A guide for MCA funders

Are you ready to move?

Five questions that tell you where you stand before you touch anything.

Before you start configuring anything, answer these five questions honestly. They'll tell you where you are and what needs to happen first.

The 5-Question Readiness Diagnostic

1. Can your ops manager explain your entire deal lifecycle from submission to final payment without opening a spreadsheet?
   
   If the answer is no, your process only exists inside your spreadsheets, not as a defined workflow any loan management platform can replicate accurately. When you configure a new lending platform, you're mapping your process into it. If you can't articulate that process without opening a file, you'll build the platform around whatever the spreadsheet happened to capture. Document the workflow first, then configure.
2. Do you know which spreadsheet is the source of truth for active deal balances right now?
   
   If two people on your team would point to different files, your balances are already living in multiple places and at least one of them is wrong. When you import data into a loan management platform, you import from one source. Consolidate first..
3. Have you reconciled your active portfolio balances against your ACH processor in the last 30 days?
   
   Your ACH processor is the only place where payment activity is ground truth. Your spreadsheet balance is a calculation, and every manual entry, missed update, or formula error since the deal funded has moved it further from reality. If those numbers don't match before you migrate, the gap comes with you. Reconcile first..
4. Do your underwriters apply the same credit criteria on every deal, or does each person have their own version?
   
   A purpose-built MCA platform's scoring engine enforces whatever rules you configure. If your underwriters are working from different FICO floors, NSF tolerances, or industry restrictions, you need to decide which version is correct before you build the scorecard. Standardize the box first, then build it in..
5. Is your team ready to change their process, not just their tool?
   
   Your ops rep who built the master spreadsheet spent years getting it right. Asking them to switch will feel slower at first, because it is. Leadership needs to be unified that the platform is now the source of truth, full stop. Any ambiguity gives the team permission to default back the moment anything feels unfamiliar.

• If you answered yes to all five, you're ready. If you answered no to any of them, those answers are your pre-migration checklist. Fix those first, then start the clock.