Let AutoBook Agent quote monthly payments from real rates (the manufacturer's program or your own rate card), give rough trade-in estimates, and take a little off the price within a ceiling you set. All on Settings → AutoBook Agent Sales & Finance.
Customers ask about money constantly: "what would that run me a month?", "what's my trade worth?", "can you do better on price?". Settings → AutoBook Agent Sales & Finance controls how far AutoBook Agent goes on each. The page has four sections: Finance desk, Trade-in desk, Pricing desk and Inventory steering, each off until you turn it on. Everything is per dealership. Your written selling rules are not here: they are in the How we sell section of the Knowledge Base.
Payment quoting (the Finance desk)
Switch on AutoBook Agent may discuss payments, then choose Where the rates come from: the manufacturer's program (Automatic) or your own rate card (Manual). AutoBook Agent answers payment questions from those rates plus your fees, tax and Required disclosure, and the math is done in code. Off, it hands money math to your finance team.
Trade-in estimates (the Trade-in desk)
Switch on AutoBook Agent may give a rough trade estimate and AutoBook Agent can answer "what's my car worth" with a rough market-based range, always with your disclosure attached and the real number set in person. See The Trade-In Desk.
Discounts (the Pricing desk)
Off, AutoBook Agent never moves on price and sends every discount request to a person. Switch on AutoBook Agent may discount on its own and it may take a little off, shaped by your Discount ladder and capped by Most AutoBook Agent may take off on its own (5% if you haven't saved one). The ceiling is always enforced: a bigger discount goes to a manager to confirm.
Where to start
Most stores turn on the Finance desk once finance confirms the rates, and leave the Pricing desk off so all price movement goes to a rep. The launch checklist's Payment quoting (rate card) step takes you there.
Turning on payment quotes
1
Open the Finance desk
Go to Settings → AutoBook Agent Sales & Finance and switch on AutoBook Agent may discuss payments.
2
Pick where the rates come from
Automatic quotes from your brand's current manufacturer program; Finance payments and Lease payments decide which kinds it quotes. Manual quotes from the rates you type in Base APR by term (and Credit tiers if you use them).
3
Fill in fees, tax and the disclosure
Enter Doc / admin fees, Sales tax (rate and Tax basis) and your Required disclosure, the sentence that goes with every quote.
4
Leases (optional)
With Lease payments on and Manual rates, fill in Lease programs by term (residual and money factor) and any Lease acquisition / admin fees.
5
Save
Press Save. AutoBook Agent starts quoting on the next message.
What a customer hears
With the Finance desk on: "The 2023 Sorento LX at $28,900 works out to about $612 a month over 72 months at 7.49%, taxes in. Final terms depend on approved credit and are confirmed by the finance team." Every figure comes from the calculator. Lease quotes only come from real lease rates and residuals.
Your disclosure always goes out in your exact English wording, added to the reply automatically; AutoBook Agent never rewrites it. A customer writing in another language also gets a translated copy beneath it. The same applies to trade-in and price disclosures.
Where the rates come from
Automatic or Manual. On Automatic, AutoBook Agent quotes from the manufacturer's current program for your make, while it is inside its offer window. Two switches, Finance payments and Lease payments (both on to start), decide which kinds of payment it quotes; Lease payments is the one lease switch for Manual too. On Manual, AutoBook Agent quotes from the rate card you type in. A store that has never chosen starts on Automatic when a current program exists for its make; otherwise it starts on Manual. While you are on Automatic, the typed rate card is hidden and not used.
On Manual, the closest term wins. You publish a rate against each term you actually quote: 48, 60, 72, 84. When a customer asks about a term you have not published, AutoBook Agent uses the closest one you have rather than inventing a rate for it, so a short list still answers most questions.
We never fill in a rate for you. The standard terms are laid out ready to type into, but every APR box starts empty and stays empty until finance gives you the number. A defaulted rate is a figure nobody at your store chose, going out to a customer in writing, so an unpublished rate makes AutoBook Agent defer to your finance team instead. On Manual, your rate card is the only authority on rates.
Leases on Manual work the same way, one step further. With Lease payments on (it is on to start), publish two numbers for each term you lease: the residual (the percent of the price the vehicle is expected to keep at lease end) and the money factor (the cost of money; multiply it by 2400 for the rough APR equivalent). Until at least one lease term is published, AutoBook Agent defers every lease question to your finance team, even with the switch on. Turn Lease payments off and every lease question goes to your finance team, on either source.
AutoBook Agent does not do the arithmetic
Every payment is computed in code from the rates in force, so the same inputs always give the same figure. AutoBook Agent is handed the result and says it with your disclosure attached. It never calculates a payment itself, so it can't arrive at a number your rates don't support.
Can AutoBook Agent approve financing?
No. It never confirms approvals or credit terms; it gathers the pieces and hands finance decisions to your team.
Can AutoBook Agent put a trade-in value on a car?
Not unless you turn on the Trade-In Desk. Off (the default) AutoBook Agent never gives a number: it captures the trade details and books the in-person appraisal. On, it can give a rough market-based estimate with a required disclosure. See The Trade-In Desk article.
What happens when a customer asks for more off than the ceiling?
AutoBook Agent never goes past Most AutoBook Agent may take off on its own. A bigger discount goes to a manager to confirm before the customer hears it. There is no watch-only mode.
Can a manager see the discount ceiling without being able to change it?
Yes. A manager without pricing authority sees the Pricing desk with the limit written as a sentence and every control disabled.
Is this per dealership?
Yes. Each dealership configures its own finance desk, trade-in estimates, pricing desk, and inventory steering.