There are 745 Buick franchises left as of January 2026, per the Automotive News dealer census, after nearly half the network took GM’s buyout instead of funding EV requirements. The stores that stayed run a pay run shaped by the aftermath: wind-down final checks when a neighboring rooftop exits, hiring waves when its service book lands on your drive, a commission close dominated by minis on sub-$30k imports, a loaded Enclave Avenir on the same paycheck, and an EV cert premium with nothing to bill against. WageTime runs that whole aftermath as ordinary payroll: computed, documented, and closed on schedule across every EIN the group still holds.
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A Buick store’s payroll problems aren’t the generic dealership list with the badge swapped. They come from what happened to the network, what the lineup costs, and what the EV bet left behind. Every one is unpaid office time or a liability compounding quietly.
Roughly 1,000 Buick dealers took the buyout. Every wind-down ends at the same desk: final checks carrying open draw balances, unflagged hours, and commission roll-forwards, each one governed by state rules on what a final paycheck can recover. One wrong clawback and the exit gets expensive.
Any GM dealer can service a Buick, so when a nearby store drops the franchise, its service book lands on the survivors. That means advisors and techs hired in batches, onboarding paperwork in stacks, and a pay period that starts before the last I-9 is signed.
The 2026 Envista starts at $25,995 and led the brand’s 2025 volume, per GM’s sales release. Deals like that carry almost no front-end gross, so the close is a tally of $150 minis with volume money doing the real earning. Generic payroll sees one commission field.
Buick ran up 29% through June 2025, per GM’s reported results, then supply tightened when import tariffs bit. Salespeople on recoverable draws rode the swing: fat months, then months where the draw didn’t clear. Balances crept toward thresholds nobody was watching.
Avenir ran more than 26% of Buick retail sales in 2023, per Buick. The same salesperson closes a mini-grade Envista and a loaded Enclave Avenir with real front and F&I gross in the same week, and one check has to reconcile both comp shapes.
Staying in the network took a six-figure EV investment, and Buick still has no EV on sale in the US. The high-voltage cert premium sits on the pay grid with no hours to bill, while the actual drive runs quick-turn gas work that hugs the wage floor.
Four of these get a real product screen below, shown with sample store data. The rest get straight answers in the FAQ.
A Buick franchise wind-down is a payroll event before it’s anything else. WageTime runs the exit as a batch: the bulk termination wizard closes out the affected staff in one pass, each final check settles open draw balances and unpaid flag hours against its own ledger, and recovery of a negative balance from a final paycheck is blocked where state law prohibits it, automatically, not because someone remembered. Commission roll-forwards from unreconciled deals pay out or close per the plan instead of vanishing with the franchise. Records stay retained, so when the absorbed service book brings some of those same people back six months later, rehire onboarding restores them instead of starting from a blank file. The store that exits cleanly and the store that absorbs cleanly are both, in the end, payroll stories.
| Employee | Role | Draw balance | Unpaid flag hrs | Final check | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T. Whitfield | Sales | −$1,850.00 | — | $2,410.00 | Recovery blocked · CA |
| R. Calloway | Sales | −$600.00 | — | $3,975.00 | Offset applied |
| M. Okonkwo | Tech A2 | — | 14.5 | $2,238.00 | Flags paid out |
| D. Pham | Advisor | — | — | $1,905.00 | Ready |
| L. Herrera | Porter | — | — | $884.00 | Ready |
Replaces the one-off final-check math done under deadline, and the clawback that turns a franchise exit into a wage claim.
A sub-$30k import lineup writes a particular kind of commission month: most deals pay a mini, volume bonuses carry the check, and front-end gross shows up only where the mix allows it. WageTime closes that month as a screen, not a spreadsheet: minis tally per deal, volume money computes on top, F&I with chargeback netting folds in, and draw offsets settle each salesperson’s running balance, with threshold flags before a balance becomes a problem. When tariff-tightened supply swings the month, the ledger shows who cleared their draw and who’s carrying, in numbers instead of impressions. An unreconciled deal rolls to the next period on its own, so one missing deal jacket doesn’t stall the rest of the board, and the office signs off on a computed close instead of rebuilding one in a workbook.
| Salesperson | Deals (minis) | Minis | Volume money | Gross comp | Draw offset | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R. Calloway | 11 (9) | $1,350.00 | +$1,200.00 | $1,785.00 | −$2,800.00 | $1,535.00 |
| J. Okafor | 10 (8) | $1,200.00 | +$900.00 | $1,610.00 | −$2,800.00 | $910.00 |
| S. Vasquez | 9 (7) | $1,050.00 | +$900.00 | $980.00 | −$2,800.00 | $130.00 |
| B. Lindqvist | 8 (6) | $900.00 | +$600.00 | $1,270.00 | −$2,800.00 | −$30.00 carried |
| A. Reyes | 5 (2) | $300.00 | — | $3,850.00 | −$2,800.00 | $1,350.00 |
Replaces the mini tally kept in one tab, the volume-bonus math in another, and the draw balance nobody checks until it’s ugly.
Avenir puts a quarter of Buick’s retail at the top of a budget-priced lineup, which means one salesperson’s week holds a $150 Envista mini and an Enclave Avenir carrying real front-end and F&I gross. WageTime computes each deal on its own basis inside the same close: the skinny deal pays its mini, the Avenir deal pays its percentage of booked gross, F&I product money nets its chargebacks, and the check reconciles the whole barbell against one draw. Nobody re-classifies deals by hand, and nobody discovers at month-end that the loaded Enclave was paid like a base Envista. Per-deal detail stays attached to the number, so when the salesperson asks how the check was built, the answer is a screen, not an argument.
| Deal | Sale | Basis | Front gross | Earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #4471 | Envista Preferred | Mini | $310.00 | $150.00 |
| #4476 | Encore GX Sport Touring | Mini | $240.00 | $150.00 |
| #4483 | Envision Avenir | Gross 25% | $2,180.00 | $545.00 |
| #4490 | Enclave Avenir | Gross 25% + F&I | $3,640.00 | $1,240.00 |
| #4495 | Envista Sport Touring | Mini | $185.00 | $150.00 |
Replaces the deal-by-deal reclassification at month-end, and the “that Enclave paid like an Envista” correction run.
The EV cert premium keeps its place on the pay grid: WageTime binds it to the credential with an effective date, and it simply sits unbilled at zero flag hours, visible and ready the day Buick EV repair orders exist. That day hasn’t come. Dealers paid six figures to stay in the network and trained techs for high voltage, yet the Electra was delayed indefinitely in 2024, and trade coverage still lists Buick as the one GM brand selling no EV in the US. So the drive earns its living on quick-turn gas maintenance against tight warranty times, a flag profile that hugs the minimum-wage floor. WageTime treats that profile as a standing rule: the wage-floor math runs on every tech every period, and whoever’s flags fell short of the clock gets the shortfall added to the run as a documented true-up before payday, not after a claim.
| Tech | EV cert premium | Flat earnings | Clock hrs | Effective | True-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. Duval #02 | +$4.00/hr unbilled | $3,412.50 | 75.0 | $45.50 | — |
| K. Aris #06 | — | $2,566.20 | 72.5 | $35.40 | — |
| J. Templeton #09 | +$4.00/hr unbilled | $1,687.50 | 67.5 | $25.00 | — |
| C. Munoz #14 | — | $942.50 | 65.0 | $14.50 | $130.00 |
| E. Sorensen #17 | — | $598.00 | 59.8 | $10.00 | $388.70 |
Replaces the floor check the controller runs when there’s time, and the EV premium everyone forgot they promised.
There are 745 US Buick franchises as of January 1, 2026, per the Automotive News dealer census, down from roughly 2,000 at the start of 2023 after nearly half the network took GM’s buyout. For the survivors that means wind-down waves next door, absorbed service books, and hiring surges, all of which land on payroll first.
Three things: open draw balances settle against each ledger with recovery blocked where state law prohibits it, unpaid flag hours pay out rather than evaporate, and commission roll-forwards from unreconciled deals resolve per the plan. WageTime’s bulk termination wizard runs the wave in one pass, with records retained for rehires.
Yes. Minis tally per deal, volume bonuses compute on top, F&I nets its chargebacks, and draw offsets settle running balances with threshold flags. A month where 32 of 43 deals pay a flat is the shape this close was built for, not an exception to it.
Each deal pays on its own basis inside the same close: the Envista pays its flat mini, the Avenir pays its percentage of booked front gross plus any F&I split, and both settle against one draw on one check, with per-deal detail attached.
The EV cert premium binds to the credential with an effective date and sits unbilled at zero flag hours until EV repair orders exist. Nothing is lost and nothing pays out early. Meanwhile the gas quick-turn mix gets the wage-floor test every period, and shortfalls become documented true-ups on the run.
Yes. Bulk onboarding brings a batch of advisors and techs in together, employees self-onboard with e-signatures through the portal, and rehire onboarding restores anyone coming back with their records intact. Time tracking flows straight into payroll, so the new crew’s first period runs clean. Tell us your DMS on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact hours flow for your setup.
$50 per month per company plus $8 per month per person paid that month, no contracts, cancel anytime. A 52-person Buick GMC store runs $466 for the month: $50 base plus $416 in per-person fees. Runs are unlimited, so off-cycle spiff runs and wind-down final-check batches cost nothing extra, and year-end W-2s and 1099s are included.
The final-check list from the last wind-down, a mini-heavy commission month, the EV cert sheet with nothing billed against it. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo store: if WageTime can’t carry a contraction-era pay run, you’ll know before the meeting ends.
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