Your Lender Submission Agent Clears Stips While Your F&I Team Sells
The Lender Submission Agent in EngageSuite360 tracks every deal from the moment it goes to the lender until the contract funds: it watches for approvals and stipulations, asks the buyer for the documents the lender needs, sends the finished package back and follows up with the funding desk. The F&I manager who used to spend afternoons chasing proof of income and calling lenders stays in the office with the customer who is buying today.
What it takes off your plate
Ask any F&I director about the contracts in transit report. A deal is delivered on Saturday. On Monday the lender comes back with conditions: proof of income, proof of residence, a reference list, an insurance card. The stips land in one person's inbox, and that person is in a delivery. The buyer is driving the car and not thinking about paperwork. The salesperson thinks the deal is done.
Submissions often go to one lender at a time, waiting on each answer before trying the next. Funding follow-up depends on who remembers to call the funding desk. Every day a contract sits unfunded, the store is carrying the unit on the floor plan and the cash is not in the bank. The controller asks why the contracts in transit list keeps growing, and nobody has a clean answer.
What the Lender Submission Agent does, step by step
It starts with the people who need to act.
- Asks the buyer for what the lender needs. When a lender approves with conditions, the agent texts and emails the buyer a clear list of the exact documents requested, with a secure upload link, and follows up politely until each one arrives.
- Keeps the salesperson in the loop. It lets the salesperson know which stip is outstanding, so they can help with a customer they know well rather than guess.
- Follows up with the funding desk. Once the package is complete, it confirms with the lender that everything was received, asks about anything still open and records the answer.
- Tracks every submission. Behind those messages, it logs each application sent through your credit platform, each lender's decision and conditions, and which deals are waiting on which lender.
- Checks the package. Before a funding package goes out, it compares the documents against the lender's stipulations and the contract, and flags a missing signature, a mismatched name or an expired document to the F&I manager.
- Watches the clock. It flags contracts that have gone unfunded longer than your store's target, so the F&I director knows exactly where to spend a phone call.
Credit decisions stay with the lenders. Which lender to send a deal to, and every conversation about the customer's terms and products, stay with your F&I managers under your compliance procedures.
Where the work is recorded
Every deal the Lender Submission Agent tracks is written to the sale in EngageSuite360 and in your DMS: submissions, decisions, stipulations requested and received, the date the package went out and the date the contract funded. The customer record shows each document request and when it was fulfilled, and sensitive documents stay in the secure deal jacket, not in an inbox.
The next morning, the F&I director opens one view: contracts in transit by lender and age, stips still outstanding and from whom, packages ready to send, and deals funded yesterday. The controller sees the same list without asking for it, and the sales manager can see which of last weekend's deliveries still need something from the customer before they call to say thank you.
What your people do instead
Your F&I managers sit with the customer at the desk, explain the contract clearly and answer questions without pressure. Your salespeople sell and deliver cars. Your office staff stop fielding "has it funded yet" calls. Customers get one clear request for what the lender needs instead of calls from three people, which is part of a good ownership experience. The Lender Submission Agent keeps the stips, packages and funding follow-ups moving around them.
Deals start with the shopper's first reply, handled as described in Your Internet Lead Response Agent Answers Shoppers While You Sell, and the store's marketing is measured by the same sold units, covered in Your Digital Advertising Agent Ties Ad Spend to Sold Vehicles.
One next step
EngageSuite360 is a CRM shaped for dealerships, with customers, fleet accounts, sales and leads built in, and the EngageSuite360 Lender Submission Agent works on those same records. See EngageSuite360 for automotive and shorten your contracts in transit list.
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