Credit Applications

You send your customer a secure link, they fill in what a lender needs, and you read it back and print it for the lender. Nothing you already know about them is theirs to overwrite — they can propose a correction, and you decide.

Before you start

There is no Credit Applications page in the sidebar. You request one from the customer, or from the deal — Credit Application in a deal jacket’s sections, or the Credit tab on a customer’s record. Either way it is the same application.

You need a name, and a phone number or an email address to send the link to.

What it costs

Nothing. Requesting, reading and printing a credit application do not spend credits.

Sending the link

Request a credit application asks one question per screen. Three or four screens for one person, seven for two.

How many people are applying

Just one person, or Two people. On two, the next question is the one that matters.

This decides whether they go on the title.

Co-buyer goes on the titleA co-buyer owns the vehicle with the buyer.Co-signer guarantees the loan onlyA co-signer is not added to the title

IllustrationOne question per screen, answered with full-width cards: Co-buyer goes on the title, described as a co-buyer owning the vehicle with the buyer, and Co-signer guarantees the loan only, described as a co-signer not being added to the title. The chosen card is ringed in blue. Picking an answer does not advance the screen.

This is the question to get right

A co-buyer goes on the vehicle’s title. A co-signer guarantees the loan and does not.

We will not guess. The second person is only offered as the deal’s co-buyer after you have answered this, and adding them is a separate box you tick on purpose. Answer it the way the deal actually is — a co-signer written in as a co-buyer puts somebody on a title who should not be on it, and that is a trip to the tag agency to undo.

One link or two

One link they fill out together is right when they are sitting side by side. A link for each person is right otherwise — each person enters their own Social Security number and income on their own link, and neither can see the other’s.

Which questions to ask

Not every customer needs every question. This screen lets you turn units off — the address and job history, what they owe, military service, references, the trade-in, and each of the four credit-history questions on its own — and set how much of an answer three of them want: how many years of addresses and of employment (five by default, which is what an auto lender asks for), and how many references.

Some things can never be turned off: who they are, how to reach them, where they live now, what they do, what they earn, and the consents. A lender needs those.

If you ask the same set every time, save it: Save as a profile names it, and one profile can be the default for new requests.

Documents, if you want them

You can ask for a photo of a driver license, an insurance card and the rest along with the application. Whatever you tick arrives attached to the application, and they can still finish without sending them.

Send it

By email, by text or on WhatsApp — or Copy link and send it however you already talk to that customer. On two separate links, this screen sends the first person’s; the second is waiting in the list for you to send separately.

While you are waiting

The list shows each application, numbered, with what state it is in. We email you three times and no more: the first time the customer opens the link, when somebody signs, and when they first propose a correction. Nothing else pushes.

What you see	What to do
Not opened yet	Resend it, or check you sent it to the right address
Opened, nothing signed	They are in it. Phone them if it has been a while
No active link	The link was turned off or has lapsed. Send them a new link
A count of suggested changes	They want something on file corrected — see below

Withdraw stops an application you sent by mistake: the customer’s links stop working and it is marked withdrawn. It refuses on one that has been signed, because a signature is a fact on file and not ours to pull.

Changing the questions after you have sent it

Questions on an application does the same thing the request screen did, on a link that is already out. The customer’s open wizard picks it up within a few seconds — no reload, and they do not lose their place.

Answers they have already given are kept, just no longer asked for. You still see them.

When they propose a correction

The fields your customer cannot type over are the ones you already have on file. Each one carries a Not right?, and what they send is a proposal, not a change.

You Accept or reject it. Accepting writes it to the customer’s record — and if it is an address, every deal that person is on has its sales tax recalculated, because the address is what the tax is worked out from.

Reading it

View opens the application: a tab per person, plus Deal and trade-in, Documents and its history. Anything not answered reads Not answered yet, and anything you turned off reads Not asked — a lender needs to tell those apart.

Social Security numbers are hidden unless you have permission to see them, and every time one is revealed we record who asked and when.

Sending it to a lender

Print for a lender builds the PDF. It offers two choices where you have permission for the second:

• Hide Social Security numbers — the default, and what you want for anything you email.
• Include full Social Security numbers — a deliberate second click. Anyone you send that file to can read them.

Only a fully signed application can be sent from here; everyone applying has to have signed. A half-finished one still prints, watermarked, which is what you want when you are chasing gaps.

After you finish

If the second person is a co-buyer, Add as co-buyer on this deal puts them on the deal jacket — which is what carries them onto the registration and the printed forms. See Creating a Deal Jacket.

The documents they sent are on the deal’s Files section too, listed under the application they came from.