MORE than 1,200 dealer sites across the country have signed up to online service, maintenance and repair authorisation system Oasis Advance.

The electronic system spares dealers from having to call contract hire companies over the telephone to seek authorisation for work required on a company car.

The work approval message can be delivered in seconds – improving garage efficiency and customer service, and also avoiding the need to re-key information, thereby reducing the chance of invoice errors and speeding up payment.

Some of the latest additions to the service are 117 Vauxhall dealers who are part of major dealer groups such as Pendragon, CD Bramall, Lookers, Dixon Motors, Hartwell, Arnold Clark, Caffyns, Camden Motors, John Martin, Pentagon and Dutton-Forshaw.

But the 1,200th site to sign up was Manchester-based Lookers, which recently agreed to set up Oasis Advance across its entire 82 dealer sites.

Lookers chief executive Ken Surgenor said: 'It allows us to offer better, more cost-effective service to some of our major contract hire customers and improves our cash-flow.'

Oasis expects that within the next few months 2,500 dealers will have joined the network, more than double the current number.