Frequently Asked Questions

Loan servicing is the process of dealing with a loan once it has closed or the funds have been disbursed. This includes things like sending out bills, receiving and posting payments, and answering questions that borrowers might have. As a loan becomes more complex a loan servicer will need to manage various escrow accounts such as for tax and insurance needs on the loan.

Commercial loan servicing software is the system that a commercial lender builds their company around. They may offer many different loan types such as commercial mortgages, construction loans, loans with many investors/participants, and much more. Loans like a commercial mortgage are far more complex than a typical residential 30-year fixed loan. For example, rather than a single investor providing the funds there could be numerous investors all providing a piece of the total loan. The software in this case will need to allocate payments, interest, and much more across all these investors accurately.

The effort of creating a loan management system is massive and the cost is substantial. The reality is that a simpler system such as one to amortize a 30-year fixed loan could probably be created in a relatively short period of a time - a year? This could probably include the ability to calculate interest(somewhat correctly), post payments, and view a transaction history. However, this would probably only be useful to someone who had a personal loan. From the point of view of a company they will need much more functionality. A system like our commercial loan management software has taken twenty some years to build and tens of millions of dollars. It's built from real world needs and goals and the specifications for something as complex as a system like this aren't really written down anywhere.

The best loan servicing software is the one that will support your loan types, improve your day to day operation, decrease your frustrations, and do so without unnecessary expense. This system will also fit within your environment and enable easy integration with your third-party systems. The vendor will also offer exceptional support for when you are first learning the new software all the way to when you've had it for years and would like to extend it into some new realm of loan servicing that you just invented. Due to the high number of variables possible, this loan management system should be configurable based on a set of rules than that defined by loan type and restricted. Finally, the ideal system and vendor should offer a safe way to implement your system including planning goals and ideas, data conversion tools and offers, and a clear path to your goal. While there are many loan servicing systems that exist, there is only one which can be called the best, and it's clearly Benedict Group's commercial loan servicing software.

As described in a previous answer, it can take considerable time and resources to develop a system like our loan servicing software. The majority of loan servicing vendors(not us) believe that they must charge an annual fee - most often 18-22% of the license fee annually. They call this a maintenance fee. However, it may only provide one or two upgrades a year and what's worse is that they are for upgrades that probably don't relate to your business. We aren't sure where this concept of a "maintenance" agreement came from, but our current theory is that its from back in the time of mainframe computers when there was probably an actual literal need for physical maintenance on the machines. Once the need to be physically there went away, so should have the annual maintenance agreement. Instead, we stand alone as the sole provider of loan servicing software who offers their system without any fees beyond the one time license cost. We instead offer everything on-demand and as-needed on an hourly basis.

First, what is implementation? Your implementation is the process of switching from your old system to your new one. This involves training on the new software, documenting the formats your current loans are, uploading your existing loan data into your new system, and then becoming comfortable with the new system and using it regularly. This process can range dramatically from a couple weeks to much longer. Most of the variation comes down to a few key aspects such as: portfolio size and complexity, data format, available time. The first area - portfolio size has to do with how many loans you have - a couple hundred or thousands. And then are they relatively straight forward or do they involve a great deal of complexity. Your data format is how easily you are able to manipulate the format of your current data, for example do you have a csv(Excel) file with your various loans, payments, investors etc.? Or does your current system restrict exporting and you'll need to convert from reports or manually? The final one is the biggest deal as it has to do with how much time you are willing to spend on this project. Some organizations drop everything to focus on their implementation(this is rare) while others continue their day to day efforts and learn the system while focusing on their conversion when they can. These core areas along with many others will determine how long it will take you to "go live".

We support almost all loan scenarios. We say almost because you never know what people might come up with. Generally though, if it's a loan that needs to be serviced we can support it. This includes loans like commercial mortgages, multi-family loans, multi-investor loans or participant loans, loans with many fees, investors with many fees, loans with complex interest such as deferred or capitalized interest, construction loans with budget tracking needs, variable rate loans tied to an index or requiring a review period, loans with many changes, and so many more. Sometimes we are asked specifically about a loan tied to an industry such as do we support leases? While we do support leases, from the point of view of our system a lease is just a loan. It's the rules that we can about though so we're able to remain industry specific independent. Sometimes this can causes a lingo miscommunication, but once it's worked out we have prospects become very excited when they discover what they'll be able to do and how easy it will be.

Of course. The majority of our new clients have an existing loan portfolio. The method we use to convert is largely based on your priorities. For example, we place a general limit for a manual conversion at 200 loans. Below this number a manual conversion can be used to aid training and doesn't take too much time. Above this limit and you begin to risk data entry mistakes and a longer than ideal timeframe. However, most new clients choose either to use our built in DataImporter to automate their conversion themselves or they use us to provide a fully automated option. Keep in mind these three options(manual, build conversion, automated conversion) don't exist separately from each other and should be viewed as a scale of how much you would like to use us to help.

With your license, you will receive one point of contact (US-Based). This person will understand your business and your company and you won't be routed through a call center. As a rule we try to answer any request within 24 hours however it's general just a couple of hours. Depending on the request we can generally resolve a request very quickly. If it's a support question, our support team which is made up of developers, can generally answer either right away or after minimum research. If you have an enhancement, we'll provide you with a spec, and if you agree we often make changes and deliver the upgrade within a matter of days to possibly a couple weeks depending on your urgency and complexity of the project. For example, we added CIIS compliant CDFI reporting within two weeks.

We find that maintenance fees are somewhat mean. The purpose is obviously for the benefit of the company and not the client and we have been successful for many years now without one. Our clients all love our option and we believe this is why we've never lost a client to another vendor - ever.

We began as consultants and built a commercial mortgage system called Mortgages! in the late 1980s. We've already tried to keep the consultant mentality and offer the same point person with an on-demand attitude. We've offered what is now our loan servicing software system since the early 1990s. It has gone through several technological iterations and currently utilizing industry standard benefits such as being written in vb.net and utilizing a SQL backend.

Let's say you want us to add a new function to the system. You'd reach out to your point person to discuss the specifications, we'd provide a finalized "spec" for you to approve, and then we'd begin making the changes. Once completed, we would do what we call a build of the system and deliver updated files to you. Depending on the complexity of your project and your urgency we often get back to clients within a couple days to a couple weeks. We can be faster too, if needed.

Integrations can be made exceptionally easy within our software. We include a standard set of sub-systems when we deliver the software, and utilization of these can allow for schedulable user-created integrations. Our tools are generalized so that you can define your formats and pick and choose the fields you'd like to import into or export out of. Using these file transfer methods, you should be able to fully automate your integrations and accomplish this with almost any third-party system. Beyond this, you can work with us or use our web services to build a real-time solution as-needed.