DAVENPORT, Iowa -

Dealer Marketing Services, the makers of ProMax Unlimited, recently released Employment and Income Verification Service (EIVS); a tool that can enable dealerships to access valuable data provided by Equifax in order to verify a customer’s employment history and income early in the vehicle buying process.

EIVS will be available to ProMax’s dealer customers this month.

“It is so important for dealers to have accurate employment and income data early in the sale,” said John Palmer, president and chief executive officer of ProMax Unlimited.

Palmer has more than a decade’s experience managing dealerships in addition to his 20-plus years in the automotive software industry. “Offering the customer appropriate financing early in the process is a key factor in getting the deal done, and EIVS helps immensely with that,” he said.

EIVS utilizes information from The Work Number, a robust database maintained by Equifax Workforce Solutions. This database contains employer-provided payroll records from more than 6,000 businesses nationwide, including a large majority of Fortune 500 companies and federal government civilian employers.

More than just standard employment and income information, The Work Number also boasts job tenure data, an invaluable component in measuring a customer’s financial situation.

Equifax research underlines the importance of accurate job tenure data, finding that consumers who have been at a job for less than a year are almost twice as likely to go delinquent on an auto loan as consumers with 10 or more years at a job.

Additionally, Equifax research indicates that significant percentages of credit applicants overstate their income, but surprisingly, the inverse is also true. Approximately 20 percent of applicants understate their income by 10 percent.

“In the car business, there is no substitute for accurate credit information early in the buying process,” Palmer said. “It saves time and money, and leads to more deals at higher grosses.

"This solution improves the entire buying process — for the dealer, the customer and the lender as well. We’re thrilled to be one of the first-to-market with this phenomenal tool," he went on to say.