Deal info: price, fees, taxes, and trade-in
Set the selling price, fees, sales tax, and a trade-in on a new deal, and see how your deal defaults pre-fill them.
The money on a deal (selling price, sales tax, fees, and any trade-in) is entered on the New deal form. The fees and tax pre-fill from your saved deal defaults, so most of the time you just confirm the numbers.
The core money fields (Selling price, Tax, Doc fee, Other dealer fees, Tag & title fees) are set when you create the deal and stay editable on the deal page while the deal is open (draft or pending). Once the deal is sold or otherwise closed they lock, because those figures backed the signed paperwork.
Enter the price, tax, and fees
- Go to Deals and click New deal (or start one from a converted lead's page).
- Pick the Customer, the Vehicle (must be available), and the Deal type (Cash, Finance, Wholesale, or In-house (BHPH)).
- In Selling price, type the agreed price (e.g.
12000or12000.00). This field is required. - Check Tax (optional). It auto-fills from your state's sales tax schedule. The hint names the lines, for example "Auto: 6% Florida sales tax + 1.5% Hillsborough County surtax on the first $5,000.00" (and adds "(less trade)" if your defaults credit trade-ins). Where your state sets its local rate by county, a Buyer's county for sales tax picker above it starts on your default county; change it when the buyer lives elsewhere. Type a different number to override the amount.
- Confirm Doc fee (optional), Tag & title fees (optional) and Other dealer fees (optional). All pre-fill from your deal defaults; edit any if this deal is different. Tag & title fees are the government money you collect and remit (tag, title, registration) - keep them out of "other fees" so your books count them as money held, not income.
- Add a trade-in if there is one (next section), then click Create deal.
Selling price, tax, doc fee, tag & title fees, and other dealer fees make up the deal total. Everything except the selling price is optional; leave a field blank and it saves as 0.00.
How the sales tax is calculated
The Tax field fills in automatically from the schedule in your deal defaults, but only when that schedule has at least one line. Here's the math:
- Taxable amount = selling price − trade-in allowance. The trade is subtracted only if Trade-in reduces taxable amount is on in your defaults (up to the cap where your state has one), and the result never goes below zero.
- Each line of the schedule taxes its slice of the taxable amount at its rate: the state line usually the whole amount, a county line perhaps only the first $5,000 (Florida) or $1,600 (Tennessee), a capped fee never more than its cap (South Carolina's $500). Each line is rounded to the cent on its own, the way a state return reports it.
- Tax = the lines added up.
So a $12,000 car in Hillsborough County, Florida auto-fills $795.00 (6% of $12,000 plus 1.5% of the first $5,000), and $20,000 at a flat 7.5% rate auto-fills $1,500.00, or less if a trade-in reduces the taxable amount. When you leave the auto-filled amount as it is, the deal keeps that line-by-line breakdown.
Tax only auto-fills when your schedule has a line, which means a State is picked under Settings → Deal defaults (or the old single rate is set above 0%). If the field stays blank, set it there, or just type the tax amount in by hand on the deal. Sales tax on a vehicle, state by state lists what every state gets.
Add a trade-in
- On the New deal form, check Customer has a trade-in.
- Fill in the trade vehicle: Year, Make, Model, Mileage, and VIN.
- Enter the Allowance (what you're giving the customer for the trade) and the Payoff (what they still owe on it).
- If the payoff is above $0, fill in Trade lienholder (if payoff > 0) to record who holds the lien.
- Add Trade notes if needed, then create the deal.
The trade allowance always lowers what the buyer owes, regardless of tax. The optional ACV (actual cash value) on the trade-in card never changes what the buyer owes - it tells your books what the trade is really worth, so the excess allowance is counted as a discount on the sale instead of inflating your inventory. Whether it also lowers the taxable amount depends on your Trade-in reduces taxable amount setting.
The trade-in is saved with the deal, and you can edit it later from the deal's detail page. You can also promote the trade into your inventory from there. That creates a new vehicle row from the trade's year/make/model/VIN; it is not added to inventory automatically.
Set your deal defaults (pre-fills every new deal)
Deal defaults save you from re-typing fees and tax on every sale. They live at Settings → Deal defaults.
- Go to Settings → Deal defaults.
- Set Default doc fee and Default other fees. These pre-fill the matching fields on every new deal.
- Under Sales tax, pick your State (and the county or local rate it asks for); that fills in the schedule applied to the selling price.
- Turn on Trade-in reduces taxable amount if your state grants a trade-in tax credit. (Most do; CA, VA, HI, and DC don't.)
- Optionally pick a Default issuing state under Title issuing state, then click Save defaults.
Saving deal defaults is Owner or Manager only. A Sales user can still enter and override every fee and tax on an individual deal, but the Save defaults action is rejected for them.
Changing your defaults only affects future deals. It does not re-price deals you already created.
The same defaults can power an out-the-door estimate on your storefront: each vehicle page, the storefront assistant and your site's machine-readable feeds show your doc fee, other fees, tag and title, and sales tax as an estimated total. It is off until you turn it on under Website; see Show an out-the-door estimate on listings.
FAQ
Can I change the selling price or fees after the deal is created?
They pre-fill from your deal defaults at create time, and while the deal is still open (draft or pending) you can edit them in the Deal details card on the deal page. Once the deal is sold, cancelled or unwound they lock - the signed paperwork was built on those figures.
Can I still edit the trade-in after creating the deal?
Yes. The trade-in is the one money-related item you can update later. Open the deal, edit the trade-in there, and you can also promote the trade into inventory from the deal page.
Why is the Tax field blank or showing $0?
Tax only auto-calculates when your Sales tax rate is set above 0% in Settings → Deal defaults. If the rate is 0 (or unset), the field stays blank. Set the rate, or type the tax amount in manually on the deal.
Does a trade-in lower the sales tax?
Only if Trade-in reduces taxable amount is turned on in your deal defaults. When it's on, the trade allowance is subtracted from the price before tax is figured. Either way, the full trade allowance reduces what the buyer owes.
I changed my deal defaults. Why didn't an existing deal update?
Defaults only pre-fill new deals. Existing deals keep the numbers they were created with.
Who can change the dealership's deal defaults?
Owners and Managers. Salespeople can override fees and tax on a specific deal, but only Owners and Managers can save the dealership-wide defaults that pre-fill every deal.