Buy planning

Buy planning is where a dealer decides what to buy. A dealer plans one quarter at a time: a mandate that says what to favor, a buying goal and a budget, and targets for the vehicles you need, by when and at what price. Each target rides a track, from Aggressive to Conservative, that sets how closely a listing must fit and how you hear about it. Sequoia, Cypress's market intelligence, reads the market for you: it can draft the whole quarter with Plan my quarter with Sequoia, and it suggests what to buy, but you make every offer. It is a product your organization switches on: ask your Cypress manager, or request Buy planning from the page, if you do not see it.

This manual is self-contained. It starts with the process, then the step-by-step guides, then the reference chapters that say exactly what each screen holds. What Buy planning shares with Sell planning (Sequoia's rail, the Market tab, the quarter bar, the Cypress desk) is in Planning together.

If your purchasing system already knows what you buy, see Connect your purchasing system.

The Buy process

A quarter of Buy planning runs in eight steps, from the goal you set to the review of what you achieved.

1. Set the quarter. A mandate, a buying goal and a budget. Set the quarter's goal and budget, or let Plan my quarter with Sequoia draft the whole quarter.
2. Add targets. What you need, how many, by when, at what price, and on which track. Add and edit a target.
3. Read the matches. Every hour Cypress checks each open target against the live listings, and a track decides how near a match must be. Read matches and the Buy analysis and Tracks and near matches.
4. Make your offer. You choose; Sequoia only suggests. A listing that asks less than Sequoia would pay reads Buy at the ask.
5. Close the deal. An accepted offer starts a closing; the vehicle is delivered when it completes. See Closing a sale.
6. The purchase fills the target. It counts toward one target from the moment its closing starts, or is bought outside the plan. How a target fills.
7. Follow Progress. The quarter's purchases by target, bought or in closing. Record a purchase made elsewhere adds one made outside Cypress.
8. Review against your baseline. Approving the quarter keeps a baseline; Review compares what happened with it, week by week. Approve and review the quarter.

What Sequoia does

Sequoia reads the market beside the plan. Its market rail lists what it sees, with the reasons and how sure it is. Plan my quarter with Sequoia drafts a whole quarter for you to edit, and the Decisions tab keeps the trail of what Sequoia suggested and what you decided. Sequoia only suggests: you make every offer. See Sequoia's market rail and Sequoia's decisions.

What others see of your plan

Sellers never see your name, your targets or your prices. They may see that several dealers plan to buy vehicles like theirs, as a count, and only when at least two dealers do. You never see a seller's limits: what sellers plan to bring to market reaches you only as an anonymous count, and only when at least two sellers plan it. See The buy plan, "Who sees what".

Connect your purchasing system

If your purchasing system already knows what you buy, it can keep the plan in step instead of someone retyping it. Cypress gives it an API and notices for the Buy plan.

• Keep the plan in step. Your system can read and set the quarter's goal, budget and mandate, add and edit targets, see each target's live matches, hide one, record purchases made somewhere else, and approve the quarter. It follows the same rules as this page, so the two cannot disagree: a quarter that is over stays closed, and a purchase recorded late is still recorded.
• Sequoia's draft, too. It can ask Sequoia for the starting plan Plan my quarter shows, and keep it: the quarter's goal and budget and the targets you keep.
• Apps and agents, not only keys. An app your organization connected, or an agent it added, can do the same. An agent may keep a draft and work the targets, but approving the quarter is always a person's: you, in the app, or an app acting for you. See Apps, agents and MCP.
• Get told, rather than check. Your system can be told when a target has a new match, when a target has nothing left to buy, and when a target's quarter ended with units still short. Each notice goes to an address your system listens on, once, and only while Buy planning is on.
• What it needs. Buy planning switched on for your organization, and an API key that holds Buy planning (read) or Buy planning (read and write). An administrator makes the key under Organization → Integrations, where those scopes are offered only while Buy planning is on; see API keys and endpoints.
• What it never carries. Your own plan, and a listing's public details. Never a seller's name, limits or VIN. Sequoia's suggestions on the rail, the forecast, the Market tab and your offers stay in the app: Sequoia suggests, and you make every offer.

Your developers read Planning API (Buy planning), and Webhooks describes the notices.