How it is computed
Take the annual floorplan rate. Divide by three hundred sixty-five for the daily rate. Multiply by the amount financed on a unit for that unit's daily cost. Multiply by days in stock for what the unit has cost so far. Add the store's own daily holding cost per unit (lot space, insurance, wash, and the rest) if the store carries one, and the sum is the true daily rent.
Why it matters
It is the cost of aging that never shows on the deal. The price drops are visible; the interest is buried in the financial statement under a line nobody reads at the desk.
It changes the math on holding price. A car that is "only" sixty days old at a healthy rate on a healthy balance has already spent real gross, and the decision to hold price another thirty days should be made knowing the number.
How operators read it
- Read it per unit, not only as a monthly total. The monthly total is an accounting fact; the per-unit figure is what changes a pricing decision.
- Read it on the aged units specifically. The interest on a hundred-and-twenty-day car is the floorplan line's most expensive part, and it is concentrated in a few VINs the desk can name.
- Remember the rate moves. A floorplan rate that rose two points changes the holding math on every unit on the lot the same day.
Questions people ask
Is floorplan interest a variable or a fixed expense?
It is booked as a variable-side expense in most stores, because it rides with inventory levels and the rate. It behaves like a fixed cost on any one car: the car pays rent every day it sits.
What is a daily holding cost?
The store's own estimate of what it costs to keep a car on the lot for a day beyond interest: space, insurance, washing, lot personnel, depreciation. Stores that carry one use it to price aging decisions honestly.
How A.D.A.M. reads it
A.D.A.M. carries the store's floorplan annual rate and daily holding cost as shop facts the store sets, and reads aged and excess floorplan interest from them only when the store has supplied them, never from a guess. He reads it beside the numbers it trades against, names what the gap is worth, and leaves the decision where it belongs. What an AI advisor should do, and refuse to do.