The collaboration to simplify what happens within the dealership finance office continues.

Open Dealer Exchange and RouteOne on Tuesday announced a strategic alliance that brings together the organizations to provide streamlined solutions to their partners CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds that bridge the gaps, open the entire finance company network and streamline dealers’ processes for providing financing and aftermarket protection products to vehicle shoppers.

As a result, the companies insisted vehicle shoppers will experience a more robust online and in-store sales process and spend significantly less time in the dealership F&I office when buying or leasing a vehicle.

Officials believe this alliance leverages technology and expertise to create a solution to a long-standing industrywide challenge that no one company has been able to solve individually. Traditionally, F&I portions of vehicle transactions, managed with disparate systems, prolonged the vehicle-buying process and created dissatisfaction for all parties involved.

Open Dealer Exchange and RouteOne are committed to connecting the critical F&I components needed to enable a seamless dealer workflow that will translate into a better consumer experience and decrease paperwork mistakes for dealers — leading to a more rapid closing process and “funded right the first time” contracts.

The companies contend this technology convergence can eliminate the need for traditional system-to-system integration between multiple systems and creates the broadest access point in the industry for automotive dealers to connect with captive finance sources, independent finance companies, OEMs and aftermarket providers.

At the same time, the alliance’s process reengineering will be made available through CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds systems, allowing dealerships to combine a seamless and scalable F&I offering into their existing workflow with limited new investment or technology upgrades.

The companies went on to note all of these enhancements will significantly reduce the time new and used vehicle shoppers need to spend in a dealership’s F&I office, while providing a seamless transition from online to in-store.

Other highlights of the alliance include:

— Dealers can offer a seamless, end-to-end consumer purchase experience across channels, opening the door for eContracting to become the standard practice for automotive retail transactions.

— Enables a single, digital eSigning ceremony using dealers’ existing technology investments, dramatically improving the car buying experience for consumers

— Eliminates cumbersome integration and toggling between disparate systems

— Deal speed and accuracy will dramatically improve, reducing held offerings and contracts in transit.

— Finance companies, aftermarket and financial technology providers have a new option for fast, accurate transactions.

— OEMs can benefit from the efficiencies of the alliance to work with dealers to create branded shopping experiences.

“As an organization we are passionate about helping streamline dealers’ retail experience so they can deliver an overall better customer experience,” said Steve Luyckx, general manager of Open Dealer Exchange.

“This alliance allows dealers to quickly and inexpensively implement a streamlined F&I workflow into their existing operational infrastructure, create a seamless online to in-store shopping experience, and reduce the time consumers spend waiting for paper during the actual purchase process,” Luyckx

RouteOne chief executive officer Justin Oesterle added, “This relationship will combine the industry’s most robust and far-reaching captive finance source, independent lender and aftermarket provider networks, and makes them available through two of the leading dealer networks to create a simple access point that benefits everyone supporting automotive F&I.

“The F&I process is something that everyone in the industry has been trying to fix for a long time,” Oesterle went on to say. “The reengineering of this process by our alliance connects the infrastructure needed to finally meet consumer expectations.”