Automation is a prominent buzzword in the tech space; it covers a broad spectrum of developments and is a great tool to incorporate where you can, even in the lending process. There are many opportunities for automation to help your private lending business and, ultimately, maximize efficiency and increase your bottom line. You want to work on your business, not in your business—and automation can help you do just that. 

Automate Communication

There are many streams of communication when it comes to private lending, from when a deal is first submitted all the way to funding, servicing, and payout. With built-in automated communication tools, you can easily exchange communication with borrowers, brokers, and lawyers all in one place. Automation can also be set up to send payment reminders to late payers, personalize messages with respective account details, follow up on payment confirmations, and much more. 

Automated communication tools can help to maintain a level of professionalism and consistency in your business as well, such as allowing you to send multiple emails and/or text messages to respective recipients, all in one click. This can all be done much faster than picking up the phone to make one call at a time. 

You can also add your own personal touch to these messages. For instance, for the borrowers, you can have an automated welcome message sent out to them, including their first payment date. A simple message like this keeps things flowing nicely, and you know that everyone is being taken care of. Small gestures make the experience that much more personable, even though it’s an automated feature. 

Automate Task Management

Internal task management is another item that automation can help with. As a deal progresses, tasks can be automatically generated and assigned to an individual or a team, streamlining the process and saving time on manual delegation. 

For example, when a deal comes in, the system will automatically assign a task to all the underwriters to claim the file. Once that file is claimed, the task is complete. Next, due diligence tasks on the borrower and the property are assigned: pull title, credit, validate income, etc. As tasks are completed, they can move onto the next steps. This eliminates the need for micromanagement, and the system ends up being the one holding everyone accountable for their assigned tasks. 

With task management automation, you are creating workflow efficiencies. Management can easily view what tasks are completed and who did them at any time. The system will follow the rules you set up since day one and then automate to tell your employees what they need to do.

Automate Mundane Tasks

How can you make more money and work on your business when you’re constantly doing paperwork and other repetitive tasks that take up your time on a regular basis? These things can easily be automated as well, so why not? Automation is key to eliminating mundane tasks such as importing loan applications, LTV calculations, creating payment schedules for investors, payment processing, document preparation, tracking funds, outstanding payments and per diems, and generating quarterly and annual statements, to name a few.

  

Automate Templates 

It’s important to keep your business looking professional at all times. Customizable branded templates that populate automatically enable you to stay consistent and have the same look over and over again. If there’s ever change of personnel within your company, the look and feel of your organization will always stay true to its DNA, thanks to the automated templates. This setup is key to having on-brand templates that maximize your company’s organization and level of professionalism. 

At the end of the day, there are some things you will not want to automate and prefer to personally review and/or customize to your liking, but automation in the above areas is key to the lending process. Streamline tasks and communication, relieve yourself of various tedious tasks, and ultimately speed up the process, allowing you to do more deals and have more time to focus on growing your business.