F&I Manager VS Sales Manager – Who makes more money?
Ryan Daniel
F&I Manager VS Car Sales Manager.
Which career should you choose? Which position makes more money?
While both careers come with large incomes and impressive titles, the day to day work load of each are drastically different.
In this article, our goal is to help you learn more about each position and perhaps even choose your new career!
Who makes more money? F&I Manager or Sales Manager?
F&I Managers earn approximately $7,500 more per year than Sales Managers.
In addition to the larger salary, F&I Managers have seen an increase of 7% since 2015, compared to a 5.4% increase for Sales Manager’s.
The workload-to-income ratio also may favor the F&I Manager.
While a sales manager must “desk” every customer that walks in the door, the F&I Manager only works with customers that have chosen to purchase a vehicle.
What does an F&I Manager do?
An F&I Manager is arguably the most important employee in the car dealership operation.
Without a good F&I Manager, the process of running a profitable dealership is significantly hindered. Deliveries do not happen on time, contracts do not get funded, the dealership does not get paid, and additional revenue is not generated.
In short: An F&I Manager is in charge of everything that happens after a customer agrees to purchase the vehicle with the sales consultant.
F&I Managers:
- Negotiate with lenders, including banks, credit unions and financial institutions.
- Prepare, review, and submit a customers credit application to lenders.
- Pull, review and analyze credit reports from the credit bureau’s.
- Inform the customer of stipulations required by the lender.
- Collect the down-payment and any required stipulations, from the customer.
- Explain the details of the loan and all paperwork to the customer.
- Inform the customer of important and valuable F&I products.
- And much more.
F&I Management is a professional position with skills & responsibilities that can translate to jobs outside of the dealership, such as underwriting and banking.
What does “F&I” mean?
F&I stands for Finance and Insurance.
The “F&I” Manager handles all of the Finance and Insurance requirements for a deal to process.
The “finance” portion of the position includes reviewing a customers credit application, reviewing their credit bureau’s, structuring the loan they are applying for, and working with lenders to get them approved.
What is a Sales Manager?
The sales manager is in charge of all sales-people and is responsible for the numbers (sales, revenue, etc) they produce.
people and is responsible for the numbers (sales, revenue, etc) they produce.
The sales manager is also integral in deciding how much the dealership will price a vehicle at, and how much of a discount the dealership is willing to accept to make a deal.
In short: The sales manager is the person that a customer actually negotiates with.
When you make an offer to your salesperson, and he leaves to discuss it with his manager – He’s going to talk with the sales manager.
How much do car Sales Manager’s make?
Automotive sales managers earn $134,625 per year, on average.
This salary is more than double the national average, but remains lower than the average income of F&I Managers nationwide.
With a 5 year increase of 5%, Sales Managers can expect to earn approximately 1% more annually.
Table of Contents
