As a continuation of our real-time progress and to address one of our most common support concerns, Agrolending are thrilled to advise of the introduction of real-time Client Margin allocation.
What is Client Margin allocation?
A client margin is when one of your customers over pays a repayment (i.e. repayment amount = $100, amount paid = $120, overpayment amount = $20). The $20 over payment needs to be put somewhere, so we provide you options as to what to do with this spare money, such as return it to the borrower (refund) or apply it to another Loan etc… this is referred to as a client margin allocation.
What does this mean for customers?
Having the ability to allocate the client margin in real-time allows customers to see real-time loan balance updates where overpayments have been applied. This process also allows customers to continue to allocate overpayments over and over again until no overpayment margin exists, and do so in real time with full visibility of loan balances.
How does it all work?
Using the same process for Margin Splits that is already in place, that customers are familiar with, the real-time ability has been added into the background of the existing process. Customers will receive a payment and reconcile it with the desired repayment as they always have. If customers have chosen to allocate all or part of that overpayment to another associated loan or loans, then repayments will automatically be created for those payments and the funds allocated to the loans with balances updating immediately. Should this payment pay out a loan, the loan will also automatically close per the repayment. Likewise, should a repayment be deleted, it will remove from the previously associated loan and balances will update to reflect this change. This process however will require the margin to be reallocated again. Agrolending will continue to provide reporting facilities to customers to review and action and overpayments that require allocation.
When is this happening?
The great news is that this feature has been rolled into your system already.
Limitations:
Presently, when deleting a margin and creating another, a screen refresh is required to show the newly created linked repayment. Whilst the repayment auto creates, refreshing the screen forces the system to update and show the new repayment on the screen. If you are deleting a repayment and know you need to reallocate the margin, users can simply utilise the Client Margin Split Wizard again to re allocate the funds and then refresh the screen to see the newly created repayment.
The other scenario with limitations refers to margin splits including refunds. In the case where a split contains a refund and requires re-allocation, the Wizard will not process this change, this is a safeguard to ensure that the system does not reallocate funds that may have already been paid out, refunds will be handled via the batch system. Likewise, splits that originally contain a refund will also be addressed by batch with an invoice/ payment being created during the next system run. Both scenarios are included in our back-end monitoring to review how many occurrences of each there are before determining if these processes require further attention or are able to be batch controlled.
Users Note: Client margin splits that include a refund and another type of split WILL create duplicate repayments if the margin is edited. Users must ensure they delete the original repayment to maintain data integrity. Again, additional reporting has been put in place to monitor these occurrences. Whenever a user is changing a client margin it is best practice to first remove the linked repayment, being mindful that any subsequent repayments that have been created from that repayment will also be deleted and may need to be re-addressed.
In situations where a refund has not already been set up via a client margin and a split is edited and a refund issued, this change will be handled via batch who will utilise the split data to complete the split and then create the invoice/payment for the refund.
Feedback
As we continue to introduce new features, customer communication and feedback is paramount. If you experience any difficulties with any of the real-time repayments processes outlined above or in previous correspondence, if you receive an error that you should not be experiencing, or if it simply doesn’t function as it should per the description in the release notes, we request customers to raise a support ticket immediately. It is only with actual real-time use of the system that we are going to be able to iron out any of the creases. Please rest assured that we have also enabled additional background monitoring to catch issues as they may arise.
As always, if you are new to our real-time roll out program, we recommend you view the Product Updates page on the website and review all the exciting improvements that have been released previously, or click here to be directed there immediately.
We look forward to your feedback, and will be moving forward with continued releases over the coming weeks/ months.
Release Summary
