Questions, answered

What is ELVPro?

ELVPro is software for end-of-life vehicle businesses — dismantlers, recyclers, salvage yards and used-parts sellers. It manages your vehicles and parts, runs your own branded website, and lets you take inquiries and sell online. It gives you what a modern shop needs without the weight of an ERP.

How long does it take to get started?

Most yards go from signup to a live website in under 30 minutes. You create the account, pick your web address, add your business details and branding, then add or import a few parts. The website is generated from your inventory and settings — there is nothing to design or build.

Do I need a credit card to sign up?

No. The 30-day trial needs no card and no commitment. You add a payment method only if and when you decide to upgrade to a paid plan.

What do I have to install?

Nothing. ELVPro runs in your browser, and your public shop is a normal website your customers open like any other. Your team can work from a laptop, tablet or phone.

Why do you ask for my company number at signup?

We check it against the official registry — ANAF in Romania, VIES elsewhere in the EU — so your legal details are right on your invoices from day one. A number that is clearly invalid, or that belongs to a different country than the one you chose, is refused. If the registry is simply unreachable, you carry on and your yard is marked unverified.

Do I need technical skills to run it?

No. Everything is done from a normal admin screen — no code, no templates to edit, no server to look after. An optional setup wizard walks you through your profile, branding and language settings the first time you sign in, and you can skip it and come back.

Is ELVPro available in my language?

The admin interface is available in English, Romanian, French, German and Polish. Your public shop can also run in several languages from the Professional plan upwards.

How does the free trial work?

You get 30 days free, with no credit card. During the trial your yard behaves like the Professional plan, so you can judge the product on what it actually does. There is a 7-day grace period at the end before anything changes.

What happens when the trial ends?

If you haven't upgraded, your yard drops to the free Starter plan after the grace period. Nothing is deleted — anything above the Starter limits is simply hidden. Upgrade whenever you like and it all comes straight back.

What do the plans cost?

Starter is free. Professional starts at €99/month, Business at €229/month and Enterprise at €399/month or a custom price. Prices are shown per market on the pricing page, and you can view them in your own currency.

What's the difference between the plans?

Starter gets you online with up to 100 published parts and inquiries. Professional removes the parts and vehicle limits and adds your own domain, several languages and currencies, customer accounts, live chat, a blog and imports. Business adds online checkout and card payments, returns and refunds, promotions, feeds, the API, advanced analytics and white-label; Enterprise adds multi-location, more domains and users, real-time analytics and your own AI keys.

Is there a discount for paying yearly?

Yes — pay annually and you get 2 months free, so you pay for ten months and get twelve. You can choose monthly or annual when you upgrade, and see both prices side by side on the pricing page.

I only need one more user — must I change plan?

No. You can add a single extra team seat, or an extra 30 GB of storage, on top of your current plan from Account → Usage. Add-ons take effect immediately and are billed on the same cycle as your plan; removing one lowers your next bill rather than producing a refund.

How do I upgrade, and how do I pay?

Upgrading is self-serve: pick the plan and billing cycle on Account → Subscription and pay by card through Stripe Checkout. Your new plan activates as soon as the payment clears. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe — ELVPro never sees or stores them.

Can I change plan or cancel later?

Yes. Upgrades are immediate and self-serve; downgrades, pauses and cancellations are requests the ELVPro team approves, and they take effect at the end of the period you've already paid for. You keep the higher plan until then.

Are there commissions or hidden fees?

No. You pay the plan price and nothing else — ELVPro takes no commission on your sales and no cut of your shipping. Your card processor and courier charge you their own fees directly, under your own contract with them.

Where do I find my ELVPro invoices?

Under Account → Invoices, with a downloadable PDF for each one. These are your subscription invoices, kept separate from the commerce invoices you issue to your own customers. VAT is applied correctly, including intra-EU reverse charge for VAT-registered businesses.

Is ELVPro a marketplace?

No, and this is deliberate. There is no shared catalogue and no cross-yard search: each yard has its own website, its own address and its own customers. We sell you software — we don't compete with you for your buyers.

Who owns my data and my customers?

You do. Your website, domain, brand, customer accounts, order history and inquiries belong to your yard. ELVPro never markets to your customers, never resells their details and never mixes your inventory into anyone else's shop.

Will I lose data if I downgrade or stop paying?

No. Data is hidden, never erased — parts above the new limit simply unpublish, and features above your plan stop being available. Upgrade again and everything is restored instantly. This is a firm rule, not a courtesy.

Can I get my data out?

Yes. Your catalogue, orders and customers export from the interface, and product feeds can publish your live stock to other systems. There is no lock-in and nothing to negotiate on your way out.

Where is my data hosted?

On servers in the European Union — in Germany. Third-party credentials and the most sensitive personal data are encrypted in the database, and every record is scoped to the yard that owns it, so no yard can reach another's data.

What does my public website include?

A homepage, a parts catalog, a vehicle catalog, individual part pages, search, a contact page and your own custom pages — plus promotions and a blog on the higher plans. It's generated from your inventory and settings, so it stays current as you work.

Can customers find the part that fits their car?

Yes. The catalog has a "Fit my car" make → model → year filter, and a garage widget in the header that narrows the whole shop to a customer's own vehicle. Search is typo-tolerant with autocomplete, so a misspelt part name still finds the part.

Can I use my own domain name?

Yes, from the Professional plan — one custom domain, or up to five on Enterprise. The HTTPS certificate is issued and renewed for you. On the free plan your shop runs on an elvpro subdomain.

Can I change how the site looks?

Every plan lets you set your brand colour and logo. From Professional you can compose your pages from re-orderable sections — featured parts, popular categories, banners, a hero slideshow, testimonials, opening hours and more — and from Business you get the full palette, fonts, text size and corner styling with a live preview.

Can I remove the "Powered by ELVPro" line?

Yes, on Business and Enterprise. Your shop then carries only your own branding.

Can customers install my shop on their phone?

Yes. Your storefront can be installed like an app, and it can send push notifications — for example when a part someone was waiting for comes back into stock.

Is the site accessible to people with disabilities?

Yes, and that's now EU law for online shops. Keyboard navigation, screen-reader labels, visible focus and reduced-motion support are built into the storefront, and each yard gets a published accessibility statement. Two things stay with you: writing real descriptions for your photos, and keeping your brand colours readable.

Can I close the shop temporarily?

Yes. Maintenance mode shows a themed "we're closed" page with your own message and an optional reopening countdown, while you and your staff can still preview the site.

Can I show a pop-up on my shop?

Yes, from the Professional plan. You write the pop-up once — a banner image, or a heading with formatted text and a button — and set the dates it should run between. It can appear across the whole shop or only in the sections you choose, and you can exclude paths such as the checkout.

You also decide when it shows (after a delay, after the visitor has scrolled part of the page, or as they move to leave) and how often the same visitor sees it again. Only one pop-up shows per page view, so several campaigns can overlap safely — the one with the highest priority wins.

Will a pop-up get in the way of a sale?

It can, which is why you control exactly where it appears. Three of the four presentations — a bottom-right card and a bar across the top or bottom — never block the page: a visitor can keep browsing and buying while the pop-up is up. Only the centred window dims what is behind it, and even then dimming is optional.

Our advice is to exclude the cart and the checkout. A message over a half-finished purchase is the most reliable way to lose it. Every pop-up also reports its impressions, clicks and how many people closed it, so you can tell whether it is earning its place rather than guessing.

One thing is not left to you: nothing appears until the visitor has answered your cookie banner, so a marketing message can never bury a consent notice.

Can I add my own pages to the menu?

Yes, on every plan. All four menus are yours to edit — the main menu, the top bar and both footer columns — so you can add your own pages, a category or any web address, drag them into order and group them into a drop-down. There is also a tick-box on the page itself when you only want it in the menu.

Can I build a landing page without writing code?

Yes, from Professional. Any page you write can carry the same sections as your homepage — hero, banners, products, FAQ, forms — placed above and below its text. Leave the text empty and the page is built entirely from sections.

Can visitors contact me on WhatsApp from my shop?

Yes, on every plan. Add your number under Settings → Contact & Social and switch on the floating WhatsApp button: it sits in the corner of every page, and a tap opens a chat with you. You can have it on all the time, or only outside the hours your live chat is staffed.

The message a visitor starts with carries its context — from a part page it already names the part and links to it, so you are not asking "which one?" as your first reply. Taps are counted as leads in your reports.

How does ELVPro handle stock?

Every part is a single, unique item tied to the vehicle it came from — there are no quantities. Three alternators are three separate parts, each with its own photos, condition and price. It's what stops the same physical part being sold twice.

What happens when a car arrives?

You book it in through a five-step intake wizard — source, identification, specs, classification, photos — with VIN lookup and a built-in make/model/engine catalog. From then on the vehicle moves through a status pipeline, and every part you create from it traces back to it.

Can I move my existing stock across?

Yes. From the Professional plan you can import vehicles and parts from a CSV or Excel file, so a spreadsheet or an export from your old software becomes live inventory. Start with a small test file to check your columns, then import the rest.

Can I find where a part physically is?

Yes. Business and Enterprise plans include warehouse and stock-location management, so a part's shelf is on its record and anyone can find it without walking the yard.

Do I know what I actually earned on a part?

Yes. The purchase price of a donor vehicle is spread across the parts taken from it, so reporting shows real revenue, cost, VAT on the margin and profit — including how far a given car is from paying for itself.

Can I sell online with ELVPro?

Every plan includes inquiry mode, where customers message you about a part and you close the sale your way. Full online checkout, with card payment and automatic invoices, is available on Business and Enterprise.

What stops two people buying the same part?

Adding a part to the basket reserves it for 20 minutes, and the part is only consumed once a payment is actually confirmed. If someone else got there first, the buyer is told before they pay — and if a payment lands after the part has gone, they are refunded automatically.

Which card processors can I use?

You connect one processor of your own — Stripe or one of the Romanian bank and processor gateways — using the credentials they give you. The list you can pick from is shown on the Integrations page and in your payment settings. Your contract, fees and settlement are with that provider; the money never passes through ELVPro.

Is taking card payments safe?

Card details never touch ELVPro. Every processor we support takes the card on its own hosted page, applies 3-D Secure, and tells us the result — which we verify cryptographically or re-check with the provider before an order is created.

Do customers have to create an account to buy?

No. Guest checkout is supported, so nobody is forced to register to spend money with you. Customers can create an account if they want order history, saved addresses and a garage — and from Professional they can sign in with Google or Facebook.

Can I still take cash or bank transfer?

Yes. Cash on delivery and wire transfer sit alongside — or instead of — online card payment, and you choose what you offer.

How does delivery work?

You offer personal pickup, courier delivery, or both. From the Professional plan, courier integrations quote a real rate at checkout from your own courier account, book the AWB in one click, print the label and track the parcel — including lockers, pickup points and cash-on-delivery amounts. You ship on your own contract, and ELVPro takes no cut.

What if a payment fails?

Failed and abandoned checkouts are recorded with the processor's own reason, so you can see why a sale didn't happen even months later — instead of an order that simply never appeared.

Can I give my customers a discount code?

Yes, from the Business plan. Create a code in Coupons, and the customer types it into the basket. A code can take a percentage off, a fixed amount off, or waive the delivery charge. You decide how long it lasts, how many times it can be used in total and per customer, whether it needs a minimum order, and whether it applies to everything or only to certain products, categories or donor vehicles.

Can I stop the same person using a code twice?

Yes. Every coupon has a total redemption limit and a per-customer limit, and both are enforced at checkout, not just displayed. Signed-in customers are counted by account and guests by email address. You can also generate a batch of single-use codes — one per person for a mailing or a print run — and download them as a CSV. A code that is held by a checkout somebody then abandons is released again automatically, so nothing is lost to a cart that was never paid for.

Do coupons work together with my promotions?

That is your choice, per coupon. Left on, the code comes off the already-promoted price. Turned off, the code skips the products a promotion is already discounting and applies to the rest of the basket, rather than refusing the whole order. Either way the saving is spread across the individual order lines before VAT is worked out, so the invoice and the amount charged always agree — which matters most under the second-hand margin scheme, where the VAT depends on what you actually sold the part for.

Can I message my customers on WhatsApp?

Yes. Every order, inquiry, customer and published part has a WhatsApp button that opens your own WhatsApp with the message already written — the order reference, the courier and tracking link, the part and its price, whatever the record holds. You read it and press send yourself; nothing goes out automatically.

You can rewrite any of the six messages in your own words, and if your shop sells in several languages, each customer is written to in the language they used on your site. It works with the WhatsApp number and account you already have: there is nothing to install, connect or pay for.

How do returns work?

Returns you agree to commercially are managed on Business and Enterprise: the customer asks, you approve or reject, and the return moves through to completion. Refunds are recorded against the order so your books and your customer's story match.

What about the legal 14-day withdrawal right?

Within 14 days of receiving the goods, a consumer can withdraw from a distance purchase without giving a reason — so there is nothing to approve. ELVPro shows what you owe and by when, tracks the goods coming back, and flags a late refund in red. This is on every plan, including the free one, because a legal right cannot sit behind a price.

Do I have to refund the delivery charge too?

Yes, when the customer withdraws from the whole order — the standard delivery charge goes back with the price of the goods. If they keep part of the order, delivery stays with you, and the screen shows that.

Can ELVPro send the refund back to the card?

If the order was paid online, yes — the law asks for a refund by the same means the customer paid with, and the button does exactly that. Some processors offer no refund interface; in that case ELVPro tells you plainly, leaves the withdrawal open, and asks you to refund in that provider's panel and record it. Your 14-day clock keeps running either way.

Does ELVPro handle VAT on used parts?

Yes. Each line is resolved automatically — the second-hand margin scheme, standard domestic VAT, EU distance selling, B2B reverse charge, a zero-rated export, or the exemption if you're not VAT-registered. Parts from end-of-life vehicles normally fall under the margin scheme, so VAT applies to your margin only and no VAT line appears on the invoice.

Are invoices produced automatically?

Yes. An order produces its invoice in your own numbered series, with the VAT treatment frozen as it was at the moment of sale and the legal note that justifies it. Cancellations issue a proper reversing document rather than editing the original.

Can I use my accountant's invoicing software?

Yes, from Professional. Invoices can be issued through SmartBill, Oblio or FGO instead, in the books your accountant already works in, with the fiscal PDF coming back onto the order.

What about e-Factura and ANAF?

Those providers are already registered senders, so an invoice issued through them takes the e-Factura path without you maintaining a separate ANAF connection. ELVPro does not submit to ANAF itself today.

Does a slow invoicing provider hold up my checkout?

No. Invoices are issued in the background after the order is placed, so a provider that's slow or temporarily down never costs you the sale.

Does ELVPro cover dismantler compliance?

Yes, for authorised dismantlers. Facilities and permits with expiry warnings, ELV classification, chain of custody, depollution checklists with waste codes, and immutable, sequentially-numbered certificates of destruction are all built in — generated from the same records you already keep.

Will it keep me to the legal deadlines?

It tracks them per vehicle — depollution within five days of intake, full treatment within three months — and flags anything overdue on the compliance dashboard, before the deadline is breached rather than after.

Can I produce the reports the authorities ask for?

Yes. There is a sequentially numbered operational register you can filter and export to Excel, and recovery/recycling reporting measured against the legal targets, with exports for your annual environmental report. Figures stay marked provisional until every treated vehicle has been weighed.

Will it stop me listing a part I shouldn't?

It checks each part before publication — authorised facility, traceable donor vehicle, depollution complete, assessment present — and explains any refusal in plain language, with the legal source and the step that fixes it. New yards start in warning mode, so you can see what would be blocked before anything is.

Which countries does the compliance layer cover?

Romanian and EU rules today, written as versioned, dated rule packs so other countries can be added as their own. ELVPro can't obtain your authorisation or make an unauthorised operation compliant.

What can the AI actually do?

It drafts part listings and inquiry replies in the customer's language, decodes VINs, suggests prices from your own comparable sales, and — on Business and Enterprise — reads a part and its OEM numbers from a photo and answers plain-language questions about your data.

Will AI publish or send anything by itself?

No. Every output is a draft you review, and nothing is auto-published, auto-sent or auto-changed. Even an AI-assisted technical assessment has to be approved by a person before it counts for compliance.

Is AI usage limited?

Each use counts as one AI action against a monthly quota that depends on your plan, from 10 on Starter to several thousand on the higher tiers, with a screen showing what's left. Enterprise yards can use their own AI keys and skip the quota.

Can I give my staff their own logins?

Yes, with seven ready-made roles: owner, admin, inventory manager, sales, content, accountant and viewer. Each starts from the least access it needs, and an owner can fine-tune what a role may do inside their own yard. Plans include 1, 3, 10 or 999 users, and you can buy extra seats.

How secure are our accounts?

Two-factor authentication is available and can be required for your whole team, with recovery codes and an owner reset if someone loses their authenticator. Idle sessions expire, sensitive screens ask for the password again, and permissions are enforced on the server rather than by hiding buttons.

Can I see who changed what?

Yes. Significant changes are recorded with the person, the fields and their before-and-after values, so "when did this price change, and who changed it?" has an answer.

Do you track my website visitors?

Our built-in analytics is cookieless: nothing is written to the visitor's device, the visitor identifier is a hash that expires every 24 hours, and the IP address is used to compute it and then discarded. That means your figures keep working even for visitors who decline tracking.

What if I want Google Analytics or a Meta pixel?

You can add GA4, Google Ads, Tag Manager, Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn tags by pasting an id — no code. They stay switched off until the visitor accepts that category in the cookie banner, and Google Consent Mode v2 signals follow the same choice.

How does ELVPro handle GDPR?

Your customers can export everything you hold about them and request deletion from their own account, and your staff get request tracking, consent logs, erasure certificates and anonymisation. Records with a fiscal obligation behind them are held rather than wiped, then anonymised automatically when the retention period expires. ELVPro is the processor, you are the controller, and a data processing agreement and cookie policy come with the platform.

Can ELVPro talk to my other software?

Yes, on Business and Enterprise. The partner API covers parts, vehicles, orders, customers, categories and inquiries, with bearer tokens you issue, per-token abilities and rate limits, and a full request log. Public documentation, an OpenAPI file and a Postman collection are available so a developer can start without waiting for you.

Can I publish my stock to other sites?

Yes. Product feeds (Business and Enterprise) publish your listed parts as XML, CSV or JSON at their own secret URL, filtered by make, model or category, generated live so a part sold this morning is gone from this afternoon's fetch. Access statistics show who is actually consuming each feed.

Can customers chat with me on the site?

Yes, from Professional. Live chat puts a conversation on your storefront and an agent console in your admin, so a question about fitment doesn't have to become a phone call.

Can I collect email addresses for a newsletter?

Yes, from Professional. A signup section on your storefront collects subscribers with double opt-in and proper consent records, and the list exports to CSV. ELVPro collects and exports the list; you send the campaign from your own email tool.

Does ELVPro take a commission on what I sell through a marketplace?

No. You connect your own account with the marketplace, so your contract, your fees and your settlement are with them and nothing passes through us. ELVPro publishes the advertisements on your behalf, keeps them in step with your stock, and withdraws them when a part is gone — it takes nothing from the sale.

What happens to the advertisement when a part sells?

It is withdrawn automatically, within minutes. This is the main reason to run the channel from your stock record rather than by hand: an advertisement for a part you no longer have costs you an enquiry, a phone call and an apology. A part merely reserved during a checkout keeps its advertisement, because most baskets are abandoned and pulling the listing each time would cost it its age and its position.

Can I keep some parts off the marketplaces?

Yes. Every part has its own switch, so a piece you want buyers to come to your own shop for stays exclusive to it while everything else goes out. You can also narrow what a marketplace receives by make or by price range, give a single part its own marketplace price, and pause a whole marketplace without losing the advertisements already running on it.

Can I advertise a whole car, not just its parts?

Yes, in two different ways. A donor can be advertised for dismantling — "we are parting this one out, ask us for what you need" — which is lawful for any car on your premises. Offering the vehicle itself for sale is a separate choice, and it is closed for a vehicle classified as end-of-life, one with a certificate of destruction, or one you have already begun dismantling. ELVPro refuses that setting outright rather than accepting it and quietly publishing nothing.

What support do I get?

Support tickets with categories and priorities on every plan, and priority support on Business and Enterprise. Inside the app there's a searchable help centre, a feedback channel and a what's-new feed for platform announcements.

Can I pause my account instead of closing it?

Yes. An owner can request a suspension: once approved, admin access is blocked but your public shop and all your data stay exactly as they were. Request reactivation whenever you're ready to come back.

What happens if I delete my account?

Deletion is only ever something you request. After review, the account is frozen and a cancelable grace period starts — 30 days by default — during which you can restore everything with one click. Only after that is your data permanently erased.

Is anything kept after deletion?

Only what the law requires: tax invoices and orders, and ELV certificates of destruction. They are retained for the legally required period and then anonymised, and a tamper-proof record of the deletion itself is kept as proof.

What if I stop using my free account for a long time?

If a free account that never converted goes unused for a long time, we email reminders and then archive it, which takes the storefront offline. Nothing is deleted — sign back in and it reactivates with everything intact. Paying and trialling accounts are never archived for inactivity.