Appraisal Process Roles: Who Appraises and Who Approves
A rep who quotes a trade number without an approver creates instant conflict. Split who inspects, who values, and who signs so appraisals survive the desk and the lot.
The customer is already emotionally sold on the SUV. The sales rep, trying to keep the deal warm, says "we can probably go $18,500 on your trade." The used-car manager has not seen the car. Ten minutes later the manager walks it, finds a rebuilt title brand the customer "forgot," and the number is nowhere near $18,500. The buyer now thinks the store baited them. The rep thinks the manager killed the deal. The manager thinks the rep sold a number they do not own.
That is an appraisal process roles failure. Who appraises and who approves must be two different questions, answered in writing, before anyone speaks a dollar amount on the driveway. Inspection, valuation, and approval are related skills. They are not the same authority.
This article is for used-car managers, GMs, and dealer principals. It is operational guidance for independent and franchise used departments. It is not legal, valuation, or lending advice. Title, disclosure, and advertising rules vary; confirm with counsel and state regulators before you set customer-facing language.
Split Appraisal Process Roles Before You Assign Who Appraises and Who Approves
If one person "does appraisals," you will get heroics and fights. Break the work into jobs that can be staffed.
Job 1: Intake and honesty check
Someone records VIN, mileage, keys, obvious damage, and the customer's story about accidents, mods, and payments. This can be a trained associate or the sales rep, but they need a checklist, not vibes. They do not issue a number.
Job 2: Physical appraisal
Someone who knows used cars inspects the unit: structure, tires, warning lights, aftermarket work, flood or odor issues, test drive if policy requires it. This is usually a used-car manager, an experienced closer designated as an appraiser, or a recon lead. They produce condition notes, not a customer promise.
Job 3: Valuation
Someone turns condition plus market into a recommended number or a range: what you can pay, what you can retail it for, what wholesale looks like if the trade is a miss. This is the used-car manager on most lots.
Job 4: Approval
Someone with authority signs the number the desk can put in the deal. On a small independent, jobs 3 and 4 are often the same person. They should still be named. On a larger store, a GM or principal may approve above a cap.
Job 5: Inventory conversion
When the deal pencils, someone books the unit into inventory with the right cost, options, and status, then decides whether it is a retail candidate or a wholesale unit. This is where a sloppy appraisal becomes a 90-day problem.
Write the five jobs on one page. Then put names and backups next to each, including Saturdays.
Who Appraises and Who Approves Before Anyone Speaks a Number
The driveway is where roles collapse. Reps want a tool to keep the buyer. Managers want control. Policy has to pick.
Default: no customer-facing number until approval
The rep can say the vehicle will be inspected and a number will come from the used-car desk. They can collect keys and start the checklist. They cannot "probably" a figure. "Probably" is a quote in the customer's memory.
Conditional: a published range for trained appraisers
If you have two or three people certified internally as appraisers, you may allow them to quote inside a tight band for clean, easy units, with a required manager look before the deal is desked. Write the band. Write the unit types that are never eligible (brands, salvage history, heavy mods, exotic mileage).
Never: competing quotes from two reps
Two numbers on the same trade is how you train customers to shop your own staff. One process, one sequence, one number.
A simple spoken script
- Inspect and document.
- Manager (or designated appraiser) values.
- Approved number goes to the desk.
- Rep presents the number with the deal, not as a standalone promise.
If a buyer demands a number before looking at your inventory, you can still inspect first. A number with no condition notes is a guess you will pay for later.
Approval Bands, Exceptions, and Audit Trail
Who appraises and who approves only works if the approval math is visible.
Bands that match how you buy
Illustrative structure, not a benchmark:
| Situation | Who can approve |
|---|---|
| Clean trade, recommended value inside the daily book | Used-car manager |
| Number above a stated dollar cap | GM or dealer principal |
| Title, brand, or frame questions | Used-car manager plus documented review |
| Rep's personal vehicle or related-party | GM only |
| After-hours or Saturday with no manager | Pre-agreed backup, or no number until they are reachable |
Put actual dollar caps in your handbook. Review them when the market moves, not when a deal is already in crisis.
What the approval record must capture
- VIN, mileage, stock-in photos or at least phone photos of corners, dash, and obvious issues.
- Customer-stated history versus what you observed.
- Recommended value, approved value, and who signed.
- Intended exit: retail, wholesale, or unknown pending recon.
- Any we-owe related to the trade.
If this only lives in a text thread, you will not be able to reconstruct why you overpaid when the unit ages. Connect the record to vehicle intake from purchase to lot so the trade is not a second, sloppier intake process.
Overallowance is a decision, not an accident
If the desk needs to stack money on a trade to make a deal, name it as an overallowance and say who can approve that stack. Hiding it in a fuzzy appraisal teaches the floor that numbers are negotiable after the inspection, which they will be, forever.
Weekends, After Hours, and the Missing Manager
Appraisal roles die on Saturday. The closer is there. The used-car manager is at an auction or off. The customer is waiting.
Named Saturday appraiser
Someone on the Saturday roster has appraisal rights inside the same bands as weekday policy. If nobody on site is qualified, the store does not invent numbers. They inspect, photograph, and schedule a same-day or next-morning approval. Losing a maybe-deal is cheaper than buying a problem truck at a driveway number.
Photo packet for remote approval
When the approver is off-site, require a defined photo and video set, VIN, mileage, and the checklist. A single blurry side shot is not an appraisal. The remote approver is still the approver; the rep is not.
After-close arrivals
A trade that shows up at 7:55 p.m. gets logged, not rubber-stamped. If your store allows a hold pending morning appraisal, say so in the customer's paperwork language. Do not let a verbal "we'll take care of you tomorrow" become a binding number.
This is the same coverage logic as other time-gap work: named owner, written limit, morning pickup. If you already run handoffs at shift change, reuse that discipline for pending appraisals.
From Approved Trade to Inventory and Listing
The appraisal is not finished when the customer says yes. The unit has to enter the book as a real car.
Cost and status
Book the approved number (and any overallowance treatment your accounting uses) so the used-car manager is not guessing cost on day 20. Status should distinguish "in recon," "wholesale," and "retail-ready." A trade that cannot be photographed yet should not be posted as if it is on the front row.
Disclosure discipline
If the appraisal found issues, those issues belong in the file and, where required, in customer-facing retail language later. Do not appraise a problem, then list the unit like a clean extra-low-mile special. This is not legal advice; have compliance review your disclosure habits.
Speed to list, without guessing specs
Retail-bound trades should enter the posting queue once they are lot-ready, with VIN-based specs, actual mileage, and photos of this unit. A buy or pass framework still applies after you own it: some trades should never see the retail row.
Common role failures
- Rep appraises their own customer's car with no second look.
- Manager appraises from the office window.
- F&I "adjusts" the trade after approval without looping the used-car manager.
- Porter's notes never reach the valuation.
- The unit hits Marketplace with stock photos or a cloned description because "it's just a trade."
Each of those is a role hole. Close it with names, not reminders in a sales meeting.
How PostToMarket Automates This
Appraisal roles fall apart after the number is approved, when the trade sits unlisted, mistyped, or advertised before it is ready. PostToMarket is not an appraisal tool and does not value trades. It is how an approved unit becomes clean inventory and a paced listing instead of a driveway leftover.
Get the unit into the book once, correctly
- Bulk CSV and Excel import if trades land in a DMS export, with import history and a row-level error log so VIN, mileage, and price mistakes show up before posting.
- Capture from auction and wholesale sites is for buy-trip units; trades still need a disciplined inventory record so they do not live in a side spreadsheet.
- Unlimited vehicles in inventory on every plan, including the trades you might wholesale next week.
Keep unready trades off the public lot
- Statuses draft, posting, posted, sold, failed so a unit in recon stays draft until photos exist.
- Managers assign retail-ready trades to associate queues; they do not let every rep post a car that is still waiting on a bumper.
- Team queue view and release any claim if a rep sits on a fresh trade that should be live.
List the actual car, not a template
- AI-generated titles and descriptions from the vehicle's specs, editable before posting, so the trade's options and condition notes can be reflected instead of a cloned paragraph.
- Facebook photo picker for the inspection photos that should have been taken at appraisal.
- The Chrome extension posts one vehicle at a time with human-like delays and server-enforced daily limits.
- Mark as sold and archive if the retail plan changes and the unit wholesales instead.
Sign in with email. No API keys. Roles in the product (admin, manager, sales rep, sales associate) should mirror who may post, not who shouted a number on the driveway.
Put Appraisal Authority on Paper Before the Next Trade
Appraisal process roles: who appraises and who approves should be answerable without a fight. Intake, inspect, value, approve, convert to inventory. Only designated people speak numbers. Bands and backups cover Saturday. The file follows the car onto the lot.
If your current process is "the closest manager takes a look," you already know how the $18,500 driveway quote happens. Write the jobs. Train the backups. Then make sure an approved trade becomes inventory with a real status instead of a promise in a notebook.
When the unit is ready to retail, post it like the rest of the book. Start your 10-day free trial and stop letting trades vanish between the desk and Marketplace. Starter is $59 per month for a solo seller or independent lot with one login. Dealership is $299 per month for up to 13 logins, enough for a manager plus the people who actually post. Secure Stripe checkout, ten-day trial, cancel anytime. Approve the number once. Then get the car into a queue that someone owns.