Glossary

An odometer reading is the distance figure shown on a vehicle's odometer at a specific moment, recorded with a date so it can be compared against earlier readings. A single reading is a data point about a display. The sequence of readings over time is what tells you whether to trust it.

OEM co-op advertising is a manufacturer paying a share of a franchised dealer's local advertising cost, on condition that the advertising follows the brand's rules on logos, claims, disclaimers and approved media. The dealer pays first and claims the money back with proof.

An OEM lead is a sales enquiry passed to a dealership by the vehicle manufacturer, generated on the brand's national website or campaign and routed to a dealer by geography. There is no per-lead fee, but the leads carry manufacturer response standards and are funded from marketing money the dealer already contributes.

The term Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is a concept that is widely used in various industries, including the automotive sector. It refers to a company that produces parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. In the automotive industry, an OEM is the original producer of a vehicle's components, and these parts are often used by the car company in the vehicle's assembly, and they are also sold to customers by the car company's service department.

Off hire is the point at which a hirer notifies the owner that hired plant or equipment is finished with and available for collection, ending the charging period. It is one of the most disputed moments in hire, because collection usually happens later than the notification.

One to one video is video made for a single named recipient and sent directly to that person, rather than produced once and broadcast to an audience. One sender, one viewer, and content that refers to the viewer's own car, quote or question. Also written one-to-one video or 1:1 video.

On hire is the status of an asset that has been released to a hirer and is accruing hire charges, running from the moment it leaves the owner's control until it is formally off hired. It is also the point at which condition should be recorded, because that record sets the standard the asset is judged against on return.

Online car buying is the practice of completing part or all of a vehicle purchase over the internet: selecting the car, agreeing the price, arranging finance, valuing a part exchange and signing, without the buyer being in the showroom for every step.

Opportunistic fraud is when a policyholder with a real incident and no prior intent to defraud inflates, adds to, or invents part of a claim once the loss has already happened. It is the larger half of the standard counter-fraud split between opportunistic and organised fraud.

Organised insurance fraud is premeditated fraud committed by a network of people acting together, where the incident is staged, induced or invented and the policy often exists only to be claimed on. It is the second half of the standard opportunistic and organised split.

Part exchange is the UK term for handing your existing car to a dealer as part of the payment for the next one. The dealer values the car, deducts that figure from the price of the vehicle being bought, and the customer settles the difference in cash or finance.

Parts availability is the share of jobs where the right part is on hand at the moment the work needs it. In field service it only counts at the point of use, on the job, which is why a well stocked central warehouse and a poor first-time fix rate sit together comfortably.

Parts fill rate is the share of parts demands a dealership parts department satisfies immediately from its own shelf. NADA's parts guide puts first-time off-the-shelf fill rate at 90 percent and same-day fill rate at 95 percent, which are the two numbers most parts managers get measured on.

Parts markup is the amount a workshop adds to the cost price of a part to reach the price charged to the customer, expressed as a percentage of that cost. It drives the parts line of every repair order, and it is not the same number as gross margin.

Pass fail criteria are the rules that convert an inspection measurement or observation into a binary verdict: this item is accepted, or it is rejected. They sit downstream of the standard itself, and they are where a measured value becomes an operational decision.

PDI stands for Pre-Delivery Inspection: the check a dealer performs on a car before handover. What it covers, how long it takes, and what to ask for.

A permit to work is a formal written authorisation allowing a specific high-risk job to start at a specific place and time, issued by a named authorised person only once the hazards are identified, the precautions and isolations are verified in place, and the work party has confirmed it understands them.

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person, which under Article 4(1) GDPR covers far more than a name or an address: a photograph, a video clip, a voice recording and an online identifier all qualify. Context decides the edge cases.

What personalized video is: a video made for one viewer, with their name, car or case in it. How businesses use it in sales and service.

A phone up is an inbound sales call from a customer enquiring about a vehicle, treated as a live opportunity in the same way a floor up is. The only goal of the call is an appointment, because a phone up that ends in a price quote and a thank you is usually a lost one.

Photo documentation software is a category of tools that captures photos and short video on site, stamps each file with time, location and device data, organises the files by job, project or case, and turns them into a report someone who was not there can act on.

A photo estimate is a repair cost assessment produced from photographs of a damaged vehicle instead of a physical inspection, written by an estimator or generated by an estimating system and signed off by a person. It is now one of the most common appraisal routes in motor claims.

Photo manipulation detection is the checking of a submitted photo or video for signs that it was edited, generated, re-photographed from a screen, or reused from elsewhere, before a claims handler or inspector relies on it. It produces signals for a human to weigh, not a verdict.

A photo request link is a web link sent to a customer, tenant, driver or contractor by SMS, email, WhatsApp or QR code that opens a guided set of photo steps in the phone's browser, so the organisation receives the specific images it needs, in order, with time and location attached, instead of an unstructured batch of attachments.

A photo requirement is the specified set of images that must be present, shot by shot, before an inspection, claim or condition report is accepted as complete. It names each image by subject and angle, so the same evidence arrives every time, whoever is holding the phone.

Planned maintenance is any maintenance work that is known about, prepared and resourced before it starts, whether the trigger is a routine interval or a fault that has already been found. The defining feature is advance notice and preparation, not the reason for the work.

Plant and machinery is the collective term for the fixed and mobile equipment a business uses to carry out its work, from excavators, cranes and forklifts to compressors, boilers and production lines, as distinct from the buildings that house it. The phrase carries a tax meaning and a safety meaning at once.

Play rate is the percentage of people who loaded a page containing a video and pressed play, calculated as plays divided by page loads. It measures one thing only: whether the thumbnail, the placement and the copy around the player earned the click.

A policy excess is the amount an insured bears on each claim before the insurer's liability begins, usually a compulsory excess set by the insurer plus any voluntary excess the customer chose. It is the UK and Commonwealth term for what US policies call a deductible.

A post hire inspection is the condition check carried out when a hired asset comes back, set against the pre hire record to identify what changed during the hire. It is not an assessment of condition. It is a comparison, and it fails whenever the two records were shot differently.

A pre-binding inspection is a check of a vehicle or property that an insurer requires before it binds a policy, usually photos of every side, the VIN and the odometer for a car, so the condition at the start of cover is on record.

Predictive maintenance is maintenance triggered by the measured condition of an asset rather than by a calendar date or a runtime interval, so the work is scheduled from evidence of degradation instead of from a fixed plan. Vibration, thermography, oil analysis or a structured inspection supplies the signal.

A pre-funding inspection is the check a lender or lessor orders before releasing money against a specific asset: the equipment or vehicle exists, matches the application down to the serial number or VIN, and is in the condition stated. It is the last control before funds move.

A pre hire inspection is the condition record taken of an asset immediately before it is released to a hirer, signed by both sides. It does nothing on the day it is made. It is the baseline every later damage claim gets measured against, and no charge survives without it.

Pre paid maintenance is a plan sold at the point of vehicle sale that covers a defined set of scheduled services for a fixed term or mileage, paid up front and redeemed at the dealership over time. It is booked as a liability at the sale, not as income, and earned as each service is performed.

A pre purchase inspection, or PPI, is a condition check commissioned before a buying decision by the party carrying the risk of that decision. It reports the state of the asset at one point in time so the buyer can proceed, renegotiate, or walk away.

A pre start check is the inspection an operator or driver carries out before a vehicle or machine is used, covering safety critical items that can be checked without dismantling anything, with every defect found reported and recorded before the asset is put to work.

A pre-trip inspection is the check a driver carries out on a vehicle before starting a journey to be satisfied it is in safe operating condition. In the United States it is a duty under 49 CFR 396.13; in the UK and Ireland the equivalent is the daily walkaround check before first use.

A pre-use inspection is the short visual and functional check the user makes on a piece of work equipment before each use or shift, to spot a defect that would make it unsafe. It applies to plant, powered access, forklifts, ladders, harnesses, hand tools and vehicles, and is separate from the periodic inspection a competent person carries out.

Preventive maintenance is work carried out on a fixed time or runtime schedule to slow or catch degradation before an asset fails, with the calendar or the runtime counter deciding when the work is due rather than the measured state of the machine. Filter changes, lubrication and scheduled inspections are typical.

A pre-visit assessment is a structured check carried out before a technician is dispatched, gathering the equipment details, fault evidence and site conditions a planner needs to decide who to send, with what parts, and how urgently. It sits between intake and scheduling.

Product registration is the process by which an owner records their purchase with the manufacturer, linking one serial number to a named contact, a purchase date and an address. It exists so the maker can reach that specific unit later, for warranty, service or safety reasons. Most owners never complete it.

Proof of condition is the evidence record of an asset's physical state at a defined moment: a vehicle at hire pick-up, a flat at move-in, a machine at delivery. It exists so that any change found later can be dated and attributed rather than argued about.

Proof of loss is the formal, usually sworn statement in which a policyholder sets out what was lost or damaged, when and how it happened, and the amount claimed, with documentation the insurer can verify. It is a condition of the policy, not a courtesy.

Proof of prior insurance is a document showing that an applicant was insured before, with the dates and the previous insurer, most often the declarations page of the old policy or a letter of experience. Insurers use it to price and accept a new policy.

In field service, proof of work is documented visual evidence that a job was actually completed to standard, captured at the point of completion. It replaces a status field that says Completed with something a supervisor, customer or auditor can look at and check.

A property damage claim is a claim for physical damage to tangible property, covering the cost to repair or replace it rather than injury to a person. It can be first party or third party depending on whose property was damaged and whose policy responds.

A property inspection is a documented visual check of a rented property's condition, carried out by a landlord, letting agent or inventory clerk at a set point in the tenancy. It records the state of the building, its fixtures and its contents on a specific, evidenced date.

Property preservation is the work a mortgage servicer orders to secure and maintain a vacant or defaulted property: securing doors and windows, winterizing, cutting grass, removing debris and fixing hazards. Contractors complete work orders and prove the work with before and after photographs.

Provenance is the documented origin and handling history of a piece of evidence: where it came from, who produced it, how it reached you, and what happened to it along the way. It answers questions about the file's journey rather than about the scene it depicts.

Public key verification is the process of checking a digital signature against the signer's published public key, so anyone holding the signed data, the signature and that key can confirm the data has not changed since it was signed and that it was signed by the matching private key. No vendor login required.

A PUWER inspection is the inspection of work equipment required by Regulation 6 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies where the safety of the equipment depends on how it was installed, or where it is exposed to conditions that cause deterioration, and it must be carried out by a competent person and recorded.

Gross profit per unit is the total gross a dealership earns on each vehicle retailed, calculated as front end gross plus back end gross. Commonly written PVR, for per vehicle retailed, it is the single number most dealer principals use to judge a deal, a salesperson or a month.

A progressive web app, or PWA, is a mobile web app that adds an installable identity: a manifest file and a service worker let it be added to the home screen, launch without browser chrome, cache its own files for offline use, and on supported platforms receive push notifications.

A quality assurance inspection is a planned check that work or product conforms to a specified requirement, carried out at a defined point in the process, by a defined method, and recorded so the result can be relied on afterwards. The specification, not the inspector's judgement, sets the pass mark.

A racking inspection is a documented check of pallet racking and other storage equipment for damage, overloading and misuse, carried out at three levels under HSE guidance HSG76: immediate reporting by staff, a regular visual inspection by a trained person, and an annual expert inspection. Damage is classified green, amber or red to decide what happens to the bay.

A RAG report is the customer-facing output of a vehicle health check in which every inspected item is graded red for work needed now, amber for work needed soon, or green for checked and in order. The name stands for red, amber, green, the traffic-light convention used across project management and fleet compliance.

Reactive maintenance is repairing or replacing an asset after it has already failed, with no scheduled preventive work carried out beforehand, which means the failure itself decides when the work happens and what it costs. Also called run-to-failure or breakdown maintenance, it is still the dominant mode in industry.

Recommended work is the list of repair and maintenance items a technician identifies during an inspection and puts to the customer for authorisation. It covers everything beyond the job that was booked, priced as separate lines on the repair order, and it is the number declined work gets measured against.

Recon cost is the total spend needed to bring an acquired used vehicle to retail standard, covering parts, labour, sublet work and detailing, charged against that unit before any gross is counted. Dealers track it per vehicle, not as a department total.

Reconditioning is the work a dealership does to bring an acquired used vehicle up to retail standard before it reaches the frontline, covering mechanical repair, safety items, bodywork and detailing. Dealers shorten it to recon, and measure it in days rather than hours.

A red flag indicator is a single observable characteristic of a customer, a transaction or a claim that experience associates with financial crime, and that tells a reviewer to ask a further question. It raises scrutiny on a file. On its own it proves nothing.

Refurbishment is the work done to return an asset to a defined serviceable standard after use, covering repair, replacement of worn components, and cosmetic reinstatement. It restores an asset to an agreed condition rather than improving it beyond its original specification.

A re-inspection is a repeat examination of an asset already inspected once, carried out either to verify that a failed item has been properly remedied, or to redo an inspection whose evidence was unusable. The two look identical on a schedule and mean very different things.

Remarketing is the disposal of vehicles at the end of their fleet or lease life, covering the grading, pricing, channel choice and sale that turn a returned asset back into cash. Its job is to recover as much of the forecast residual value as the market will actually pay.

Remote adjusting is the handling and settlement of a claim without the adjuster physically attending the loss, working instead from images, video, measurements and documentation captured at the scene. It is remote-first rather than remote-only: complex and disputed losses still get a visit.

Remote assistance is any method that lets an expert help someone at another location without travelling there, working from what they can see and control through that person's device. It covers remote control of a computer and live video assistance through a phone camera.

Remote claim inspection is the assessment of damage from video, photos and structured answers submitted by the claimant, instead of an in-person visit by an appraiser. It covers both live video sessions and asynchronous guided capture the claimant completes alone.

Remote inspection is the umbrella term for any process in which a vehicle, property, machine or site is assessed without the assessor travelling to it, covering live video sessions, guided self capture, drone and sensor methods, and desk review of submitted material.

Remote triage is the process of assessing a reported issue from a distance and deciding what happens next: resolve it remotely, request more information, or dispatch a technician. It is a decision point placed deliberately between the customer report and the schedule.

Remote troubleshooting is the process of diagnosing and resolving a fault without attending the site, using what the person standing at the equipment can tell you, show you, or do on your instruction. The quality of the outcome is set by the quality of what you can see.

Remote video inspection is an assessment carried out by an expert who is not at the location, using video captured by someone who is standing in front of it. In most industry usage the term means the live variant, with the assessor watching and directing the camera in real time.

A rental agreement is the contract under which an owner gives a customer temporary possession and use of an asset for an agreed period and price, while keeping ownership of it. It settles three things that decide almost every later argument: permitted use, what gets paid, and who carries the cost of damage.

Repair approval is the customer's authorisation, given in writing, by phone or through a digital link, for a workshop to carry out specified chargeable work on their vehicle at a stated price. It is recorded against the repair order before the work starts and covers both the booked job and any work identified during inspection.

A repair network is the managed panel of approved repairers an insurer or claims organisation uses to carry out vehicle or property repairs, operating under one set of commercial terms, technical standards and performance measures instead of being appointed claim by claim.

Repair order count is the number of repair orders a workshop opens or closes in a defined period, and it is the denominator underneath almost every other fixed operations metric. It measures visits, not revenue, and the two move independently more often than managers expect.

A repeat visit is a return trip to a job the first visit failed to close. It is the direct opposite of a first-time fix, and in most field service operations the single most common cause is mundane: the part the job needed was not on the van when the engineer arrived.

A repossession inspection documents the condition of an asset at the moment a lender or its agent recovers it: identity, condition, mileage or hours, and any personal property found with it. It is the baseline every later dispute about damage, value or missing items is measured against.

A reputation score is a single number summarising a business's public review performance, usually built from star average, review volume, recency, response rate and spread across sites. There is no standard formula: each platform and supplier weights the inputs differently.

Residual value is the amount an asset is expected to be worth at the end of a lease or finance term, after deducting estimated disposal costs, assuming it is of the age and in the condition the agreement anticipates. It is fixed at inception and it sets the monthly payment.

Retail valuation is the price a used vehicle is expected to sell for on a dealer's forecourt once it has been prepared, warranted and advertised. It sits above the wholesale or trade figure for the same car, and the gap between the two pays for reconditioning, preparation, cover and margin.

A retake request is a targeted instruction sent back to a participant asking them to re-record or re-photograph one specific part of a submission, correcting a gap without discarding the material already collected or restarting the whole process.

Retargeting is paid advertising aimed at people who already visited your dealership website or viewed a specific vehicle and then left without enquiring. Their browser or account is added to an audience list, and ads for that stock follow them across other sites, apps and social feeds.

Returns management is the customer facing process a business runs when someone wants to send goods back: taking the request, deciding whether it is accepted, authorising it, arranging collection or drop off, and settling the refund, replacement, or repair.

Reverse image search is a search technique that uses a picture as the query instead of text, returning visually matching copies of that picture published elsewhere online. In claims work it is the fastest way to catch a recycled photo, and it fails quietly on edited or re-encoded files.

Reverse logistics is the physical and financial flow of goods travelling backwards through a supply chain, from the customer towards the seller, manufacturer, refurbisher, or recycler, together with the decision about what happens to each item that comes back.

Review management is the ongoing work of asking customers for public reviews, responding to the ones that arrive, and feeding what they say back into the process that produced them. It is an operating habit owned by the people who serve the customer, not a marketing campaign.

A risk assessment is a structured examination of a task, place or activity to identify what could cause harm, judge how likely and how serious that harm would be, and decide what control measures are needed before the work goes ahead. It is a decision-making process, not a form.

Risk scoring is the practice of turning observable facts about a customer, a transaction or a claim into a single graded rating that decides how much scrutiny the case receives. It ranks work for human attention. It does not decide the outcome of the case.

A return merchandise authorisation (RMA) is the approval a supplier issues before a customer ships an item back, carrying a reference number that ties the returning unit to a specific fault, order and outcome. No number, no return. It is also the last cheap moment to ask whether the item needs to travel at all.

A roadworthiness inspection is the periodic legal check that a vehicle already in use still meets the safety and environmental standards its country sets. It covers brakes, steering, tyres, lights, suspension, structure and emissions, and ends in a recorded pass or fail.

RO stands for Repair Order: the document a service department opens for every job. What an RO number is, what the RO contains, and how RO fees work.

A roof inspection is an examination of a roof covering and everything around it, including flashings, rooflights, gutters, outlets, fixings and rooftop plant, carried out to record condition, locate defects and water ingress, and decide what repair work is needed and how urgently.

In the automotive industry, the term "rooftop" is often used to refer to a dealership location. This term is derived from the physical buildings that house car dealerships, which are often large structures with prominent rooftops. However, in the context of the industry, it has come to mean much more than just a physical location.

Salvage is the damaged property an insurer takes ownership of after settling a total loss claim, and also the value recovered by selling it on. It is the closing step in a write-off, and the systems that classify salvage vehicles differ sharply from one country to the next.

Sample inspection is the practice of checking a defined random subset of a lot and using that result to accept or reject the whole lot. The sample size and the number of nonconforming items allowed come from a published sampling plan, not from the inspector's judgement on the day.