#28 - Monday Minute | Nothing Happens Until You Collect the Money

#28 - Monday Minute | Nothing Happens Until You Collect the Money The Independent Dealer Podcast · Jul 13, 2026

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Term

days to funding

“Days to funding” means how many days it takes the bank/lender to actually send the money to the dealer after the deal is submitted. Faster funding means the dealer gets paid sooner.

Term

Floor plans are dealer financing arrangements used to pay for inventory (cars) while the vehicles sit on the lot. The interest/cost of that financing is time-based, so delays in lender funding can make the dealer’s monthly costs and “bottom line” worse.

Concept

bottom line

“Bottom line” just means how much money the business actually keeps after paying its bills. Here, slower funding can cost more money because the dealer has to keep paying for the car loan longer.

Term

F&I people

“F&I people” are the dealership team that handles the financing paperwork and optional add-ons like warranties/insurance. Their work can influence how fast the deal gets approved and paid out.

LIVE

Welcome to the Monday Minute, 52 weeks to build a better dealership, a quick reset to

help you lead better, think clearer, clearer, clearer, and build your dealership with intention.

That's a mouthful there, Jeff.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Before we get started, make sure you reviewed Sunday's newsletter.

The newsletter outlines the theme for the week, the why behind it, and simple exercises

to work through with your team.

The Monday Minute is the mindset, the newsletter is the roadmap.

Jeffrey, what do we got?

All right, we're just going to push right through this, aren't we?

Yes, we are.

Don't worry about it.

Okay, great.

What we're going to talk about today, Luke, is nothing happens until you collect the

money, right?

We spend a lot of time talking about buying cars, selling the cars, marketing.

If you go back into previous weeks, we covered a whole bunch of that, but at the end of the

day, none of it matters until you collect the money.

Now, collections are the lifeblood of every dealership.

That doesn't matter if you're retail, buy here, pay here, lease cash

car or whatever, daily rentals.

It's what keeps the lights on, right?

So cash flow only happens when receivables become cash.

Retail, it's quick.

Buy here, pay here, it's longer.

Those are all numbers you need to know, right?

So if you're a retail dealer, you're really worried about your days to funding.

You've got to pay really close attention.

You may have sold the car, the customer's driving it.

You may have even paid the tax and license, but has the bank actually funded your deal

because that's money you haven't been paid yet?

That's why days to funding is one of the most important metrics in a retail store.

Do you know what your number is?

Do you know which lenders fund quickly?

Do you know which lenders consistently drag their deals out or which ones are bottleneck

in your paperwork process, right?

Is it my salesman's problem because they're not getting the underwriter the right stuff?

So even shaping a few days off your funding can drastically improve your cash flow.

So on the other hand, your buy here, pay here, your lease here, pay here operator, right?

Elections is the most important department in your dealership.

We tell people this all the time.

You're not a car dealer.

You're not selling cars anymore.

If you decided to get into buy here, pay here, lease you are a collector.

You are a collections company.

That should be the highest paid employee you got on payroll.

It should be the most important department.

It should get the most attention because it's all that really matters, right?

It's core and the best operators, they track it like it's the most important thing, right?

What are your promise to pays?

What's the fulfillment on those?

What's your delinquency percentage on every Friday?

What's your rolling charge off rates?

What's your recovery percentage on the collateral?

So whatever metrics you track, we've been through a bunch of them.

You can go back into podcasts and get a ton of ideas.

It's very simple.

What you measure is what matters, right?

So are you measuring it often enough to make a difference?

You know, it might be a daily number, it might be a weekly number.

And does your collector's pay plan support the dealership goals?

So is your collections team, is their agenda and their prerogative aligned with the dealerships, right?

You got to get those pay plans on the same thing.

That way you're both pushing in the same directions and trying to get to the same numbers and the same goals.

Because I guarantee you your collections team will focus on where their reward is.

Wherever that money is at, wherever that compensation plan is, they will hit those objectives

because that's what puts money in their pocket.

So make sure those are aligned so that you guys are fighting the same battle.

Yeah, I mean, let's put this in perspective, Jeff.

If you're an average charge-all at your dealerships, $5,000 to $7,000, which I see all the time.

Yeah, nowadays.

Yeah, I mean, if you save one deal a month, that's saving you $5,000 to $7,000, right?

That's one account, one conversation, one extra effort, one better process.

That puts $5,000 back in the kitty, it doesn't hit your bottom line.

So we've got to have those conversations about collections.

It's not just paperwork, it's about real profit.

And it feels like profit when you're able to collect it.

So here's your assignment this week.

For retail dealers, know your days to funding.

Identify your fastest and slower lenders.

There's some lenders out there I know that we deal with that fund the same day.

That's awesome, but there's also some lenders that fund forward five days later.

So if you're working on floor plans, that could really affect how your bottom line looks.

So make sure you know the lenders that are best.

Review those metrics with your F&I people, which you're controlling with all the people

that are in that process, and evaluate whether compensation aligns with the results you want.

Because that's really, like Jeff said, that's where it's going to end up.

Ask yourself, what would saving one deal, that $5,000, what does it work to you?

I can tell you, it's worth $5,000, right?

Are getting those deals funded one day quicker?

What is that worth in your floor plan?

Because for a lot of y'all, it's maybe $100 or $200 a day.

It's a big deal at the end of the month.

So make sure you're doing these things.

Because at the end of the day, dealerships don't just run on sales.

They run everything in the background and they operate most importantly on cash.

So make sure you're collecting it.

Hey, let's build this together.

About this episode

“Nothing happens until you collect the money,” the hosts say, framing dealership success around turning receivables into cash. They connect cash flow to “days to funding,” calling it one of the most important retail metrics and noting how shaving days can improve cash flow and reduce floor-plan costs. For buy-here-pay-here operators, they argue you’re “a collections company,” so collections should be the top priority. Finally, they stress measuring the right collections metrics and aligning the pay plan with dealership goals.

bottom line days to funding F&I floor plan

Original notes

Welcome to the Monday Minute – your weekly reset to lead better, think clearer, and build your independent dealership with intention.You can buy right, market well, and sell a car every day – and still run out of cash. Because nothing in this business actually happens until you collect the money. Sales are promises. Funding is real. Payments are real. Everything else is just activity until the cash hits your account.In this episode, Jeff and Luke make the case that collections is not a back-office function – it is the lifeblood of the dealership, regardless of whether you are retail, buy here pay here, or lease here pay here. Jeff breaks down why days to funding is one of the most critical metrics a retail dealer can track – do you know which lenders fund the same day and which ones drag it out four or five days while your floor plan is ticking? He walks through what buy here pay here and lease here pay here operators should be measuring every single week – promise-to-pay fulfillment, delinquency percentage, rolling charge-off rates, recovery percentage on collateral – and why the collections department deserves as much attention, resources, and intention as any other part of the store. Luke puts it in dollar terms: if your average charge-off runs $5,000 to $7,000, saving one deal a month is not a collections win. It is a profit line. And if getting deals funded one day faster saves you $100 to $200 a day in floor plan cost, that number gets very real by the end of the month.Your assignment this week: retail dealers, find out your days to funding right now – identify your fastest lenders, your slowest ones, and where the bottleneck lives in your paperwork process. Buy here pay here and lease here pay here operators, pull your collections metrics and ask whether your collector pay plan is actually aligned with the results you want. Because your team will focus wherever the compensation points them. Then ask yourself one honest question: what would saving one deal a month be worth to you? If the answer is $5,000, you already know what to do next.Review this week's Sunday newsletter at TheIndependentDealer.com for the full theme and exercises.Not subscribed yet? Sign up now.https://theindependentdealer.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=603446580871d8522a454418d&id=50aae74348Let's build this together.

The Independent Dealer Podcast

Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin

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