How Billing and Credits Work
My Dealer Jacket is paid for out of a prepaid credit balance, and only when you actually use something. There is no monthly plan, no seat fee and nothing to cancel. This article explains what the balance is, what draws it down, and what can be given back. For reading an individual charge, see Viewing and Understanding Transactions.
One balance for the whole dealership
Section titled “One balance for the whole dealership”Your dealership has a single credit balance. It is not per person and not per branch of the app — a registration, a vehicle history report and a set of deal-jacket paperwork all come out of the same number.
That number is in the top bar of the dashboard, next to the dollar sign. Clicking it opens Settings → Billing → Credits, which is also where you add to it.
What spends credits
Section titled “What spends credits”Anything the app does that costs us money, or that we charge for, is a credit charge. In practice that is:
- Registrations — the issuance itself, plus each record Florida looks up for you.
- Vehicle history reports — see Running a Vehicle History Report.
- Tag & Title work — our service fee and the state and county money we pay out on your behalf. See What the Tag & Title Service Does.
- Deal jacket paperwork — generating a printed jacket, sending one for signature. If you have already sent that deal’s title work to us, the paperwork fee is waived, because the Tag & Title fee covers preparing it.
- Dealer supplies — temporary tag paper, secure paper and the rest. Store orders are always paid out of your credit balance. There is no card option at checkout, so if the balance will not cover the order — shipping included — top up first.
Ordinary work does not cost anything. Creating a deal jacket, adding a vehicle or a customer, uploading files, sending a payment link, tracking collections and running reports are all free.
What a credit is worth
Section titled “What a credit is worth”A credit is a dollar of prepaid balance. What each action costs is set per dealership on your own account, so this help center never prints a price — it would be wrong for somebody.
The screen that spends the credits shows the price before you commit. The registration wizard’s Transaction Type screen shows the transaction fee and the lookup price, the fee quote shows what a quote will cost, and the vehicle history report tells you before it runs. If you want the history instead, Settings → Billing → Transaction History lists every charge you have ever been billed.
The credits we give you to start
Section titled “The credits we give you to start”Three grants land on their own as you set the account up, and they spend exactly like credits you have paid for:
| When | Credits |
|---|---|
| You open the account | 10 |
| Somebody at the dealership confirms their email address | 10 |
| We finish verifying your business documents | 40 |
The email one is once per dealership, not once per person.
These are the “credits we gave you” referred to below — spendable on anything, but not refundable as cash. Verifying Dealer License and Business Information covers what the 40 is waiting on.
Asking the state a question
Section titled “Asking the state a question”Some actions ask Florida something on your behalf — checking a VIN, resolving a customer, looking up a plate. The state charges for the question, so that is what you are billed for.
A question is billed again when it is a different question: a different VIN, a different customer, a different plate. Moving back and forth through a wizard over the same vehicle and the same buyer does not bill you again, and neither does re-opening the same deal a few days later.
Asking the same question again is free for 30 days. After that the state treats it as a new question and bills us again, so we bill you again — which is why a deal left open across a couple of months can show a second lookup on the same VIN. The screens that spend a lookup say so. Creating a Temporary Tag Registration covers where those lookups happen inside a registration.
Running out mid-deal
Section titled “Running out mid-deal”Work stops when the balance will not cover the next action — a report will not run, a registration will not issue. When that happens the app offers to top up right there, and takes you back to what you were doing afterwards. It does not retry the action for you; you click it again yourself.
Adding Credits covers both that top-up and the automatic refill that stops it happening in the first place.
What can be refunded
Section titled “What can be refunded”Credits you paid for and have not spent can be refunded. Ask support and we will arrange it — there is no button for this, because it closes the balance out rather than adjusting it.
Credits you have already spent generally cannot. Much of what you spend leaves us the moment you spend it: a record we ask the state about is billed to us when they answer, and that never comes back.
Money does come back on its own in three places.
- Voiding a registration. The issuance fee and the state money we collected to remit are put back on your balance. The record lookups that registration already made are not — the state has already answered those questions and billed us for them.
- Canceling a Tag & Title request before we start work. Everything you paid on it is returned. Once we have started, cancelling is a conversation, and work already done at the agency is still yours to cover.
- A Tag & Title bill that comes in lower than our estimate. We credit you the difference without you asking.
The rule underneath all three: we never take more automatically. If the real bill turns out higher than the estimate, it becomes a balance you pay when you are ready — we do not reach into your credits for it.
Credits we gave you — a promotion, a sign-up grant, or something we added to make up for a problem on our end — spend exactly like credits you bought, but they are not refundable as cash.
If a charge looks wrong, do not guess at it. Open Support with the date and the amount and we will trace it; see Contacting Customer Support.
Who can spend it
Section titled “Who can spend it”Anyone at the dealership who can do the work can spend the balance doing it — the charge is on the dealership, not on them. Adding credits and managing payment methods are separate permissions, so you can let staff work without letting them buy. An account admin sets that under Settings → Users.