How to Use vAuto Provision: A Practical 2026 Guide

Short answer

Provision is vAuto's used-vehicle inventory management tool, and it works as a daily loop, not a one-time setup. Appraise against live market data, stock to your market's demand, price to market on day one, review aging every morning, and merchandise every unit before it goes live. Most stores do the first four and skip the fifth.

What Provision is (and what it is not)

vAuto is the Cox Automotive suite; Provision is the used-car inventory module inside it. Provision covers appraisal, stocking, pricing and aging for pre-owned inventory. It sits alongside other vAuto products you may also see in your login, such as ProfitTime GPS, Conquest, Stockwave and iRecon, each of which is a separate module with separate permissions. If someone at your store says "vAuto" they usually mean Provision, because it is the screen the used-car manager lives in.

Provision does not write vehicle descriptions, run your website, or decide whether your listings show up in Google or ChatGPT. It ranks and prices cars. Merchandising the car is a field inside it that you fill.

How to log in to Provision

Provision uses the vAuto sign-in at vauto.com, not a separate portal. Credentials come from your store's vAuto administrator. If your password "doesn't work", the cause is almost always the wrong Cox portal, a deactivated user, an expired password or a browser session issue; our vAuto login and access guide walks through each. There is also a vAuto mobile app for appraisals on the lot; it uses the same credentials.

Step 1: Set your market radius correctly

Provision's recommendations are only as good as the market you define. Too tight a radius and you get thin comp data; too wide and you're benchmarking against stores your shoppers will never drive to. Start with the radius your actual sold customers come from — pull addresses from your last 90 days of deliveries — not a round number someone picked at setup.

Step 2: Appraise with the market score, not the gut

On trade-in, Provision scores the vehicle against current supply and recent sold comps. Two numbers matter more than the rest:

• Market days' supply — how saturated your market is with that unit right now.
• Cost to market — where your acquisition cost sits against the retail comps.

Three Provision terms worth knowing before your first appraisal:

• Market Days' Supply (MDS): how many days the current supply of that exact vehicle in your market would take to sell at the recent sales rate. Higher means more competition and slower turn.
• Cost to Market: your acquisition cost as a percentage of the average retail asking price for comparable units. Lower leaves more room.
• Price to Market: your asking price as a percentage of the same comparable average. It is the number shoppers effectively see when they compare you on a listing site.

A high days' supply number is a warning, not a veto. It means price sharper and turn faster, or pass.

Step 3: Stock what your market buys

Use the stocking reports to see which segments and price bands your market actually absorbs, then compare that against your current lot mix. The common failure is buying to the manager's preference instead of the report.

Step 4: Price to market on day one

Vehicles priced above market on day one lose the majority of their first-week shopper attention, and you rarely earn it back with a later price cut. Set the price you'd be willing to accept in week three, in week one.

Step 5: Work the aging report every morning

Provision's aging view is a to-do list. Anything past your turn policy needs a decision that day: reprice, recondition, promote, or wholesale. Aging units don't age quietly — they eat holding cost, floorplan interest, and lot space.

Step 6: Merchandise before you syndicate, the step everyone skips

Before a unit goes live, its Inventory Comments field should carry a real, vehicle-specific description. This field syndicates to your website and to third-party listing sites, which means it is the text Google indexes and the text AI assistants read when they answer "which dealer near me has a certified Tucson with adaptive cruise."

Blank or templated comments cost you twice: shoppers see nothing that separates the car, and AI systems have nothing unique to cite.

Who should own each step

• Used-car manager: radius, appraisal, stocking mix, aging decisions.
• Internet or BDC manager: photos, Inventory Comments, checking the VDP the next morning.
• GM: the weekly stocking-mix review and wholesale calls.

When one person owns all six, step 6 is the one that slips, because it is the only step that does not change a number on the Provision screen.

A realistic daily rhythm

• Morning (15 min): aging report, reprice decisions, previous-day sold review.
• On acquisition: appraise, stock decision, day-one price.
• Before go-live: photos, recon status, and a unique description in Inventory Comments.
• Weekly: stocking mix versus market report, wholesale calls on aged units.

Common questions

Is Provision the same as vAuto? No. vAuto is the suite; Provision is its used-vehicle inventory module.

Does Provision handle new cars? Provision is built around pre-owned inventory. New-vehicle tools in the Cox suite are separate.

Is there a Provision app? Yes, vAuto offers a mobile app for lot-side appraisals with the same login.

Does Provision write my vehicle descriptions? No. The Inventory Comments field is yours to fill, by hand or with an automation such as InventoryPilot AI, which writes a unique description into that field for every VIN and refreshes it weekly.

What does vAuto cost? Pricing is not public; see How much does vAuto cost? for what dealers report.

What Provision won't do for you

It will not write the descriptions, and it will not tell you whether your VDPs are visible in AI search. For that, see the 11-signal VDP checklist or how we automate the merchandising step inside vAuto.

Get a free audit and we'll show you what your current Inventory Comments look like to search engines and AI assistants.