Austin, Texas – IAS announced the addition of a new sales and desking tool within the F&I software application SmartMenu. Dealers can now generate a compliant menu of payment choices for new and used cars separate from F&I products. Desk managers and salespeople can generate sales menus in a format that clearly and fairly displays up to nineteen different finance, cash, or lease vehicle purchase options. The menu clearly outlines the purchase price of the vehicle as well as the valuation of any trade-in vehicle.

“We’ve spent more than two years on the design and development of this solution, and the results are unmatched”, says Matt Nowicki, director of information technology for IAS. “Although the tool is powerful and highly customizable, it’s a simple solution that can be used by any dealer in any state to produce impressive results. And since it’s already part of SmartMenu, F&I managers can transfer all the deal information to F&I via one mouse click.”

Since consumer trade-in valuation is a key function of an effective desking tool, IAS has partnered with NADAguides.com. Dealers can use the SmartMenu Trade-in Valuation Wizard to submit the trade-in vehicles VIN, mileage, and options to NADAguides.com. Within seconds they are shown the consumer market value of the vehicle. And unlike typical online valuation services, the direct relationship between SmartMenu and NADAguides.com gives the user a complete breakdown of the vehicle value, including any mileage and installed option adjustments. This market value is also displayed to the customer on the printed desking menu.

Once a customer agrees to a given payment, the program includes a conversion function that allows the sales manager to convert the deal from “desking mode” to “F&I mode” by choosing the purchase option selected by the customer — be it finance, lease, or cash. Then when the customer arrives in F&I, the F&I manager simply retrieves the deal and proceeds. Not only is this convenient for the F&I and sales managers, but the customer also sees consistency in the similar design of the menus. All taxes, fees, and other details are transferred quickly and automatically. The desking menu also includes a free and automatic OFAC lookup as well as the option to utilize the ID verification tool just like the normal F&I mode of SmartMenu.

The SmartDealerProducts suite of software, which includes SmartMenu, SmartTrac, SmartEye and SmartInsight, is available at no cost and without any long term contracts to dealers selling one or more IAS warranty products. Currently there is no additional cost to take advantage of the desking menu within SmartMenu. For more information, contact IAS at (800) 346-6469 x8989.