managed IT team. If you’d rather start with the map of every system a rooftop runs, our dealership technology stack guide has it.
One rule before you start. Take the cost column from the invoices, not from the contracts.
The worksheet
The Dealership IT Vendor List Worksheet
Download it as an Excel file with a vendors tab and a licenses tab, an editable Word file or a printable PDF. All three carry the same 21 numbered columns, so the sheet you fill in matches this guide line for line.
Where Helion fits
When stores move to one IT team, the list gets shorter, and the contracts that stay still get watched. A complimentary IT and cybersecurity assessment starts from this sheet.
Vendor inventory: the column guide Each numbered item is a column on the worksheet. Fill them in left to right, one row per vendor.
1 The vendor
- 1.1 Vendor name, exactly as it appears on the invoice.
- 1.2 What it covers, in plain words, such as the internet circuit, phones, copiers or security cameras.
- 1.3 Which rooftops it serves, and whether each store has its own account.
- 1.4 Your account or customer number, so whoever calls gets identified on the first try.
2 Contract and renewal
- 2.1 Contract start date and term length.
- 2.2 Contract end date or the next renewal date.
- 2.3 Does it renew on its own? If it does, how many days’ notice it takes to cancel or change it.
- 2.4 Who signed it, and where the signed copy is kept.
Microsoft’s own admin guidance says some subscriptions can only be canceled in a limited window after you buy or renew them. That’s why 2.3 asks for the notice period and not only the date.
3 Cost
- 3.1 Monthly cost, taken from the last three invoices rather than the original quote.
- 3.2 Which store or GL account pays it.
- 3.3 Price increase terms, per-seat charges and any overage fees.
Strong entry: the amount on the latest invoice. Quotes drift. Fees and yearly increases see to that.
4 Who calls them
- 4.1 The person at the store who calls this vendor today.
- 4.2 The vendor’s support line or portal, and its support hours.
- 4.3 Your account manager or escalation contact at the vendor.
If 4.1 names the same person on every row, that person is your IT department, whatever their job title says.
5 Data and access
For years, dealership vendors have been connecting to store systems and pulling data out, often with more access than the job needed. As Erik Nachbahr, our founder, put it on a recent planning call, “dealers have historically never known where their data is going, and it’s still like that today.” These four columns put a name and a date next to every vendor that can reach it.
- 5.1 Which systems or customer data it can reach, such as the DMS, Microsoft 365, the network or credit applications.
- 5.2 How it gets in: remote access, an integration, an admin account, or not at all.
- 5.3 Who at the dealership approved that access, and when.
- 5.4 The date someone last checked that the access is still needed.
The FTC Safeguards Rule asks dealerships to oversee their service providers. Columns 5.1 to 5.4 are where that starts. Our FTC Safeguards checklist covers the rest of the rule.
6 When it fails
- 6.1 What stops working at the store when this vendor’s system goes down.
- 6.2 Which other vendor’s system it meets, and who owns the fix where the two connect.
- 6.3 The workaround until it’s back, and who decides to use it.
Vendor lists often skip 6.2. The seam table below shows where it matters most.
7 License register (its own tab)
- Product or license
- Seats paid for
- Seats in use
- Assigned to
- Renewal date
- Expiry date
Hardware such as PCs, firewalls and printers goes on your asset inventory, not here. Keep three lists apart: equipment, vendors and licenses, and the data vendors can reach.
Column 6.2
Where Two Vendors’ Systems Meet, Write Down One Owner
With five or six IT vendors, a failure between two of them tends to bounce. The phone vendor says it’s the internet, the carrier says the line tests clean, and the store waits. These are the seams we see most often at dealerships, and the owner worth writing into 6.2 for each.
| Where systems meet | What the store sees | Who owns the fix |
|---|---|---|
| 6.2 Phones and the internet circuit | Calls drop or sound choppy in sales and service, and each vendor reports its own side as healthy. | Whoever manages the store network, since call quality depends on the network between the two. |
| 6.2 Shop Wi-Fi and OEM tools | A car sits on a lift for an hour on a software download that should take ten minutes. | The network owner, with the OEM tool’s support line on the call when it’s needed. |
| 6.2 Copiers and the network | Service advisors can’t print repair orders while a customer waits at the write-up counter. | The copier vendor for the device itself, and the network owner for everything up to it. |
| 6.2 Email and the website | Customer emails start landing in spam after a website or marketing change. | Whoever controls your domain’s DNS records. Most dealers have to look up who that is. |
| 6.2 Cameras, doors and the firewall | Security cameras or door access go offline after a firewall change. | The network owner, with the camera vendor’s settings kept on file. |
| 6.2 The DMS at one store | DMS sessions are slow at one rooftop while the other stores run fine. | The store network owner first, since a one-store problem usually lives on that store’s side. |
The Excel, Word and PDF versions leave 6.2 blank on every row, so each store can write in its own owners. Our dealership phone systems and network management pages show how those two seams are handled under one team.
What One Accountable IT Team Does With This List
Here’s what usually happens once a dealership fills in column 6.2. The same few seams turn up on row after row, and the store is paying several companies and still owns every problem that lands between them, which is exactly the thing nobody wanted to be paying for in the first place.
When a dealership moves its IT to one team, most of those rows merge into one. A few contracts always stay with the dealer, like the internet carrier, the circuits and the phone service, and we keep track of those for our clients as part of account management, renewal dates included. Our guide to dealership IT vendor consolidation covers how that move works and what it changes.
Fewer rows, and one owner for each of them.
Five or six IT vendors
Each one answers for its own system. When the trouble sits between two of them, the store is the one that waits, and the renewal notices land in different inboxes.
Fill in 6.2 on every row.
One accountable team
One team runs the network, phones, Microsoft 365, security and the help desk, so most of the seams in 6.2 belong to the same people.
The sheet shrinks to the vendors you choose to keep.
Who’s Behind This Vendor Inventory Worksheet
Helion Technologies has worked only with automotive and heavy truck dealerships since 1997. Our compliance program includes a vendor risk rating, and section 5 of this worksheet is the starting list for it.
How to Fill In Your Dealership IT Vendor List
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1
Pull twelve months of bills
Ask accounts payable for every technology vendor paid in the last year, credit cards included.
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2
Give each vendor a row
Fill in sections 1 to 4 from the invoices and contracts. Licenses go on their own tab.
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3
Walk it with each department
Sections 5 and 6 need the people who use each system, so sit down with every manager.
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4
Put the renewals on a calendar
Set a reminder ahead of each notice period in 2.3, then bring the sheet to your assessment.
Common Questions
Finished the sheet?
Bring it to a complimentary IT and cybersecurity assessment and we’ll compare it with one team. Prefer a figure first? Get a price quote.
What should a dealership IT vendor list include?
How many IT vendors does a dealership usually have?
Does the FTC Safeguards Rule require a vendor inventory?
Who at the dealership should own the vendor list?
How often should we update the worksheet?
Is this the same as an IT asset inventory?
Can Helion help us fill it in?
Bring the finished worksheet to a complimentary assessment, and we’ll show you what one accountable team would change.
Get Your Complimentary IT & Cybersecurity Assessment →