Questions and answers — Kelesx for US car dealers

Getting started & demo

What is Kelesx and who is it for?

Kelesx is software for independent US dealers who buy cars at auction and export them to clients abroad or sell them in the US. Each car has one record: lot, purchase, transport, container, customs status, invoices and documents, and clients and carriers each see their own part of it. Kelesx itself does not buy, sell or ship vehicles, does not hold your clients’ money and is not a party to your deals.

How do I get started?

Request a demo and tell us briefly about your dealership. We set up your workspace (dealership, users, destination ports), import your cars from a Copart/IAAI export or a spreadsheet, and walk you through it in 30 minutes on your own cars. Then you decide.

Do I need to connect anything to start?

No, you don’t need a single key to start: import your Copart and IAAI purchases from a file, add clients and issue invoices. Container tracking, Central Dispatch and Super Dispatch, Telegram and SMS can be connected later, when you are ready; the shipping integrations and SMS are part of the Pro plan.

How do I reach you?

Write to contact@kelesx.com. We reply within 2 business days. Tell us your dealership and, if it is about a car, its VIN. Never send passwords: we never ask for them. Account access and deletion are covered on the Support page.

Pricing & billing

How is pricing structured?

A flat monthly fee per dealership, with no per-car and no per-user fees: adding a colleague costs nothing. Starter includes up to 3 team logins, and Pro has no limit. Pro also adds more AI requests per month, the Central Dispatch, Super Dispatch and ShipsGo integrations, and SMS through your own Twilio account. Current prices and what each plan includes are on the Pricing page.

Is there a free trial?

We recommend starting with a demo: we set up the workspace together with you. If online sign-up is available on the Pricing page, every plan starts with 14 days free, and the card you add is charged monthly only after the trial. You can cancel from your account any time; the data stays yours.

Do you take a cut of my deals? Does client money go through you?

No. Kelesx is software: a flat monthly fee, no commissions and no per-car fees. Invoices issued in Kelesx are your invoices, clients pay into your accounts, and money between you, your clients and freight forwarders never touches us. You pay the subscription by card on Stripe’s pages, and the card details never reach us.

Data & security

Is my data separate from other dealers?

Yes. Every dealership has its own database and its own files, and the server enforces that each one sees only its own. Only the shipping board is shared, and your clients are never shown there. The people who run Kelesx use their technical access only to run and secure the service, to help when you ask, or when the law requires it, and never to benefit another dealership.

Who owns the data? Can I take it with me?

The data is yours. You can download a full copy of your database (as a database file) from the workspace at any time, and exports of cars, clients, money and invoices for spreadsheets can be switched on in Integrations. If the subscription ends, the workspace is suspended, not deleted; we delete it only when you ask us to. Deleted data can stay in backups for a while, as described in the Privacy Policy.

What do my clients and carriers see?

A client sees only their own cars, invoices and payments, and never your purchase price or margin; they do see the name and phone of the truck carrier moving their car. A carrier sees no prices at all and knows clients by a codename, and the carrier’s invoice is never shown to the client. The server enforces these borders, not a checkbox.

Where is the data stored and how is it protected?

The service is hosted by Render in its Frankfurt, Germany region, and all connections use HTTPS. Passwords and PINs are stored only as hashes, and the integration keys you save are encrypted. If a security incident affects personal data, we tell your dealership as soon as we discover it.

Cars, auctions & paperwork

Can I move in my existing cars and payments?

Yes. Copart (Payments → Invoice) and IAAI (My Purchases) exports are recognized automatically, with no manual column mapping, and a plain spreadsheet works too. You can also upload a bank statement from your workspace: incoming payments are matched to cars, payments to auctions are marked on the cars, you review everything before it is recorded, and importing the same statement twice records nothing twice. If something does not fit, write to us and we will help.

Do you need my auction logins?

No. Kelesx does not sign in to the auctions for you, and auction access stays with you alone. New purchases come into Kelesx from export files or from the reports Copart, IAAI and Manheim send to your mailbox: connect the mailbox (this needs the mailbox password, not an auction login), and every hour the service picks up the reports and adds new cars by VIN without duplicates. Under the subscription terms, Kelesx may not be used to give a client access to an auction; that rule protects your auction accounts.

What paperwork does Kelesx handle?

PDF invoices, a signed bill of sale (signed with a finger on a phone or with a mouse) and, for local sales, forms printed from the car record: the North Carolina DMV odometer and damage disclosures (MVR-180 and MVR-181) and the federal FTC Buyers Guide. Other states’ forms are not built in yet, and you remain responsible for making sure your paperwork meets your state’s requirements. You can upload or photograph an auction invoice, bill of sale, title or bill of lading: Kelesx suggests the fields, nothing goes into the record until you confirm each one, and each recognized document counts as one AI request of your plan.

Does Kelesx help with export paperwork?

The car record has an export-control block: an explicitly named exporter, your OFAC sanctions screening mark on the buyer (with a link to the OFAC search next to it), the EEI/AES ITN, and the title handover to the carrier with the 72-hours-before-export deadline calculated. The record highlights what is still missing before the car can leave. We file and check nothing ourselves: you or your broker do, and Kelesx keeps the answers in one place. This is a checklist, not legal advice; confirm the requirements for your shipment with your broker.

Shipping & carriers

What is the shipping board?

You post an ocean-shipping request straight from the car record. Approved freight forwarders across the platform see it without any client details and quote a price; you see each quote with the forwarder’s company and contacts and accept or decline it yourself. Only after you accept does the forwarder get your contacts and you get its terminal address and the documents needed to drop off the car; the accepted price becomes that car’s delivery price for the client. The shipping agreement is between you and the forwarder; Kelesx is not a party to it.

How are freight forwarders on the board checked?

When registering, a forwarder enters licence numbers (FMC OTI for ocean forwarders, USDOT and MC for truck carriers and brokers) and uploads documents: COI, W-9 and licence. The server checks USDOT and MC numbers against the FMCSA registry, the platform team reviews the FMC licence by hand and then sets a Verified badge, which you see next to the quote; changing a number removes the badge. The badge means the numbers and documents were reviewed, not a promise about the quality of the work: choosing the forwarder stays your decision. After delivery you rate the forwarder from 1 to 5.

Does Kelesx work with Central Dispatch, Super Dispatch and container tracking?

Yes, through your own accounts and the API keys those services issue to you. From the car record you can post a Central Dispatch listing, dispatch to a carrier, reconcile what was posted against what was delivered and, where your account allows it, pull the transport contract and bill of lading into the car’s documents. With Super Dispatch you create an order and post it to Super Loadboard, and containers are tracked by number through ShipsGo. These integrations are part of the Pro plan.

Clients, SMS & mobile

What does my client see?

Each client has their own portal: their cars, photos of the cars, an itemized invoice, payments and balance, plus the stages already passed with their dates and no promised arrival dates. The client can mark “I have paid” and you confirm the payment; documents come as a single PDF. The interface is in four languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh.

How do clients and carriers get access?

You create a client’s account, or the client requests one on your dealership’s page and you approve it. Your carriers sign in with a login and PIN, see only the cars assigned to them and update location and container numbers themselves. Freight forwarders on the shipping board register on the board and start working once the platform approves them.

Can I text my clients?

Yes, clients who opt in: in their portal, by saying yes to your staff (who then switch SMS on in the client’s record), or by texting START. They get texts only about their own cars: status updates, invoice reminders, messages from your staff and replies to their questions; there is no marketing, STOP and HELP always work, and you are responsible for the consent you record. AI replies to texts are on only if you switch them on, and each is marked as an automated reply. SMS is part of the Pro plan and goes through your own Twilio account.

Is there a mobile app?

The dealer workspace, the client portal and the carrier portal work in a phone’s browser, with a bottom tab bar on small screens and notifications wherever the browser supports them. An iPhone app is being prepared for release. Everything works in the browser except one thing: filling in buyer details by scanning the barcode on a driver’s licence will come with the iPhone app.

AI & integrations

What does AI do in Kelesx, and how much is included?

The assistant answers questions about your records, Auction AI screens lots by your criteria and watches for new ones, and document recognition suggests car-record fields from an invoice or title. Screening is for reference, not advice or an appraisal: every bid is your decision. Each question, screening, auction-watch run on a new stock file or document is one request: 30 a month on Starter, 300 on Pro; when they run out, AI pauses until next month, and everything else keeps working with nothing deleted. The AI provider (Anthropic) receives only what the request needs and, under its commercial terms, does not train models on it.

What else does Kelesx connect to? Is there an API?

Copart, IAAI and Manheim reports from your mailbox, Central Dispatch, Super Dispatch, ShipsGo, notifications to your own Telegram bot, and SMS through Twilio. You enter the keys yourself in Integrations; they are stored encrypted and used only for your account. Your own software can get a key to read your summary and use the same tools as the assistant, and exports of cars, clients, money and invoices for spreadsheets work only after you switch them on.