Two pieces of the Cox Automotive portfolio — VinSolution and Dealertrack — are continuing to blend their resources together to help store managers.

VinSolutions announced the availability of Rates & Residuals, a new upgrade to its Connect Desking tool that integrates Dealertrack’s comprehensive finance company data to help with more accurate, efficient and profitable deal making.

With the Rates & Residuals enhancement, the companies said dealerships now have the ability to structure deals for new and pre-owned vehicles by accessing incentives, rates and programs of both their captive and non-captive finance compies, all within VinSolutions.

VinSolutions' Rates & Residuals portal, powered by Dealertrack, can return the top retail and/or lease programs based on consumer credit scores. Access to the portal can allowsdealership personnel to quickly compare, select and build multiple deal structures in VinSolutions’ desking product and optimize front- and back-end profits.

Furthermore, the desking solution can offer the opportunity to improve the customer experience with a more streamlined desking process that benefits both customers and dealers.

“At Cox Automotive, we’re always looking for ways to help dealers succeed with their customers. This new desking capability is something we're pleased to offer and is the first of many exciting improvements in desking and deal management that will be coming in 2017,” said James Maynard, vice president of product for VinSolutions.

“Rates & Residuals combines accurate lender data from Dealertrack and deep customer insights from our Connect CRM to help make desking — a critical step in the sales process — more accurate and more profitable than ever,” Maynard added.

To date, several dealerships have participated in a pilot program for Rates & Residuals, with the upgrade being made more widely available this year.

“Accuracy is paramount to our business model," said David Greenly, e-commerce director at Dorschel Automotive Group, a pilot location for the new desking add-on. “The integration of Dealertrack data within VinSolutions is an immense advantage for us as we strive to be more efficient.”

Dealers interested in more information on the Rates & Residuals add-on to Connect Desking can visit VinSolutions at booth No. 1523 during the 2017 NADA Convention & Expo that runs from Jan. 26-29 in New Orleans.