Every BCA sale can be exported as a spreadsheet before the day. Most dealers open it, sort by make, and start scrolling. Read properly, it tells you which lots are worth your time before you have looked at a single photo. This is what is in it, what to trust, and what to check.
Getting the file
From the BCA Buyer site or app, open the sale and export the catalogue. You get an Excel workbook (sometimes CSV) with one row per lot. The sale report export is the one to use: it carries the valuation columns that the plain lot list leaves out. Custom Lot Search exports work too, with fewer columns.
What the columns mean
| Column | What it is | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Lot, Reg, Make, Model, Derivative | Identity. The derivative is the trim and engine, as BCA wrote it. | Match it to what you have sold. A Fiesta is not a Fiesta ST-Line to your customers. |
| Mileage | What the vendor declared. | Compare with the DVSA MOT history. A gap of more than a few hundred miles is a question, a gap of thousands is a warning. |
| Grade | BCA's condition grade, 1 (best) to 5, or U for unclassified. | Grade 3 and better is retail-ready with light prep. Grade 4 and 5 need pricing for work before you bid. |
| CAP Clean, Average, Below, Retail | Trade guide values for the car in three conditions, plus a retail guide. | A starting point only. Your own achieved prices for that model are the real number. |
| Glass's Trade / Retail | The other guide's view. | Where CAP and Glass's disagree by a lot, the car is one the guides do not understand. Trust your own history. |
| Buy Now | The price to take it before the sale. | Only worth it when the margin still works after fees, transport and prep at that price. |
| Assured / Essential Check | Whether BCA's own inspection is attached. | Read the report. It lists faults, tyre depths and warning lights that the photos will not. |
| V5, Keys, Service history | Paperwork declared by the vendor. | No V5 means weeks of delay before you can retail it. Price that in or pass. |
| Vendor, Location, Sale date | Who is selling, where it is, when it goes. | Fleet and lease returns are consistent; part-exchanges from a franchised dealer are more mixed. Location decides your transport cost. |
The three checks that matter most
1. Mileage against the DVSA
The MOT history at gov.uk is free and shows every recorded mileage since the car was three years old. If the declared mileage is below the last MOT reading, the catalogue is wrong or the car has been clocked. Either way you do not want it. Check every lot you are serious about; the ones with a big gap are the ones you would have paid too much for.
2. Grade against price
A grade 2 at CAP Average is a different car from a grade 4 at the same money. Work out what the prep will cost before you set a top bid, not after the hammer. Tyres, a service, an MOT and a valet come to real money on every car, and a set of four tyres on a big SUV can wipe out the margin on its own.
3. The car against your own sales
The guides know the national average. They do not know that grey automatics of that model sit on your forecourt for two months while the blue manuals go in a fortnight. Your own sales history does. Before you bid on anything, ask what you have sold of it, what it made, and how long it took. If the answer is "nothing", the lot is a gamble however good the guide price looks.
Setting a top bid from the sheet
Worked example
A 2018 Qashqai, grade 3, 62,000 miles. CAP Clean £9,100. Your last six Qashqais at that age and mileage sold for a median of £11,200 and took 23 days.
- Retail you can expect: £11,200 (your figure, not the guide)
- Fees, transport and prep at your standing figures: £950
- Margin you want on a 23-day car: £1,500
- Top bid: £11,200 − £950 − £1,500 = £8,750
CAP Clean would have told you £9,100 was fair. Your own history says stop at £8,750, and the extra £350 is the difference between a good car and a car that made nothing.
Doing it for 300 lots
That arithmetic takes a minute a car by hand. On a 300-lot sale nobody does it, so the choice is made on gut feel and the guide column. ForecourtIQ does it for every lot: it reads the BCA export, pulls the MOT history for each registration, matches each car to your own sales, and gives you a shortlist ranked by how well that car sells for you, with the top bid worked out. The reasoning is on each card, in your own figures.