What is a contract in transit (CIT)?

What does “in transit” mean?

The words describe the contract, not the car. The car has already left with the customer. The signed contract is what’s traveling: from your finance office to the lender, through the lender’s review, and back to you as a payment. Some stores send it on paper and some send it electronically. Either way, it stays in transit until the lender pays.

You may also hear it called a CIT, a deal waiting to fund, or an unfunded deal. A deal the customer pays for in cash never becomes one, because no lender stands between the sale and the money.

What happens between signing and funding?

1. The customer signs the contract and takes the car.
2. The finance office sends the contract and any paperwork the lender asked for.
3. The lender checks the contract against what it approved and reviews the paperwork.
4. If something is missing or wrong, the lender asks for a correction, and the wait goes on.
5. The lender pays the dealership. The deal is funded and is no longer in transit.

Why does a contract in transit matter to a dealership?

It is money you’ve earned and can’t use yet. The car is gone from your lot, and you may already owe a floor plan payoff or a commission on it. Until the lender funds the deal, that money isn’t in your account.

On a dealership’s books, contracts in transit are usually carried as a current asset: money owed to the store, expected soon. Add up every open one and you have the amount of your cash that lenders are holding right now. To estimate that number for your store, try the free contracts in transit calculator.

What do contracts in transit look like on a list?

Here are five made-up deals at the close of business on Friday, October 30, 2026. Business days skip weekends and bank holidays. The count starts the day after the deal was sent, and stops the day it funds.

Say Lender A usually funds in 4 business days, Lender B in 6, Lender C in 9 and Lender D in 12. A deal is late when it runs more than two business days past its own lender’s usual pace.

Deal 24-1198 has funded, so it’s off the list of money owed. The other four are contracts in transit. Deals 24-1201 and 24-1207 have both been out 9 business days, yet only one is late: 9 is past Lender A’s limit of 6, and inside Lender C’s limit of 11. One cutoff for every lender would get one of those two wrong.

What can hold up a contract in transit?

• Missing signatures or initials on the contract or the forms that go with it.
• Numbers that don’t match the approval, such as a different down payment, term or rate.
• Conditions still open, often called stipulations: proof of income, proof of residence or proof of insurance.
• Title or lien paperwork the lender is waiting on.
• The lender’s own queue, which can run longer around holidays and at month-end.

What if the lender doesn’t fund the deal?

The deal stays open while you fix the problem or look for another lender. If it can’t be placed at all, what happens next depends on the contract the customer signed and your state’s rules, so check with your own attorney or compliance adviser.

How do you keep track of contracts in transit?

Keep one list of every deal that has gone out and hasn’t funded, and look at it every morning. The guide to tracking contracts in transit covers what to record and a five-minute daily routine. At month-end, the month-end checklist helps you match lender deposits and tie out open deals.

Docket Auto keeps that list on one screen and learns each lender’s usual pace from the deals you mark funded. You can look around with sample data before you enter a real deal.