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Transfer a vehicle to another customer

Transfer moves a Vehicle to a different Customer without creating a new record. Open the current customer's page, find the vehicle card, and select Transfer vehicle from its actions menu. The Vehicle keeps its identity and its full service history; the Estimates, Invoices, payments, and balances already on the books stay with the original Customer.

Transfer is for a Vehicle that genuinely changed hands or was filed under the wrong Customer. A customer sold the car to a neighbor who now brings it in, a family member took over the vehicle, a business moved a truck to a different company account, or someone added the Vehicle to the wrong Customer at intake. If the real problem is two records for one physical vehicle, transfer won't fix it; see Find and resolve duplicate customers or vehicles.

Transfer from the customer page​

  1. Open Customers and select the customer who currently has the Vehicle.
  2. On the vehicle card, open the actions menu (the three-dot button) and select Transfer vehicle.
  3. Under New Customer, type at least two characters to search, then select the customer. You can only transfer to an existing Customer, so if the new owner isn't in BayEngine yet, create them first (see Create and manage personal and business customers).
  4. Choose a Reason: Ownership changed for a real change of hands, Correcting the Customer for a filing mistake, or Other when neither applies. Correcting the Customer and Other require a note explaining the reason; for an ownership change the note is optional.
  5. Select Transfer vehicle.

The Vehicle disappears from the old customer's page and appears on the new one. The transfer is recorded with who did it, when, both customers, the reason, and the note.

The license plate stays on the record as-is. If the new owner registered the car under a new plate, update it afterward with Edit on the vehicle card.

What moves and what stays​

The Vehicle record itself moves: identity, service history, and odometer readings all follow it to the new Customer, so the next visit still shows what was done at 60,000 miles. When the new Customer belongs to another shop in your organization, the Vehicle moves to that shop too, so the shop now serving the car finds it in Search, on the customer's page, and in the vehicle picker when booking. Documents do not move. Prior Estimates, Repair Orders, Invoices, payments, and any outstanding balance keep their original Customer, because that customer is who authorized and owes for that work. The neighbor who bought the car does not inherit the seller's invoices or their balance. The full model is covered in Understand vehicle ownership, service history, and historical invoices.

Open work blocks a transfer​

You can't transfer a Vehicle with active work. The dialog lists the blockers under "Finish or cancel these items before transferring": any open Repair Order, any Estimate in Draft, Sent, Viewed, or Approved status, and any appointment that is scheduled, confirmed, or arrived. Complete or cancel each one, then run the transfer again. This keeps in-progress work attached to the customer who authorized it.

Transfer while adding a vehicle​

You don't have to hunt for the old record first. If you add a vehicle to a customer and its VIN matches a Vehicle already on a different Customer, Shop Atlas offers Transfer right there instead of creating a duplicate — the same dialog opens with the new customer already filled in. If the match is an archived Vehicle, the action is Restore Vehicle. Restoring for its current Customer simply reactivates it; restoring for a different Customer also transfers it in the same step and follows the active-work rules above.

In this flow, when the plate you entered at intake differs from the plate on the record, the dialog asks what to do: keep the existing plate, replace it with the one you entered, or clear it. New owners often re-register, so replacing is the common choice. See Add vehicles and correct vehicle information for the rest of the add flow.

Permission needed​

Transferring within one Shop requires the vehicles update permission for that Shop, plus customers read access, so anyone who can edit vehicles can normally transfer them. Moving a Vehicle to a customer whose home Shop is a different Shop in your Organization requires organization-wide vehicles update and customers read permissions instead. The new customer must belong to your Organization; there is no transfer between organizations. See Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions for how these grants work.