Employee fraud is increasingly being identified by dealer management software, says Pinewood.

The DMS provider says the financial transparency available in modern systems means that any wrongdoing by staff is often more immediately apparent than in the past.

Neville Briggs, Pinewood managing director, said: “While we would stress that this is by no means common, we have seen a growing number of cases of employee theft identified through our DMS.

“The usual place where this is taking place is the parts department with components and accessories that are easy to sell on to friends, in the pub or even on the internet.

“In the past, DMS systems have not generally been transparent enough to spot irregularities but through modern, web-delivered software, they are much more easily apparent.”

Briggs added that employers were not generally going out of their way to look for employee theft but that it was identified through DMS tools that were designed to spot unusual trading patterns, often when the software was first implemented.

He said: “We have seen several examples in the last year or two where we have implemented a DMS system and, as part of the process, irregularities have come to light.

“For example, a parts manager in one dealership had stolen aftermarket sat nav systems worth £78,000. This amount of money had simply disappeared in the department’s general trading figures over a number of years but was flagged up quite quickly when the new DMS was put in place.”