HelmDMS — Marine Dealer Management Software
HelmDMS is the all-in-one boat shop software your team will actually use. POS, service, scheduling, live supplier search, ExoInvoice AI receiving, manufacturer rebate automation, your dealer website, an AI agent that answers your phone and your site chat, Boat Push to Boat Trader / YachtWorld / Boats.com, SMS, and QuickBooks — in one place. Made in the USA for the independent marine dealer.
↑ Try the AI demo right now — it's the same agent we'd put on your shop's phone. Or book a live site demo.
Only — of 25 founding slots remaining
We built HelmDMS because the existing options don't fit how a real shop works. See if any of this looks like your Tuesday.
Front desk gets the call, has to walk back to the shop, ask the tech, walk back, call the customer. Six times a day.
Your DMS rings up the sale. Then someone keys the amount into the terminal — and prays they didn't fat-finger the decimal.
Someone in the office maintains a parallel spreadsheet because the DMS doesn't track what you actually need to track.
"Got it in stock? What's it cost? When can you ship?" Repeat. Twice. Then forget which one was cheapest.
"Bob Smith" exists three times in the database. Nobody can find Bob's history when he calls in.
Your DMS doesn't text customers, so you bolt on Kenect (or similar) and pay through the nose for what should be standard.
"There's gotta be a better way."
There is — book a demoPurpose-built for marine — not adapted from auto, not stripped from enterprise software.
Stripe Terminal sends totals to the card reader automatically. Barcode scan, customer pull-up, signature on the pad, split tender, emailed receipts — done. Text a pay-by-link for deposits and invoices, with ZIP and CVC checks before the card is captured.
Concern / Cause / Correction, status board, multi-day jobs, tech assignment, parts and labor lines, PDF diagnostics. Customers get a text when it's ready, plus a status link to follow the job, see tech photos, approve the estimate with a signature, and pay a deposit.
"Next available" button. Drag-and-drop on iPad. Card on file at booking. Auto no-show fees per your policy. SMS and email reminders 3 days, 24 hours, and 2 hours out — customers confirm by reply.
Search every connected distributor — Seawide, Donovan, CED Marine, Wintron, Land 'N' Sea, Medart — in one shot. Compare real-time price and stock side-by-side. Submit the PO directly from HelmDMS — by API where the supplier supports it, emailed PDF otherwise.
See how it worksOne canonical part — multiple vendors. Sort by usage so dead stock sinks to the bottom. Scan supplier invoices to add inventory. Mercury, Yamaha and Lowrance price books, plus interchange alternatives you have on hand or can order. Phone-camera barcode scanning.
Lead → quote → deposit → financing → delivery. Trade-in valuations, package builder, deposit collection, document generation with in-store e-signature, window stickers, website inventory sync.
Phone rings — customer record opens automatically. Full purchase history, every boat they own, every service ticket. No more "let me look you up."
Appointment reminders, "your boat is ready" texts, two-way messaging. Even natural-sounding automated voice calls — no third-party Kenect bill.
Sales receipts, invoices, customers, vendors, items — pushed automatically. Your bookkeeper stops yelling at you.
IP-based clock-in (no MFA friction at the shop), or a shared-screen kiosk where each tech punches in with their own PIN and picks the job they're on. Tie tech hours to specific work orders. Export timesheets for payroll.
Sales by period, margin by category, parts movement, technician productivity, deal pipeline — plus inventory value and low stock, boat aging and floorplan exposure, deal gross profit. CSV export on every table, plus daily close, weekly payroll and monthly sales tax emailed to you as Excel.
Branded site on your custom domain — inventory live from the DMS, hours/contact pulled in, hosted by us. Already have a site? Drop our embed in. More →
Auto-syndicate inventory to the Boats Group network — Boat Trader, YachtWorld, Boats.com — through one feed. Plus organic Facebook page posts on autopilot. Update once in HelmDMS — every channel updates. More →
Natural-voice (ElevenLabs) on your phone line + DMS-aware chat on your site. Answers "is my boat ready?" with a real DMS lookup. Knows your inventory, your hours, your service status. Captures leads when humans can't pick up. Drift can't do this. Your answering service can't do this.
HelmDMS is the exclusive marine DMS partner for ExoInvoice — the AI-powered invoice processor. First 25 parses are on us. Drop in a supplier PDF and HelmDMS matches every line item to your catalog and queues it for one-click confirm. Receiving goes from 90 minutes to 60 seconds.
See how it worksStop calling around. Search every connected distributor in one shot, see who has it cheapest, who has it fastest, and order — all without leaving HelmDMS.
Type a part number, OEM, or description. HelmDMS queries every connected supplier simultaneously.
See pricing, stock levels, and lead times side-by-side. Pick on price, stock, or speed — your call.
PO submitted to the supplier from HelmDMS — via API where supported, emailed PDF otherwise. Track shipment, receive into inventory, done.
HelmDMS is the exclusive marine DMS partner for ExoInvoice, the AI-powered invoice processor. Your first 25 parses are on us — drop in a supplier PDF and HelmDMS turns it into confirmed stock in under 60 seconds. The 90-minute receiving session is over.
Scan it, snap a photo, upload the PDF, or forward the supplier email to a dedicated address. HelmDMS hands it off to ExoInvoice automatically.
AI parses vendor, parts, quantities, per-batch prices, and supplier SKUs. Mis-hyphenations and abbreviation variants are handled.
Auto-match against your catalog. Inline-create unmatched parts. Review side-by-side with the original PDF. One click posts to inventory with full lot tracking.
HelmDMS is ExoInvoice's exclusive marine DMS partner. First 25 parses included; after that, paste your own ExoInvoice API key into Settings → Vendor Invoices to keep going.
Same ExoInvoice engine reads manufacturer rebate PDFs — eligible models, discount amounts, valid dates, and the customer info each program requires. HelmDMS auto-applies the discount at the counter during the valid window, applies stacking rules (or the best eligible saving), blocks tendering until required customer fields, hull IDs, and serials are captured, and exports a complete claim report at period end. No more rebates eaten because nobody updated the spreadsheet.
How rebate ingestion worksHonest, side-by-side comparisons against the systems boat dealers actually use.
The system most independents are leaving. Here's why.
See the comparisonBig-name powersports DMS. Big-name pricing.
See the comparisonLegacy marine DMS. We respect it. We also out-feature it.
See the comparisonMarine-specific. Old-school. Time for something new?
See the comparisonRunning your shop on QB + sticky notes? Read this.
See the comparisonPricing, features, contracts, support — laid out plain.
HelmDMS started because marine dealers kept telling me the same thing: "I've talked to more vendors than I can count. None of them get it." So I started spending time at boat shops. Watching the manual credit-card-typing, the walk-backs to the service bay, the parallel Excel sheet, the sticky-note-stack on the monitor.
Then I built the software boat shops actually needed. Not the software a corporate roadmap told me to ship. That's HelmDMS.
— Blake Hughes, founder of Hughes Technology
About Hughes TechnologyWhole counter, whole shop, whole back office — same price.
Month-to-month. If we don't earn the next month, we don't keep it.
Boats, hulls, marine suppliers, marine workflows — not auto adapted.
Email or call. We answer. Not a ticket queue in another time zone.
No "starter tier" upsells. No per-seat fees. No surprises on month two.
per location
First 25 dealers lock in this rate for life
Only — of 25 slots remaining
$200 refundable deposit until kickoff. We do the migration. 30-day migration guarantee: if we can't get you live in 30 days from kickoff, full refund.
Need a deeper look? See full pricing details →
Most shops are running real transactions in HelmDMS within 2–3 weeks. We pull your customers, parts, vendors, price lists, and open work orders from your current system and import them — Blackpurl import is built in. You don't touch a CSV.
Yes. HelmDMS is web-based and works on any modern browser, iPad, or phone — nothing to install, and you can add it to your home screen like an app. The service techs in the bay use it on iPads. The counter uses it on touch monitors. Same software everywhere, and a native iOS app is coming too.
Most shops have multiple internet sources (cable + LTE failover) and an outage is rare. We've got a roadmap item for offline POS mode if it becomes a real problem for you. Your call decides what we build next.
Stripe is the default and what we recommend — rates are usually better than what marine dealers are getting on Ecrypt/Fiserv, and the Terminal integration is plug-and-play. If you want to keep your current processor, we can talk.
You do. Always. We export your data on request — no hostage situations, no fees, no "we'll get to it next quarter." It's your business.
Pricing goes up. Founding dealers stay locked in at $499/mo for the life of their account. The next tier will likely be $699–$849/mo as more features land.
Reserve your founding-dealer slot — $200 refundable deposit, locks in $499/mo for life. Or book a demo first.
Only — of 25 founding slots remaining
Not ready? Drop your email and we'll reach out personally.
Got it. We'll reach out within one business day.
Or call us: (270) 807-1000 · hello@helmdms.com