Starting this month, Comptron (www.comptron.com) is selling an online version of its dealer management system that it claims offers the same functionality as its software but costs about 80 percent less.

Gayland Yarbrough, co-founder of the Hereford, Arizona-based company, says the recession was the main impetus for the new offering. “Dealers, particularly smaller ones, are really trying to cut corners,” he says. ”They have to either not automate, or find something that’s very reasonable.”

The system comes in three modules: Parts, Service and Showroom. Dealers must buy the Parts module, but the other two are optional.

Comptron targets small to medium-sized dealerships whose employees often wear multiple hats. Because of this, these staff members usually would have trouble learning all three modules at once, Yarbrough says. Instead they often start with Parts, then add Service, then Showroom.

There’s also a QuickBooks integration option that Comptron reportedly has been developing for the past eight years.

Depending on the number of modules a dealer buys, upfront costs are $1,590 to $3,995, and the monthly service fee is $99 to $180. These costs assume that the dealer already has computers, printers and a good Internet access with a static IP. Comptron guarantees the prices for one year. No contract is required, and subscribers can cancel at any time.

Dealers get access to 135 vender price books that Comptron updates for free. System updates are also free. Another option is integrations with any of the major electronic fiche catalogs. Comptron says it backs up each dealer’s system nightly.

Yarbrough highly recommends that dealers also sign up for on-site training. Dealers who do, he says, are more likely to implement the system immediately and use it to its full potential. Training for only the Parts module lasts three days. Taking into account air faire, a hotel room, a rental car and a per-diem fee, Yarbrough estimates it costs the dealer about $3,000. Five days of training for all three modules costs about $5,000, he says.

So why wouldn’t a dealer opt to save money with the online version of Comptron?

“Some dealers are not comfortable with having their data not reside in their own facility,” Yarbrough says, adding that Comptron keeps the hosting servers under lock and key.

Perhaps a more reasonable concern arises when the dealer doesn’t have a reliable Internet connection. If the Internet goes down, so does the system.

Those objections aside, Yarbrough expects the online version of Comptron to be a big success. “I think it’s going to revolutionize the industry,” he says. “I don’t know of anyone else doing it.”

He envisions some dealers switching from other providers. “Some of the systems have been so expensive,” he says. “I’ve seen them $800, $900, $1,000 a month even. And so dealers can cut that expense. We can give them the option to cut that expense way down and still efficiently automate their store.”

Yarbrough and his brother developed Comptron back in the ’70s for their own franchised motorcycle dealership. Customers who worked at nearby Fort Huachuca, home of the military’s intelligence center, helped. Soon the software became the Yarbroughs’ full-time business, and the company has been selling the system to other dealers since 1984. Today more than 200 dealers in the powersports, RV and marine industries use Comptron.