F I Reporting Software: 6 Options Compared for 2027

The short answer

If you are shopping for f i reporting software (the tools that turn deal data into PVR, product penetration and per-manager scorecards), pick the reporting source that already sits closest to your DMS and deal jacket, then check three things before you sign: how deal data reaches the report, whether the price is published, and whether the report proves a menu was presented on every deal.

TL;DR: a small store with a DMS that is already integrated with a menu vendor should start there. A store that wants reporting separate from the menu should price a dedicated reporting product. A buy-here-pay-here or independent lot that mainly needs lender submission and deal management may find its DMS covers the basics and should not pay for a scorecard it will not read. Most vendors in this category do not publish prices, so this guide marks them "Quote-based" and prints only the one price list I could open.

Key Takeaways

• F&I reporting comes from two places: the menu vendor (RouteOne Menu, MenuMetric, Darwin-powered menus) or a reporting layer that reads DMS data (StoneEagle's METRICS and its Dealertrack-embedded version).

• Only DealerCenter publishes prices among the six options reviewed here. Every other vendor is quote-based, so budget for a sales conversation, not a checkout page.

• Q4 2025 F&I PVR: $1,995 per deal according to StoneEagle (2026). Use it as a rough yardstick for your own PVR, not as a target.

• DMS integration is the first disqualifier. If a vendor cannot name your DMS and explain how deals flow into reports, move on.

• A report that cannot show which deals had a completed menu presentation does not give you compliance evidence, however good the PVR charts look.

• A scorecard shows the gap; it does not close it. Weekly review, coaching and exception follow-up are still work someone owns.

The category decision: report from the menu or from the DMS

Before comparing brands, decide where your F&I numbers should originate. The two sources produce different reports, and mixing them is the most common reason a store ends up with two dashboards that disagree.

A menu-based report knows what was presented, what the customer accepted or declined, and what the monthly payment looked like. It is strong on menu usage and product mix. A DMS-based report knows what actually booked: the funded deal, the gross, the F&I manager of record. It is strong on profit and chargebacks-adjacent accuracy because the DMS is the system of record. StoneEagle's reporting, for example, was described in a 2014 trade-press case study as updating only when a deal changes in the DMS, which keeps one source of truth but means the report is only as current as your deal entry.

For a small dealership the practical rule is simple. If one person runs F&I and the menu is already chosen, use the menu vendor's reporting and add a monthly DMS tie-out. If two or more people sell F&I and you want pay-plan-grade numbers, price a reporting layer that reads the DMS directly. If you are an independent lot whose main need is submitting deals to lenders, your DMS may already be the reporting tool, and the question becomes whether a scorecard is worth paying for at all.

If you are also looking at dealership-wide reporting beyond F&I, our companion piece on reporting software for car dealerships covers the wider set of dashboards, and the pattern for other service businesses is similar in auto repair shop reporting.

Who this is for

This guide is for an owner, GM or operations lead at a small dealership who has an F&I office, a DMS and a menu or deal-jacket workflow, and wants to see PVR, products per deal and penetration by manager without rebuilding spreadsheets each month. It is also for buyers deciding between buying a reporting product and automating the reporting they already get from their DMS.

Red flags: your DMS vendor will not allow a third party to read deal data; nobody owns the F&I office process, so reports would go unread; you need an official compliance opinion rather than a reporting tool (that is a question for counsel).

How we evaluated these tools

This is a buyer's guide built from public pages, trade press and vendor documentation I opened on October 16, 2026. I did not install or run any of these products, and nothing here is a hands-on test result. The weights below reflect what a small store usually loses most money on when it chooses badly: data that does not match the DMS, reports that cannot be trusted, and contracts that surprise the buyer. Per-vendor scoring is deliberately absent, because public pages do not give enough evidence to rank products honestly.

Use the table as a worksheet: score each finalist from 0 to 5 per row after a demo, multiply by the weight, and compare totals. If a vendor cannot answer the DMS row, stop there.

Feature matrix

This matrix records what the vendor pages and trade press I opened actually state. "Not stated" means the pages I could open did not say, which is not the same as "not available."

The six options, profiled

StoneEagle (METRICS F&I)

Best fit: stores that want F&I and sales reporting driven by DMS data and do not want to be tied to one menu.

StoneEagle's site lists five products: a menu (StoneEagleMENU), METRICS for sales and F&I reporting, a service-side METRICS, a technician documentation tool and a benchmarking dataset. The F&I reporting runs from DMS data; supported systems are not listed on the page I opened. A 2020 announcement says its reporting is embedded in Dealertrack, where dealers can pull daily DMS data through certified integrations, as covered under Dealertrack below.

Limitations: pricing is not published, the supported-DMS list is not on the page, and the clearest feature descriptions in trade press are dated (a 2014 deployment story). Treat it as a product you must have demoed against your own DMS.

Implementation: expect a certified DMS connection set up by the vendor, then report configuration. Ask who owns the connection if you switch DMS.

Primary evidence: the Q4 2025 benchmark post shows the data scale StoneEagle claims, and the Dealertrack announcement describes the embedded reporting.

MenuMetric

Best fit: small stores that want a menu and reporting in one cloud product and run a DMS from its named integration list.

MenuMetric's automotive page describes real-time metrics, agent-level reporting and a Smart Menu Builder. Menu build time: under 90 seconds according to MenuMetric (vendor claim, 2026). It also states partnerships with more than 200 aftermarket providers and integrations with Dominion, AutoSoft, DX1, AppOne and CDK Global.

For Tekion stores, an announcement dated November 20, 2024 says the integration covers menu presentation, eRating, contracting and reporting inside Tekion's Automotive Retail Cloud, according to MenuMetric's Tekion post (2024).

Limitations: pricing is not published on the page I opened (a Packages page is linked but was not readable), and all numbers above are vendor statements. If your DMS is not on the list, ask for written confirmation of the integration path.

Implementation: a cloud product tied to a DMS portal connection plus provider setup. The longest step is usually loading your provider contracts and rates, not the report itself.

Dealertrack (Cox Automotive), Darwin menu

Best fit: stores already submitting credit applications through Dealertrack that want a menu in the same deal jacket.

The Dealertrack Darwin menu page describes a menu built with Darwin Automotive, with two-way data flow, predictive product recommendations, payment calculations tied to Dealertrack data and menus sent by text. It describes stored menus and contracts as audit-ready. It does not describe reporting features, and it lists no price.

On reporting, a 2020 release says dealers can run Dealertrack F&I reports: over 40 without leaving the deal jacket according to Digital Dealer (2020), filtered by F&I manager, sales manager, make or lender, with scheduled delivery. That is StoneEagle's SEcureMetrics F&I embedded in the platform. Because the announcement is from 2020, confirm that the reports are still sold in that form.

Limitations: reporting rests on a six-year-old announcement; menu and reporting may be separate line items; pricing is not published.

Implementation: the lowest friction if Dealertrack is already your lender channel, since the menu and contracts import into the digital deal jacket.

RouteOne (RouteOne Menu, powered by MaximTrak)

Best fit: stores that already use RouteOne for credit applications and eContracting and want the menu and reports in that workflow.

According to F&I Magazine (March 9, 2022), the menu is integrated into RouteOne's credit application and eContracting platform, includes a customizable menu, an interactive tablet menu and a remote menu sent by text or email, and offers drag-and-drop reporting on PVR, products per unit and average gross at group, dealership or manager level.

Limitations: that article says nothing about DMS integration, and it is more than four years old. Pricing is not published in anything I could open. RouteOne's own pages returned errors during research, so confirm the current feature list with the vendor.

Implementation: the menu rides on the RouteOne credit and signing workflow, so the setup effort depends on how fully you already use it.

CDK (MenuVantage Platinum)

Best fit: CDK DMS stores that want a prescriptive menu sold through their existing CDK account manager.

A CDK product listing describes predictive analytics that match products to customers, one-, two- or four-column presentations on tablet, paper or remotely, and service-lane selling. According to F&I Magazine (January 25, 2017), the system was built with Darwin Automotive and merges DMS purchase history with an ownership survey.

Limitations: neither page mentions reporting or price, and the launch article is from 2017. Do not assume F&I scorecards come with it; ask what reports ship with the menu and whether they are a separate product.

Implementation: purchase and setup run through CDK, which helps if you are on CDK and hurts if you are not.

DealerCenter (DMS plan)

Best fit: independent and buy-here-pay-here lots that need lender submission, contract management and basic reporting at a published price.

According to DealerCenter (October 2026), the page lists lender access through RouteOne, Dealertrack and CUDL, eFax submissions, GWC, F&I Express and AUL integrations, and reports centered on vehicle history, CRM campaigns and BHPH dashboards.

Limitations: it is a DMS and deal-submission tool, not an F&I performance scorecard. The pricing page lists no PVR-by-manager report. Per-use fees (credit pulls, contracts, printing) sit on top of the monthly plan.

Implementation: the lowest barrier of the six, because the plan is self-serve priced and includes unlimited users, training and support per the page.

Pricing and total cost

Pricing checked October 16, 2026. Only DealerCenter's page shows prices. For the rest, the vendor pages I opened direct you to a demo or a sales contact, so the right label is Quote-based.

DealerCenter's published fees give the only real cost anchor in this set:

DealerCenter DMS plan: $99 per month according to DealerCenter (2026). The page also states per-use charges separately, so a store that books 60 contracts a month would add $180 for eContract at $3.00 each before any credit pulls.

To compare quote-based vendors fairly, ask each for the same four numbers in writing: monthly subscription, one-time setup, any per-deal or per-user fees, and the contract term with exit clauses. Add the cost of the staff hours needed to load providers and reconcile the first two months of reports against the DMS.

What the benchmark numbers say

Benchmarks help you judge whether a gap exists before you pay for software. The figures below come from StoneEagle's own data product, so treat them as one vendor's view of the market, drawn from deals in its customer base.

Products per deal: 1.58 in Q4 2025 according to StoneEagle (2026). The same post lists service contract penetration at 45% and GAP at 39% for the quarter. The post does not state a sample size, and a February 2026 trade-press summary of the same report gives a slightly different front-end margin figure, so quote the original post, not the secondary coverage.

The lesson for a small store is the shape, not the decimals: front-end gross has been compressing, so F&I carries more of each deal, and an F&I office that is not measured by manager is the easiest place to lose money quietly.

Here is a worked example with illustrative numbers, not a measured result. A store retails 90 vehicles a month with an F&I PVR of $1,750, against the $1,995 quarterly figure above, a gap of $245 per deal, or $22,050 a month at 90 deals. If better visibility helps the F&I office close just 20% of that gap, that is $4,410 a month, so any reporting quote well under that line pays for itself on paper. Compare the manual alternative: pulling a monthly DMS export and rebuilding a manager-level sheet takes about 3 hours a week, or 12 hours across four weeks, which at an assumed $40 an hour is $480 a month of staff time before errors. In a proposed automated version, the deal records would be grouped by the CRM owner field hubspot_owner_id (from HubSpot's deals API) so each F&I manager's deals line up with the DMS booking, and the PVR and products-per-deal figures would be recomputed the same way every week.

Where reporting breaks down between the dashboard and the desk

Every product above produces a number. What most small stores lack is the step after the number: someone checks the report, finds deals with no menu on file, and follows up. This is where an orchestration layer sits above the F&I tool instead of replacing it.

Here is a proposed, configurable workflow that US Tech Automations could build for a store. The trigger is a scheduled export or API pull of closed deals from the DMS or from the reporting tool, which is a prerequisite: the vendor must allow scheduled report delivery or API access to deal data. The action is to normalize each deal by F&I manager, compute PVR, products per deal and menu-completed status against the store's own targets, and flag deals where a product was declined without a recorded menu. The output is a weekly digest to the GM and a short exception list for the F&I director. This is a design, not a live deployment, and no results are implied.

The human review points matter more than the automation. The F&I director confirms each flagged deal before anyone is coached or any pay plan is adjusted, and a compliance reviewer owns any change to menu or disclosure rules. If a flagged deal turns out to be a data-entry gap in the DMS rather than a missed menu, that correction goes back to the DMS, not into the workflow. For a related pattern on checking data before it goes live, see how a recall status check before listing is structured as a gate with a human sign-off.

On the compliance backdrop, the Fifth Circuit vacated the FTC's CARS Rule on January 27, 2025 by a 2-1 vote, according to Holland & Knight (2025). The same firm advises dealers to expect continued FTC and state scrutiny of hidden add-on charges and misleading terms, so a record that every deal was presented the same menu is worth having regardless of the rule's status. Ask counsel what your state requires.

Zapier, Make, n8n or in-house?

The real alternative to buying a scorecard is usually building something from a DMS export, a spreadsheet and an automation tool such as Zapier, Make or n8n, or asking a developer to build it in-house. That can work. These tools support run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence when you configure them, and for a one-rooftop store with a single report they are often the cheaper option.

What you take on is design and ownership: observability (who is alerted when a run fails), idempotency (a retried run must not double-count a deal), escalation (what happens when a deal has no menu on file), access controls (F&I data includes customer financing details) and ongoing maintenance when the DMS export format changes. A proposed US Tech Automations design would configure these differently by making them explicit deliverables: a documented export prerequisite, a deal-level key so reruns cannot duplicate records, a named reviewer for each exception queue, role-based access to the output, and a change log. That is a scoping difference, not a claim that the platform is more capable than a well-built Make or n8n scenario. If you have someone who will own the scenario for years, build it yourself.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: skip it if your menu vendor's built-in reports already cover PVR by manager and you read them weekly; if your DMS or menu vendor will not allow scheduled exports or API access, because there would be nothing reliable to orchestrate; or if you are a single-rooftop lot where a monthly spreadsheet from your DMS is genuinely enough. In those cases a simpler tool wins on cost and effort.

Common mistakes

• Buying on the dashboard demo and skipping the DMS question. Ask for the integration path in writing and a reference store on your DMS.

• Treating a vendor-published benchmark as an independent one. Benchmarks like the one above come from vendor customer data.

• Assuming the menu includes reporting. Two of the six options here (Darwin and CDK) do not describe reporting on the pages I opened.

• Ignoring per-use fees. A $99 monthly plan is a different cost at 60 contracts a month than at 6.

• Relying on 2017 to 2022 articles to describe 2026 features. Several sources for these vendors are that old.

• Measuring PVR without reading it by manager and by lender. Averages hide the one office that drags the number down.

Decision checklist

• Which DMS do we run, and does the vendor name it on its integration list or confirm it in writing?

• Do reports update from DMS-booked deals, from the menu, or both, and which is the system of record?

• Can we see PVR, products per deal and penetration by F&I manager without exporting to a spreadsheet?

• Can we prove which deals had a completed menu presentation?

• What is the price in writing: subscription, setup, per-use fees and contract term?

• Who owns the weekly review, and what happens to flagged deals?

• What happens to our data and reports if we switch DMS or leave the vendor?

According to Digital Dealer (April 30, 2026), an author at an F&I solutions firm advises asking product providers about rate filing, claims administration, DMS integration and reporting, and argues the window for menu differentiation is roughly 12 to 24 months. Treat the timeframe as one practitioner's opinion, but the questions are a useful add to the checklist above.

Frequently asked questions

What is f i reporting software?

It is software that turns dealership deal data into F&I metrics such as profit per vehicle retailed, products per deal, product penetration and manager performance. Some products do this from the menu, others from the DMS, and a few do both.

How much does f i reporting software cost?

For most vendors the price is not published, so the answer is Quote-based. In this guide only DealerCenter publishes prices, with its DMS plan at $99 per month plus per-use fees, as of the October 16, 2026 check.

Do I need separate reporting if my DMS already has F&I reports?

Not necessarily. If your DMS reports give you PVR and products per deal by manager and you read them weekly, a separate product adds little. Buy separate reporting when the DMS reports cannot break results down by manager, lender or product, or when they do not show menu usage.

Which option is best for a small independent lot?

DealerCenter is the only one here with a published price and a lender-focused feature list, so it fits a lot that mainly submits deals and manages contracts. It is not an F&I scorecard, so a lot that wants PVR coaching should also get quotes from the menu and reporting vendors.

Does a menu vendor's reporting replace my DMS numbers?

No. The DMS is the system of record for booked gross, so use menu reports for presentation and product mix and reconcile profit to the DMS monthly.

Is a compliance record required after the CARS Rule was vacated?

The rule itself was vacated on January 27, 2025, but state laws and FTC enforcement of unfair or deceptive practices continue, per the Holland & Knight summary cited above. Keeping a record of menu presentations is prudent; ask your attorney what your state requires.

Conclusion

The honest ranking for a small dealership is not a leaderboard; it is a fit test. Start with your DMS, get a written integration answer from two vendors, price the quote-based options against the manual hours they replace, and use the worked example above with your own PVR and deal count. If you have a reporting tool and still lose track of flagged deals, see how US Tech Automations configures this as a layer above it, with exports, review points and an owner for every exception. For a broader view of dealership reporting, start with the companion guide on reporting software for car dealerships.