Setting Up Disclosed Fees: Lot Fees and the Fee Disclaimer

Disclosed Fees lets you list the fees that apply to your vehicles so they can appear on your website as separate line items and be included in the price shoppers see. A growing number of states require dealers to show more of a vehicle's total cost in their advertising, and those rules differ from state to state. Disclosed Fees is built to handle whatever your state requires: fees that apply to every vehicle on a lot, fees that apply to only one vehicle, or both. It replaces the Doc Fee setting, and your existing doc fee carries over automatically.

This article is only about setting up the fees that apply across a lot, and the optional fee disclaimer. For adding or excluding a fee on one vehicle, see Adding or Excluding Disclosed Fees on a Single Vehicle. For controlling how fees appear on your website, see Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website. This article does not tell you which fees your state requires you to disclose. Check your state's advertising and pricing disclosure requirements for that.

Questions this answers

"We have to disclose our electronic filing fee on our website. How do I add it?"
"We charge a fee on our trucks that we don't charge on cars. How do I set that up?"
"Is there a built-in disclaimer, or do I have to write my own?"
"Where did the Doc Fee setting go, and did the fee I already had carry over?"

Each lot has its own fees

Fees on the Disclosed Fees page (Settings > Inventory > Disclosed Fees) apply to the vehicles on one lot. If your dealership has more than one lot, set up the fees for each lot separately. A fee you add for one lot does not appear on vehicles at your other lots.

Choose a lot in the Lot dropdown in the command bar at the top of the page. The table shows the fees for that lot.
Add or change fees for that lot, then select Save.
Choose your next lot in the Lot dropdown and repeat.

Save before you switch lots so your changes to the first lot are kept.

Each row in the table is one fee

Every fee in the table has the same parts:

Fee Name: the name shoppers see on your website, such as Doc Fee or Dealer Prep. Each name must be different from the others in the table.
Amount: the dollar amount of the fee.
Applies To: which vehicles the fee applies to by default. Choose All Vehicle Types or a single vehicle type.
Drag handle: lets you move the fee up or down in the table.
Delete icon: removes the fee.

There is no on/off switch for a fee. If a fee is in the table, it is active.

Adding a fee

Go to Settings > Inventory > Disclosed Fees.
If you have more than one lot, choose the lot in the Lot dropdown.
Select Add Fee. A blank row is added to the table.
Enter the Fee Name.
Enter the Amount.
Choose an option in Applies To. It starts as All Vehicle Types.
Select Save.

If the page will not save and a Fee Name field is highlighted, that name is already used by another fee in the table. 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.

Applies To decides which vehicles get a fee by default

A fee set to All Vehicle Types applies to every vehicle on the lot. A fee set to a specific vehicle type applies only to vehicles of that type, based on the vehicle type on each vehicle's record.

Applies To holds one choice per fee. To charge the same fee on two vehicle types but not on others, add it twice with a different name for each, such as Prep Fee – Trucks and Prep Fee – SUVs. Names must be unique, so two rows cannot both be named Prep Fee.

"By default" matters here. You can still exclude a lot fee from an individual vehicle, or add a fee that applies only to that vehicle, from the vehicle's Pricing tab. See Adding or Excluding Disclosed Fees on a Single Vehicle.

Changing, reordering, or deleting a fee

Changing a fee: edit its name, amount, or Applies To, then select Save. The change applies to every vehicle on the lot that the fee applies to.
Reordering fees: drag a row by its handle to a new position, then select Save. The order in this table is the order your fees appear on your website. Lot fees always appear above any fees added to an individual vehicle.
Deleting a fee: select the delete icon on its row, then select Save. Deleting is the only way to stop using a fee, and it removes the fee from every vehicle on the lot.

To stop charging a fee on one vehicle while keeping it on the rest, do not delete it here. Exclude it on that vehicle's Pricing tab instead.

The fee disclaimer is off until you turn it on

Some states require dealers to tell shoppers that certain government fees and taxes are not included in the price shown. The Disclaimer panel below the fee table lets you display your own disclaimer with your disclosed fees. The disclaimer appears only where your fees are shown on your website. It is turned off by default, and there is no built-in wording. Requirements differ by state, so the text needs to come from you or your compliance advisor.

In the Disclaimer panel, select Show Fee Disclaimer.
Enter your text in Disclaimer Text.
Choose a Position:
- Below Fees: the disclaimer appears under the list of fees.
- Below Summed Price: the disclaimer appears under the total price that includes your fees.
Select Save.

If you choose Below Summed Price but a page on your website shows your fees without a summed price, the disclaimer appears below the fees on that page instead. A summed price is shown only when Include Disclosed Fees in Purchase Price is turned on.

The Doc Fee setting is now its own Disclosed Fees page

The fee setting has moved out of Settings > Inventory > General and onto its own page at Settings > Inventory > Disclosed Fees. The single Doc Fee field has been replaced with a table, so you can add as many fees as you need.

If you already had a doc fee, it is now the first row in the table, named Doc Fee, with your existing amount, applying to all vehicle types. If you have more than one lot, it was added to every lot's table, so delete it from any lot that does not charge it. Your website shows it exactly as it did before, so nothing changes for shoppers until you add or edit fees.

If you did not have a doc fee, the table starts with one example row named Doc Fee with a blank amount. A fee with no amount does not appear on your website, so you can leave the row as it is, enter an amount to start using it, or delete it.

Fees appear on your website only when display is turned on

Saving fees on this page does not show them on your website by itself. Fees appear when Show Disclosed Fees is turned on in your Inventory List Design, your Vehicle Details Template, or both. If you were already showing your doc fee, those settings carried over and are already on. For setting this up, see Showing Disclosed Fees on Your Website.

Your fees are also included automatically in your inventory exports to sites that support disclosed fees, with no setup needed. This does not depend on your website settings: your fees are exported even if they are not shown on your website. To find out whether a specific export site receives your fees, email support@automanager.com.