When Nolan Pearson joined the team at Royal United as CFO in 2016, he knew he was going to have to make some changes to his department.
“I was hired, in part, to modernize the department and bring us into the 21st century. We were still doing everything on paper, and nothing was electronic,” lamented Pearson. “The biggest hurdle for me was getting everyone excited about the transition as they had never used anything but QuickBooks.”
While Pearson had only been in mortgage for a few months, when he began his search, he was looking long-term.
“I thought ‘I have to get us on something quick that will take us through the next decade.’” He continued, “My goal was to get to that point as quick as possible so that when we were doing upwards of 1,000 loans a month, we were already in a comfortable position and optimizing our department.”
For the growing lender, Person also realized that the need for loan level data was more pressing than it may had been before.
“We had grown to a decently sized company at 600 loans per month on QuickBooks. However, that was part of the challenge; it’s made for smaller companies,” expressed Pearson. “We didn’t have access to loan level detail and needed a solution that was more scalable and catered to the mortgage industry.”
Regarding the available options, Pearson mentioned, “We wanted to be doing well north of 600 units a month and I needed a software that was going to grow and develop with us. AMB appeared to be the easier off-the-shelf option, but it just didn’t seem robust and I didn’t feel it would take us as far as we wanted. Loan Vision, on the other hand, was more open-ended and had more possibilities for the future.”
With Loan Vision’s ability to consume data from any loan origination system, the days of entering each transaction were behind Pearson and his team.
“The automation piece was huge for us. On QuickBooks, if we would do 100 loans in a day, it could have taken a couple of days to process. Now, we’re focusing on correcting ten unique transactions, rather than the thousand that are going through properly.”
Not only did the automation streamline Royal United’s accounting department, it also gave them deeper insight into their financials.
“For the first time in company history, we can confidently say that the data in our accounting system matches the loan origination system,” expressed Pearson. “There are about five new metrics we’re able to track now because we have access to loan-level detail and the time to analyze them in-depth.”
In the four years that Royal United has been using the Loan Vision system, Pearson and his team have positioned themselves as an invaluable asset to the company.
He says “The team deserves a lot of credit because they have truly embraced Loan Vision and improving the efficiencies throughout the department. They have transitioned the department into a true business partner! We are still finding new ways to improve and better support the organization every day.”
This position results from the speed and accuracy at which the department is completing their processes, from importing to reconciliation and closing.
“Not only are we processing double the number of units we were before with the same amount of staff, we’re also able to cut our accounting month-end processes by a day and half,” acknowledged Pearson. “Our company is very strict with speed to make a decision; now the executives aren’t waiting on financial information that could determine an outcome.”
That information also now spans past just a profit and loss statement for Royal United. “The detail and analysis give us the ability to track and monitor trends and standards that are unique to our company,” boasted the CFO.
In one example, he explained, “We had a few accounts, early pay defaults and payoffs, where we couldn’t get good reporting. Now we’re able to catch that information and allow our credit committee to review the trends of loans that go bad at a higher click than others. By micromanaging these details, we can recognize the characteristics of loans that are going bad and catch similar loans early in the pipeline.”
“Our biggest thing was efficiencies and Loan Vision has delivered on that,” Pearson exclaimed. “It’s a badge of honor for our group to be doing double the production with the same size department and Loan Vision has definitely been a reason for that.”
