By Mia BevacquaÂ
Some dealerships still keep paper deal jackets that are as thick as college textbooks. Dealertrack – a provider of dealership F&I solutions – addresses the issue with its uniFI software suite. The platform condenses numerous pieces of paperwork from the deal process into a single online deal jacket.
Now, Dealertrak is adding a new feature to the uniFI platform – Digital Contracting. The additional function helps connect the entire deal process from start to finish.
The primary benefit of Digital Contracting is that it allows deals to be submitted to lenders in real-time. Doing so speeds up the funding process. The cost of shipping loan documents is eliminated as well.
Also, Dealertrak’s Digital Contracting function is designed to flag missing information and errors before submission. The feature reduces re-contracting and improves the deal process.
“Dealertrack uniFI combines as many as 51 different pieces of paperwork from the car deal process into a single online deal jacket, simplifying the car-buying journey for customers and adding efficiency to submission to lenders,” said Firas Makhlouf, chief information officer of Driver’s Village. “By integrating Digital Contracting into this powerful platform, we can now complete the full end-to-end car-buying process without the need to jump between multiple screens and technologies to get a single deal done.”
Some dealers have been (and still are) resistant to digital contracts. Dealership employees, as well as some banks and government organizations, don’t want to give up the paper documentation they’ve used for years.
But dealerships’ use of digital contracting has grown 80 percent since 2015, Dealertrack said in a 2018 article from Automotive News. Also, between 2013 and 2018, the company saw a 65 percent jump in contracts moving from paper to electronic formats.
“With more and more consumers looking for a simple and fluid experience, dealers really value the ability to fund quickly, accurately and easily,” Cheryl Miller, general manager of Dealertrack F&I Solutions, said in a statement to Automotive News.
Dealertracks’ uniFI software with Digital Contracting is available in all 50 states.
