Disclosed Fees exists so you can show the fees your state's advertising rules require, whether a fee applies across a whole lot or to a single vehicle. When a fee does not appear where you expect, the cause is almost always a setting working as designed, not an error. Whether a fee appears depends on settings at three levels: your website templates, your lot, and the individual vehicle. The disclaimer has its own placement rule, and the fee table has one rule about names. Once you know which level is responsible, the fix is usually one setting.
This article explains why these behaviors happen. For step-by-step instructions, see Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer, Adding or Excluding Disclosed Fees on a Single Vehicle, and Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website.
Questions this answers
- "I need to disclose my doc fee on my website. How do I do that?"
- "Our fees show on one inventory page but not the other. Why?"
- "Every vehicle shows our prep fee except this one. What's different about it?"
- "How do I add a disclaimer to my vehicle prices on my website?"
- "Why won't the Disclosed Fees page let me save?"
- "Will my fees go out in my inventory exports, or do I need to set something up?"
Showing a fee on your website takes two settings
A fee appears on your website only when two things are set up: the fee itself, and the display setting in your website templates. Adding a fee to your lot, or to a single vehicle, does not show it on your website by itself.
To disclose a fee such as your doc fee:
- Add the fee to your lot's fee table, as described in Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer. If you had a doc fee before Disclosed Fees was released, it is already in the table.
- Turn on Show Disclosed Fees in the Price element of your website templates, as described in Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website.
Your inventory exports need only the first step. See the export section below.
If you were already showing your doc fee on your website, both of these were carried over for you.
Fees are turned on per template, not across your whole website
Your website does not have one switch for showing fees. Show Disclosed Fees is set separately in the Price element of each template. Each page with an inventory list uses its own inventory list template, and you may also have more than one vehicle details template. If one page shows fees and another does not, the two pages are using different templates, and only one of them has the setting turned on.
System templates are a common cause. They cannot be changed, so a page that uses a System template does not show fees until you copy the template, turn fees on in the copy, and set the page to use the copy. Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website walks through turning fees on in each template and the System template steps.
If you just saved your settings and the page still looks the same, your browser may be showing an older copy of it. Press Ctrl+F5 on Windows, or Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac, to reload the page.
A fee shows on a vehicle only when every setting allows it
When the template is set up but one vehicle is missing a fee, the cause is in that vehicle's settings or its lot's settings. A fee appears on a vehicle only when all of the following are true:
- The vehicle has a price showing. A vehicle set to Call for Price shows only the call-for-price message and phone number, with no fees or disclaimer.
- The fee is set up on the vehicle's lot. Each lot has its own fees. A vehicle uses the fees from its own lot, even on a page that shows inventory from several lots.
- The fee applies to the vehicle's type. A fee set to one vehicle type in Applies To appears only on vehicles of that type. If the vehicle's type on its record is different, the fee does not apply to it.
- The fee has not been excluded on that vehicle. Clearing a lot fee's checkbox on the vehicle's Pricing tab removes it from that vehicle only.
- The fee has an amount. A fee with no amount does not appear.
The first and fourth items are set on the vehicle itself. Adding or Excluding Disclosed Fees on a Single Vehicle explains the Lot Fees table, where you can see which lot fees apply to a vehicle and whether any are excluded. The other three, the lot, the vehicle type, and the amount, are covered in Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer.
You write the disclaimer, and it appears only with your fees
You add a fee disclaimer in the Disclaimer panel below the fee table on the Disclosed Fees page. Turn on Show Fee Disclaimer, enter your own text, and choose where it appears. There is no built-in wording, because disclosure requirements differ by state. Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer walks through each setting.
The disclaimer appears only alongside your fees. On any page or vehicle where fees are not shown, the disclaimer does not appear either, even when Show Fee Disclaimer is on.
If you set the disclaimer's Position to Below Summed Price but it shows under the fees instead, that page is not showing a total price. The total price appears only when Include Disclosed Fees in Purchase Price is turned on in that template's Price element. Without a total to sit under, the disclaimer moves to its next position, below the fees. Turn on Include Disclosed Fees in Purchase Price in that template, as described in Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website, and the disclaimer moves under the total.
Each fee on a lot needs a different name
The Disclosed Fees page will not save if two fees on the same lot have the same name, and it highlights the names that match. Names are compared without regard to capitalization, so Doc Fee and DOC FEE count as the same name. Rename one of them and save again.
This rule also explains why the same fee cannot be added twice for two vehicle types. To charge a fee on trucks and SUVs but not cars, give each row its own name, such as Prep Fee – Trucks and Prep Fee – SUVs. Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer covers how Applies To works.
Fees export automatically to sites that support them
You do not need to do anything to include your disclosed fees in your inventory exports. When an export site supports disclosed fees, your fees are included automatically, whether you set them up on your lot, on individual vehicles, or both. Each vehicle's exported fees are the fees that apply to it: the lot fees that match its vehicle type and have not been excluded, plus any additional fees added to that vehicle.
Exports do not depend on your website settings. Your fees are exported even if they are not shown on your website, so a fee missing from your website can still be in your exports.
Not every export site supports disclosed fees. To find out whether a specific export site receives your fees, email support@automanager.com.
Deleting a fee removes it from every vehicle on the lot
A fee in the lot's table has no on/off switch. If the fee is in the table, it is active, and deleting it is the only way to stop using it. Deleting a fee removes it from every vehicle on that lot. Changing a fee's amount works the same way: the new amount applies to every vehicle the fee applies to.
To stop charging a fee on one vehicle, or to charge a different amount on one vehicle, do not delete or change it in your lot settings. Exclude the lot fee on that vehicle's Pricing tab. If the vehicle needs a different amount, add an additional fee for it. Adding or Excluding Disclosed Fees on a Single Vehicle explains both.
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