Before a small business loan is funded, someone has to check that the signed agreement says what credit approved: the amount, the repayment, the payment schedule, the borrower's legal name, the account the money goes to, and a signature and initials on every page. Done by hand at the end of the day, that is how a wrong amount or a changed bank account slips into a wire. Here, Ridgechase Bank, the company we use to show ALK at work, checks today's 10 small business funding files before its funding team releases any wires.
Step 1 of 7
Set it up once
The funding check is one workflow: read the approval memo, read the signed agreement, compare the two, and send each file to Ready to fund, Hold or Waiting on borrower.
Step 2 of 7
Every page, read
Ten funding files go in, each one PDF with the approval memo and a three-page signed agreement. ALK reads the memo first, then the agreement, including the initials at the foot of every page.
Step 3 of 7
The pile, sorted
All 10 files are read and sorted in under eight minutes. 6 are ready to fund, 3 go on hold and 1 waits on the borrower.
Step 4 of 7
Every hold explains itself
Kestrel Plumbing's agreement funds $135,000, but credit approved $125,000. Copperline Electric's agreement wires to a different bank and account than the one on file, and Saltmarsh Coffee signed under a different legal name.
Step 5 of 7
See the page it came from
The signed agreement opens next to what ALK read, with $135,000.00 highlighted on the page, so anyone on the funding team can confirm it in seconds.
Step 6 of 7
One missing initial
Ardent Print & Sign initialed pages 1 and 2 and signed the agreement, but left the page 3 initials box empty. The file waits on the borrower, with exactly what they need to do.
Step 7 of 7
The decision: release the wire
The 6 matching files, $730,000 in all, wait for a person to approve them. Nothing is wired until someone on the funding team signs off.
What ALK checks in each funding file
- Amount funded in the signed agreement against the amount credit approved
- Total repayment, payment amount, payment frequency and term against the approval memo
- The borrower's legal name in the agreement against the name on the approval
- The bank, routing number and account the funds go to against the verified account on file
- Borrower initials on every agreement page and the borrower's signature on the signature page
- Where each file goes next: Ready to fund (with a person's sign-off), Hold with the reason, or Waiting on borrower with what they need to do
Try it on your own funding files
Send one real approval memo and signed agreement, or a redacted pair, and see what ALK finds.