It’s clear that the web-based mortgage point-of-sale is here to stay, and is viewed as a critical component of the modern day mortgage lending operation. LOs are rapidly adding these systems to their mix, but not everyone is achieving instant success. For some, the sheer volume of customizations and settings these platforms contain can be incredibly overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin.

There is a natural order of operations for setting up your mortgage POS, and not every detail will need immediate attention in order to get up-and-running smoothly. Here are the critical first 5 steps any originator or loan team should make sure to complete prior to opening the system up for clients.

Dial-in Your Branding and Styles

Taking advantage of the branding and style configurations available in your new point-of-sale system is the low-hanging fruit of the setup process.

Modern mortgage point-of-sale systems understand that your clients will spend hours interfacing with your new POS system. To provide value to the LO, these systems all have configurations available that will allow you to make sure your brand and style is front-and-center to the client.

The benefits of having a strong, visible brand are myriad for a loan originator or lender.  A strong brand helps contribute to word-of-mouth lead generation and referrals and helps keep your clients in the fold so they return to you when they’re ready for another transaction.

Utilize as many of the available options as you can to get the system looking exactly as you want it, including the notifications that your clients will be receiving. This eliminates any possible confusion and reassures clients that they’re in the right place to securely conduct their business when they can clearly see your name, logo, email signature, colors, or company information.

Connect Your Systems and Vendors

Part of the process of building a new mortgage POS into your processes is getting as many of the moving pieces settled prior to documenting and training yourself and staff on the new workflow that has been created.

For that reason, if the mortgage point-of-sale system that you purchased offers integrations with your business productivity systems or direct source documentation vendors – such as credit reporting agencies, asset verification providers, etc – now is the time to connect them and make sure the integrations are working seamlessly.

Once you know that the systems are communicating as desired, you can confidently build related steps into your origination workflow.

Sync Your List of Partners

One of the great features of a modern mortgage point-of-sale is the system’s ability to keep your referral sources and loan stakeholders constantly informed. Partners love the stream of relevant and timely information, and by appeasing their need-to-know desires you’ll save yourself a tremendous amount of time and stress from having to answer calls for updates.

This is one feature of the mortgage POS that is far more efficient to utilize if done prior to creating loan files in the system. With your address book of partners in the system, you can easily add them to a loan file while you’re creating it.

Retroactively editing loan files in order to add partners is a time-consuming task that is easily avoidable with a little bit of proactive work.

Configure your Loan Application

The web-based 1003 loan application packaged with a mortgage point-of-sale solution is a powerful tool for the loan originator. Not only do these 1003’s generally employ modern, responsive design that prospects appreciate, but because they are already natively integrated with the platform you are able to seamlessly harness the application data.

Many originators that upgrade their operation with a mortgage POS already have some type of loan application software on their website. By getting the POS-enabled 1003 up-and-running your data and processes can move smoother and you gain more control over the end-to-end origination workflow.

Test Your New Workflow

Before adding real clients to the system, always always always test out the workflow on yourself. You want your borrowers to have a silky smooth experience with your business and to benefit from these new processes you’ve installed.

Testing lets you work out any kinks or roadblocks, and see the full effect of your digitally-enabled workflow from the borrower’s perspective, so you can tune anything that doesn’t meet your standards.

Nobody wants to learn that they forgot a step because their client pointed it out to them.

It’s not good business and also isn’t terribly difficult to avoid. Simply use a personal email address, or create a new one for the purpose, and be your own client.  With that client-side knowledge at your disposal, you can make adjustments that will create the experience you really want for your borrowers and ensure that you and your loan team are as efficient as possible.