The search for efficiency among independent commercial finance companies is critical in today’s highly competitive and data-centric environment. This search takes on even greater importance for lenders who do not have the luxury of hiring additional personnel.
…Simply stated, independent lenders often need greater efficiency, not more personnel, to compete in the market.
While pain points vary from lender to lender depending on size and other considerations, there are often similarities. Some of the more common and significant issues lenders need to address include:
- Reducing manual processes that are time-consuming and poor use of critical personnel.
- Providing portals to enhance the overall client experience and create significant efficiencies for both the lender and the borrower.
- Creation of customizable reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis (as needed) to ascertain insights on outstanding loans for both the lender and borrower, exposure per borrower relationship for the lender, borrowing base calculations, and more.
- Upgrades to platforms.
In a recent conversation with Solifi’s Rosanne Doyle, Global Product Manager ABL and Factoring, and Alan Jasenovic, Vice President of ABL Training & Support, each shared their insights garnered from years of working with lenders to solve daily business operational requirements.
“Automation is the key,” says Jasenovic. “Reducing manual processes via various interfaces which include APIs capable of providing real-time reporting is important.”
According to Jasenovic, smaller independent lenders are seeking portfolio growth while not growing their workforce. As a result, automating the processes for managing incoming collections, outgoing advances, borrowing base certificates, and other needs can be quickly and easily achieved via a customer portal, reducing or eliminating the constant back and forth with the customer. Again, efficiency is key.
Doyle added, “Lenders also need access to data and customized reporting to succeed. Data mining and reporting all comes from the data lenders already possess, and we have solutions to effectively mine this data and create reporting to not only improve efficiency but also provide a competitive advantage.”
AR Wizard
A significant issue for asset-based lending shops is the age-old process of calculating the ineligible portion of the receivables for a working capital or asset-based credit facility. Solifi has solved this problem with the introduction of AR Wizard, an automated process that converts standard Accounts Receivable Aging formats (.PDF, Excel, Text) that have been submitted by the borrower, then imports the converted aging data into Solifi ABL for the purposes of calculating the ineligible portion of the receivables. The entire process takes approximately 5 minutes from start to finish replacing what was a time-consuming manual calculation.
Data Streaming
In the SaaS environment, the Solifi platform includes Data Streaming, which accesses data in near real-time to leverage the information the lender needs in a consistent and customizable format. This Data Streaming capability allows the lender to access data from their SaaS database and create various standard and custom reports in an efficient and accurate manner.
Solifi ABL Customer Portal
The Customer Portal allows borrowers to monitor their current collateral and loan position as well as the resulting availability, in real time. Borrowers can submit updated Borrowing Base Certificates and attach the necessary supporting documentation via the portal (Sales Journals, AR Agings, Monthly Financials, etc.) along with any funding requests. All of this is done via a fully encrypted connection – critical in today’s world where email has become risky for the dissemination of confidential information. Overall, the borrower’s use of the portal is designed to free up time for the lender’s staff to focus on more complex requirements.
Scalability and Third-party Integrations
Solifi has taken and continues to undertake initiatives to improve their offerings to asset-based lenders of all sizes with a scalable platform. Solifi also partners with third party providers in an effort to bring new products and capabilities to market faster than building them from scratch. Solifi connects these third party systems in a seamless manner via integrations with partners such as Codat, RiskFactor, DocuSign, and more.
Solifi’s mission is to provide asset-based lenders the support they require to achieve their portfolio growth goals and profitability via efficiency – with a constant eye on what borrowers need from lenders to enhance the lender/borrower relationship. Listening to lenders’ needs and understanding their pain points is the foundation for creating a leading-edge software platform, and Solifi listens. It is through this collaboration with lenders that Solifi has developed a software platform unrivaled in the asset-based lending industry.
But our work is not over yet; we are still listening!
To learn more about Solifi Open Finance Platform and our products for the asset-based lending industry, contact us.