UWM was already using paperless technology in their loan processing, but leadership was aware that if the company could implement paperless efficiencies across the financial side of the business, they could realize enormous business advantages over the competitors. Nelson and Orlando knew that the rest of the industry was operating on the same old systems United Shore was using, so this new technology would launch them ahead of their competitors.
At the same time, the company had encountered a barrier with their current financial systems. Says Nelson, “The system couldn’t handle the analysis and throughput we needed, and getting in and out of the system usually required the involvement of our IT department.” Their system was a cumbersome and unintuitive mish-mash of two or three different financial systems tied together. “It was taking me 20 minutes to process a file,” Nelson said. Without quick access to business insights, business leaders couldn’t make fast, educated business decisions and this could threaten their anticipated growth.
With an entirely paperless system, and faster access to business insights, UWM could solidly achieve its goal – to be the national leader in the wholesale lending industry.
To make this capital investment, the team searched for a partner and selected Bestborn.
“The leaders at UWM focus on the solution that will provide the biggest value – that’s why Bestborn caught my eye,” Orlando said. “They were a small company looking for somebody to help them plant their flag in the mortgage industry, so I asked them to partner with us.”
Bestborn’s solution, called Loan Vision, had a foundation built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and Orlando and Nelson found that the functionality that the company needed in order to go paperless on the financial side could be configured inside Microsoft NAV directly, and wouldn’t require hours of custom coding. “Also, we could get our financial package - budgeting and planning, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and fixed assets – all in one system. This was huge. It would make it so much easier to drill down to the data level,” Nelson said.
With the loan origination system tied together with the financial system, UWM has better direct cost analysis at every level. This enables the company to make better decisions for the business – and no longer requires IT to process a report.
Says Nelson, “Now I can upload a file with one click – it takes less than 10 seconds – and the output is exactly what I need. This is saving us a lot of time. And, I have reporting all the way up and down the stream from client-level, to product-level, to business channel. This gives me insight into which center is providing a positive impact on the loan and which is having negative impact on the loan, and we can make improvements where they are needed.”
Other efficiencies are saving time up and down the company. Electronic approval of invoices is just one example.
“It’s simple. They enter the invoices, I get an email, and I can go in at work or at home and approve invoices right away,” Nelson said. “If the dollar amount is larger than the amount I have permissions to approve, the invoice goes to my leader. If it’s above his dollar threshold, it goes to the next in line all the way up to the chairman of the board. It’s a better use of everyone’s time.”
The company anticipates a big increase in demand as they become the fastest loan originator in the industry.
“Turn time – taking the loan from application to closing – is a differentiator in the marketplace,” Orlando said. “Today, our loans start in the system instead of on paper, freeing up people to do less manual work. For example, one loan processing task used to take a team of people 40 minutes to do, but now it only takes 12 minutes. We’ve gone from processing 1.25 loans per hour to 5 loans per hour. We’re leaps and bounds ahead of our competitors. That means our people are focusing less time on systems and procedures, and more time on winning and managing business.”
Decreased processing time lowers the price of a loan – and cost is king in the mortgage industry.
Says Orlando, “The industry is happy if they’re getting a cost of $7,000-$8,000 per loan, and we’re going to be able to originate a loan at under $3,000. Being able to track our costs more effectively allows us to deliver a loan at that price every single day.”
The partnership with Bestborn and Microsoft ties in with UWM’s cultural dynamic of nurturing accelerated innovation.
“Two years ago, we were among the top 10 lenders in the country. Today, we’re solidly in the lead and it has everything to do with a focused effort to align our goals,” Orlando said. We couldn’t have done it without Bestborn and Loan Vision helping us identify and improve areas in the channel where costs were substantially higher, and target and pursue business that’s most profitable for us.”
