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Making the most of your mortgage software for an efficient workflow is an admirable goal. However, it’s not enough to have this goal; you have to know how to make it come to fruition. Read on to discover different ways to do this. But first, it’s important to understand the role of your software.
Mortgage Software
Your software should improve the borrower's experience when applying for a mortgage. It should also improve the efficacy of the your company’s internal operations.
Software—or any tool you use—is not an added benefit to the mortgage process, however, if it adds unnecessary steps to the employee's workload and slows down the workflow.
We need it to meet the needs of lenders, including the demands imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Board's regulatory schemes. When it is successful, mortgage software plays to the your company’s strengths. It fills in gaps where there would typically be deficiencies. And, perhaps most difficult of all, it predicts regulatory requirements.
Understanding Your Organizational Workflow
Learning how mortgage software can improve your workflow and how to select the right product requires an intense evaluation of the two processes that make up the workflow.
- internal operations
- borrower experience
Internal Operations
Each mortgage application has the same basic stages (although additional requirements may attach for specific loans). Organizations need to understand, by evaluating and analyzing the processes, how they operate in each of the stages described below:
- pre-qualification
- application
- verification
- processing
- underwriting
- closing
Managers probably have their own ideas of how their companies may improve the various stages. After all, it is not always a one-size-fits-all solution. It is important to evaluate these stages not only in terms of legacy processes but also in terms of how they might improve through the use of cloud technology.
The analysis of a workflow provides an opportunity to review compliance efforts and see where automation or cloud technology can help improve compliance. An added benfefit is that it may even save time and money.
A prime example is the three-day disclosure rule. A tool that automatically sends disclosure information within the three-day disclosure window may eliminate human errors (inconsistencies) and speed up the process at the same time. Cloud software applications may save time by verifying data provided by borrowers against aggregate databases.
Your analysis will show where you have bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and duplication of effort. When you look at the workflow priorities together with the organization's strategic goals, the type of software that works best for the organization will become apparent.
The Borrower's Experience
The digital mortgage is coming to the industry. For a business that has relied on face-to-face communication with borrowers and a significant paper trail, it may seem a difficult transition. There are, however, many ways that technology can improve the borrower experience. In fact, borrowers may move easier in that direction than lenders.
On-demand services in other consumer areas has led borrowers to expect faster service from elsewhere in their lives, including what is typically considered the largest purchase of a person’s life - home buying. The process will never match push-button, instant satisfaction like other consumer service areas, because of the compliance aspect. Technology, however, can help in two ways.
- Transparency through on-line dashboards, mobile applications, and other self-serve features
- Access to loan data through digitally managed and delivered documents, and a holistic view of their data helps borrowers feel they have a better handle on their loans
MortgageWorkSpace®
This powerful cloud-based portal from Access Business Technologies provides your teams the freedom from the paper chase that they want, but with the control they need over internal workflow and compliance processes. With Mortgage WorkSpace offers your company the abilities to manage documentation, software applications, devices and security all from within the portal. Additionally, it includes Office 365 Mortgage, giving you the advantages of Office 365 but built specifically for the mortgage industry.
To learn more about how cloud-based solutions can make your mortgage company more efficient, please contact us.
