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Credit Automation: Automating the Credit Application ProcessMany companies that process a high volume of credit applications on a daily or weekly basis find it difficult to keep up with the workload, to keep information organized, to and to process applications quickly, efficiently, and at a relatively low cost. As a result, applications or other documents can be lost or misfiled. Of greater concern, delays in approving pending applications can result in the applicant’s business going to a competitor.
Some credit professionals deal with this problem by hiring more people to handle new accounts. Others require credit department staff members to ‘lend a hand’ when the backlog of credit applications becomes so significant that it cannot be ignored. Neither of these approaches solves the fundamental weaknesses associated with manually processing credit applications, which include:
• the fact that the process is labor intensive
• time consuming
• dull and repetitive work, and
• subject to a fair amount of human error
As with other labor intensive processes, many companies are looking for ways to streamline the new accounts process to make it more cost effective, more efficient, more accurate, and faster. One of the companies that has addressed this challenge is Credentrust. The Credentrust CreditSuite™ is a workflow collaboration tool for processing new customer credit applications, as well as franchise and loan applications. This software provides everything credit professionals need to quickly and efficiently process new applications, in addition to:
• Tools that permit access to credit bureaus for faster retrieval of credit reports [including Dun and Bradstreet®, and Experian® among others]
• Workflow procedures that ensure each application is processed correctly
• A feature that tracks all correspondence and communications with applicants and their references
• A tool to automatically generate bank and trade references inquiries
• A feature that generate acceptance letters and other documents to applicants
The benefits of automating the new accounts process include:
• Faster approvals resulting in increased sales and a favorable first impression of your company by the applicant company.
• The ability to stabilize headcount in new accounts, and in some cases the ability to reduce headcount thanks to process automation.
• Better credit decisions can be made because the credit manager or decision maker will have more information, sooner.
• Reduced processing costs per application.
• Increased sales and market share resulting from the creditor’s ability to approve applications faster than competitor companies can do.
Some of the value added features of this product include:
A Checklist. Used to manage the items and steps needed for processing an application to ensure that each step is taken.
Application Status. This feature allows the credit manager or other interested parties to determine the current status of each pending application.
The ability to assign an application to a designated person. This individual is then responsible for ensuring that the application is processed in a timely manner.
Notes. As with on line credit notes, this feature allows the individual responsible for the application to record relevant information.
Alerts. Alerts create reminder messages on specified dates and at specified times. For example, an alert could prompt the new accounts clerk to send a second request to any reference that did not respond in a timely manner to the initial request for information about the applicant.
Contact Management. This feature tracks email and other correspondence with the customer and its bank and trade references.
Email Templates. The software contains templates suitable for common email communications to trade creditors, banks and other parties.
Some of the unique features of this software include:
• CreditSuite can be operational within a week under ideal conditions.
• This software is a hosted, browser-based application.
• Credentrust supplies all the necessary hardware, software and hosting, and manages the system for users. Your company simply needs Internet access.
For more information, please contact Tom Markel at 949-743-1839 or at: tmarkel@credentrust.com
