Desking & F&I
Deal desking in DealersCloud is where an independent dealership structures the deal: payments, trades, credit applications and F&I products on one worksheet, with the sales forms printed instantly. It is part of the same platform as your inventory, CRM and accounting, so the unit comes in from inventory, the application goes to lenders from the deal, and the finished deal posts to the books without re-keying.
What it does
The deal is worked in the same system as the rest of the store.
Payments, trades, credit applications and F&I products sit on one worksheet. The salesperson, the desk and the finance office work the same deal in the same system, rather than passing a copy of it from one program to the next.
The stock unit is pulled into the deal worksheet from its inventory record, which already carries the VIN decode, the photos and the price. The car on the deal is the car on the lot, and nobody types it in again at the desk.
The application is built from the deal on the desk, and you submit it from inside the deal through RouteOne, Dealertrack or CUDL.
The products the finance office presents sit on the deal worksheet with everything else. What the customer takes is on the same record the desk structured, and front and back gross are tracked in the same system that keeps the books.
Once the deal is agreed, the sales forms come off the deal that was desked. The figures on the paperwork are the figures on the worksheet, because both come from the one record the whole store reads.
The deal is posted to accounting without being re-keyed into a second program. Front and back gross, payables and receivables are tracked there, and the reports update from the same data as the deals.
Example worksheet
The worksheet shown here is illustrative demo data, not a real customer: a vehicle from stock, the deal lines and the monthly payment, and the credit application, the F&I menu and the sales forms that came off the same worksheet.
In the store
A typical deal at an independent store, from the customer sitting down to the deal landing on the books.
Whether the lead came from your website, a marketplace, the phone or the lot, it lands in the CRM with every email and text kept on the customer record. The unit they picked is pulled into the deal worksheet from inventory, so the desk starts from the real car and the real customer.
Desking means arranging price, trade, down payment, term and rate into a payment the customer can say yes to, and the same deal can be structured several ways: some buyers are solving for a monthly payment, some for a total price, some for what they can put down today. A trade adds its own question - what it is worth against what is still owed on it - and that equity is often the step that holds a deal up. In DealersCloud the payment, the trade and the F&I products all sit on the one worksheet while the deal is worked.
The credit application goes to lenders from inside the deal, with the buyer, the co-buyer, the financed amount and the payment already filled in. Lenders are chosen per submission, through RouteOne, Dealertrack or CUDL depending on where the lender you are working sits, and the F&I products the customer takes go on the same deal.
When the deal is agreed, the sales forms print from it. The finished deal is posted to the books without re-keying, and front and back gross show on the reports from the same data. If the store carries its own paper and runs the Buy Here Pay Here module, a Buy Here Pay Here deal written on the desk becomes a live account with its own payment schedule when it is delivered.
One system
Deal desking is one module of DealersCloud, and every module works from the same data. These are the parts of the platform a deal touches, and the lender networks it is submitted through.
Where the lead and the customer record come from before the deal is desked.
The stock unit on the worksheet is pulled from its inventory record.
The finished deal posts to the books, with front and back gross tracked.
For deals the store finances itself: the note becomes a live account when the deal is delivered.
Submitted from the deal, lenders chosen per submission, decisions read back.
Submitted from the deal, with the buyer and co-buyer carried across.
Credit union deals submitted from the same worksheet as the rest of the board.
Every partner by category, including F&I.
Plans
Included in every plan
Every DealersCloud plan covers deal desking and F&I, with the CRM, inventory management, accounting and financial reports, marketing feeds to Cars.com, CarGurus and more, and a custom dealer website. The platform is a flat monthly subscription quoted for your store.
DealersAI · Premium modules
DealersAI is the AI module of DealersCloud: it answers every lead instantly by text, email and web chat, 24/7, answers the phone when staff can't, and runs inside DealersCloud or alongside a dealer's existing DMS.
Its advanced modules are priced by dealership size and AI usage. The one closest to the desk is AI Vehicle Appraisal: decode the VIN for a market-based trade-in valuation backed by live market comps and book values. The core AI tools - the description generator, CRM re-engagement and the dealersGPT chatbot - come with every plan.
Buy Here Pay Here is a module of the platform - ask for it when you request a quote.
Questions
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Guides
A specialist walks you through the platform on your own inventory and quotes your store.
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