Dealership software contract questions

What to check before you decide

Look at service. What uptime does the vendor commit to?

How is it measured and what do you receive when it is missed? What are the support hours and response times?

Who handles an outage that comes from a partner, such as the DMS?

Review data rights. The dealership should own its data.

Check what the vendor may do with it, how you export it, in what format, how fast and at what price. Check what is deleted when the contract ends, and when.

Check security and privacy. Dealers that arrange financing have duties under the FTC Safeguards Rule, and a vendor handling customer information should accept written obligations about safeguards, incident notice and subcontractors.

Understand change and exit. What can the vendor change without your consent, such as price, features or terms?

When does the contract renew, and how and when must you give notice? Some require notice 60 or 90 days ahead.

What are the fees for leaving early? Does the term start at signing or at go-live?

Finally, list the things you will not accept and the things you must have. Take that list to your lawyer first, then to the vendor.

Keep every version of the draft and the final signed copy where you can find them.

Keep a short list of the promises that were made in the sales process, from the training days to the integration dates and the named support contact, and ask for each to be written into the order form or an attached schedule, because verbal assurances from a salesperson who later changes jobs are very hard to enforce.

Read the termination clause twice, looking for fees, notice periods and what you must return. Many disputes come from exit terms that nobody read at signing because everyone was thinking about the start.