Prior Balances and Payoffs

When a customer still owes you money on a car they are trading back in, that balance has to go somewhere. Prior Balances is where you say where — carry it into the new deal, collect it, or both.

It only appears on a deal where there is something to carry: if the buyer owes nothing on anything of yours, the section is not in the list.

Before you start

The other deal has to exist in My Dealer Jacket with a balance on it. This works from your own records — it is not a way to pay off a loan somebody else holds.

What it costs

Nothing. Moving a balance between two of your own deals spends no credits.

Carrying a balance in

Carry another balance in finds the deal the money is owed on, shows you Balance on that deal today, and then asks the question that matters:

How much of it comes into this deal? Most dealers carry the whole thing. You can carry less — and if you do, the rest stays owed on the old deal.

Carrying a balance in changes the new deal’s numbers

The app says so on the screen: “Carrying this balance in raises the amount financed, and the current payment plan won’t quite pay the deal off.”

That is not a warning you can dismiss and forget. If this is a Buy Here Pay Here or lease deal, go back to BHPH Setup or Lease Setup and rebuild the schedule afterwards, or the payments you print will not retire the balance you just added. See In-House Financing and Leases.

Carried is not collected

The section shows two different numbers on purpose:

	What it means
Carried into this deal	The balance is now part of what this deal finances
Applied so far / Not applied yet	Whether the money has actually been moved on the other deal

Nothing moves on the other deal until you apply the payoff. Carrying a balance in sets up this deal; Apply the payoff is the separate act that closes it out on the old one. A deal jacket that will not reach complete is very often one with a payoff carried in and never applied.

Applying the payoff

Apply the payoff asks how much you are collecting and against which vehicle, and offers Make that vehicle the trade-in if it is not already.

It also shows Interest given back for paying early — the unearned interest we hand back so a Buy Here Pay Here account can actually reach zero. Without it, a schedule’s remaining interest would keep a paid-off account a few dollars short forever.

You can leave the date blank to use today. Change amount and Change which vehicle this pays off fix a mistake afterwards, and Add a note is there for anything your team should know about the rollover.

If the money is somebody else’s

A different buyer owes this is the case where the balance belongs to a person who is not the buyer on this deal. You can still carry it — say so on that screen, because the app will not assume two different names are one customer.

After you finish

Check Pricing: the carried balance is a line there now, and the deal’s totals include it. If the deal is financed in-house, rebuild the schedule. And if there is anything still to collect, Collections and Payment Schedules is where you watch it.