IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 9, 2020 – Advantage Systems, a provider of accounting and financial management tools for the mortgage industry, announced that Joe Ludlow, Vice President of Advantage Systems, was named a Lending Luminary Award™ winner by PROGRESS in Lending Association.

This year, the award recognized mortgage bankers, lenders, servicers, technology executives and consultants that have positively impacted the industry during rapidly changing market conditions driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Winners were announced as part of PROGRESS in Lending Association’s 10th annual ENGAGE event on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020.

Recognizing the need for consistent, reliable and industry-specific tools, Advantage Systems designed its technology to support accounting departments at mortgage companies across the nation. With a shift toward more employees working remotely, Advantage Systems’ solutions including AMB, AMB7 Sierra and ApprovalSoft have proven essential in helping employees continue to maintain – and increase – productivity despite their decentralized operations.

“The Lending Luminary awards were created to honor mortgage professionals that are dedicated to paving the way for others and are recognized for their industry vision and leadership,” said Tony Garritano, founder of PROGRESS in Lending Association. “Joe and the Advantage Systems’ team have been real leaders in automating accounting processes and providing better access to financial data for not only the accounting department, but also c-level executives, branch managers and loan officers. Our association believes Joe embodies a true leader and deserves to be recognized for his efforts.”

“It’s an honor to be recognized by the team at PROGRESS in Lending,” said Ludlow. “The industry has changed quickly and significantly this year, and we quickly pivoted our strategy to highlight accounting features that speak directly to the needs of our clients who now find themselves working from home and managing the volume increases of a refinance boom at the same time. Daily process changes such as shifting away from paper checks in favor of electronic invoice approval and disbursement have become essential. As such, we’re proud to provide some level of stability during a time of such uncertainty.”

Additionally, Ludlow served as an expert panelist in this year’s virtual event and discussed how COVID-19 has forced the mortgage process to change throughout this year and what the industry can expect through the remainder of 2020 and beyond. To view PROGRESS in Lending’s ENGAGE event, visit mymortgagemindset.com.

About Advantage Systems

Founded in 1986, Irvine, Calif.-based Advantage Systems is a provider of accounting and contract management tools for the mortgage and real estate industries. Advantage Systems’ Accounting for Mortgage Bankers (AMB) was developed in response to the need the company saw for a general ledger accounting product that could eliminate the spread sheets and manage the loan level detail required by the mortgage banking industry. In so doing, AMB gives its users the tool they need to be confident about the data being reported to management and others. For more information, visit www.mortgageaccounting.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Rachel Smedley
William Mills Agency
678-781-7236
rachel@williammills.com

IRVINE, Calif., September 2, 2020 – Advantage Systems, a provider of accounting and financial management tools for the mortgage industry, announced today that Independence, Ohio-based Nations Lending Corporation and San Antonio, Texas-based SWBC Mortgage Corporation are leveraging the company’s software, including its AMBfx module, to build custom reports and deliver enhanced financial reporting all while working remotely during the pandemic.

“Low mortgage interest rates continue to fuel a surge in refinance activity amid the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in record-breaking loan volume for lenders,” according to Forbes. And, with employees working remotely, mortgage companies must lean on technology in a whole new way. With an increase in activity, Advantage Systems’ AMBfx users are able to enhance their reporting during this period of growth.

Advantage Systems’ client Nations Lending has seen significant efficiency gains with the platform. According to Laurie Petrich, Controller at Nations Lending, “We’ve had a huge increase in loan volume and activity – up almost 150 percent – and are thankful to work with a system that continues to grow with our company. Advantage Systems has proven to be a value-added business partner, consistently updating the system with features and functionalities that have saved my team a tremendous amount of time.”

With hundreds of easy-to-use reports already embedded into the AMB system, AMBfx allows users to build custom reports specific to their needs. Data is accessed directly from the AMB database into spreadsheets created by the user, meaning that changes made in AMB are immediately reflected in the customized spreadsheet.

In fact, the AMBfx module allows users to create financial reports leveraging the presentation capabilities of Excel, helping Advantage Systems’ client SWBC Mortgage enhance the presentation when reporting branch activity. Elaine Ratcliff, Vice President of Finance and Operations Controller at SWBC Mortgage, added, “The team at Advantage Systems continually adds new enhancements and security features all while keeping the software user-friendly. The AMBfx module has allowed our team to create custom-built reports for all of our branches – directly pulling in data from AMB to make tracking branch activity easier – significantly cutting down manual processes and helping with our month-end close process.”

Additionally, using AMBfx, reporting packages and board presentations are easily tailored to display the necessary data that supports each specific clients’ individual business strategy and growth plans. Because the reports are created in Excel, the data is easily supported using graphs and can be exported to PowerPoint to make the reports easier to digest for management.

Utilizing AMBfx for board reporting, Nations Lending has been able to cut down on manual processes and move away from generic, templated reports. Petrich explained, “Using AMBfx, we’ve created our entire monthly financial package – a 60-page board report, displaying financial data on all of our branches – all in one Excel spreadsheet. A process that used to take over four hours can now be done by updating the month’s criteria in a click of a button.”

“Although today’s environment remains uncertain, we are happy to provide consistency to our users, enabling their day-to-day operations to continue without major interruption,” said Brian Lynch, President of Advantage Systems. “The AMBfx module enhances Excel’s functions and capabilities, which allows our users to create reports tailored to their team’s needs and to submit impressive reports to management in the shortest time possible. The capability to pull data directly from AMB eliminates the need to manually export and format that data before it can be used, so creating attractive, meaningful reports has never been easier.

About Advantage Systems

Founded in 1986, Irvine, Calif.-based Advantage Systems is a provider of accounting and contract management tools for the mortgage and real estate industries. Advantage Systems’ Accounting for Mortgage Bankers (AMB) was developed in response to the need the company saw for a general ledger accounting product that could eliminate the spread sheets and manage the loan level detail required by the mortgage banking industry. In so doing, AMB gives its users the tool they need to be confident about the data being reported to management and others. For more information, visit www.mortgageaccounting.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Rachel Smedley
William Mills Agency
678-781-7236
rachel@williammills.com

IRVINE, Calif., August 5, 2020 – Advantage Systems, a provider of accounting and financial management tools for the mortgage industry, announced that Parsippany, NJ-based American Financial Resources, Inc. (AFR) has realized significant operational savings through its use of the ApprovalSoft® system to manage vendor invoices and streamline internal approval processes.

The capability for vendors to directly interact with the system is a key benefit for AFR. Lisa Gerhard, Accounting Manager at AFR, explained, “Most of our vendors email their invoices directly to ApprovalSoft. Then, the system uses the inbound email to automatically start a payable item and attaches the PDF of the invoice. For our common vendors, ApprovalSoft also chooses the default expense account.”

“The upload invoices at loan level feature is huge for us, especially for the larger invoices that have small amounts per loan, but for hundreds of loans,” said Gerhard. AFR estimates that ApprovalSoft saves its staff the time equivalent of a full-time employee in its accounting department, delivering significant ROI.

Through its data-driven design, ApprovalSoft facilitates the control of any type of approvable document, including company records, vendor invoices, journal entries, cash receipts and even engineering changes. Developed to address mortgage lenders’ unique business needs, Advantage Systems has recently invested in a redesigned ApprovalSoft website to further support its customers and partners in the industry.

“We designed ApprovalSoft to allow companies, like American Financial Resources, to streamline internal approval processes and easily manage any type of approvable event,” said Brian Lynch, President and Founder of Advantage Systems. “Working with AFR for over 7 years, we are thrilled that their accounting team continues to report excellent results from their use of the system.”

About Advantage Systems
Founded in 1986, Irvine, Calif.-based Advantage Systems is a provider of accounting and contract management tools for the mortgage and real estate industries. Advantage Systems’ Accounting for Mortgage Bankers (AMB) was developed in response to the need the company saw for a general ledger accounting product that could eliminate the spread sheets and manage the loan level detail required by the mortgage banking industry. In so doing, AMB gives its users the tool they need to be confident about the data being reported to management and others. For more information, visit www.mortgageaccounting.com​​​​​​.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Rachel Smedley
William Mills Agency
678-781-7236
rachel@williammills.com

IRVINE, Calif., May 12, 2020 – Advantage Systems, a provider of accounting and financial management tools for the mortgage industry, announced today that its browser-based AMB 7 Sierra software was named as a ‘Top Innovation’ in PROGRESS in Lending Association’s 10^th annual Innovations Awards.

The Innovations Award program highlights companies that work to develop industry-changing innovations. The association recognized innovations that were introduced into the mortgage market in 2019 as well as rewarded companies for creative enhancements, updates and changes to industry innovations that made a positive difference throughout 2019.

“PROGRESS in Lending Association’s annual Innovations Awards was developed to honor companies who create groundbreaking innovation to change the mortgage industry for the better,” said Tony Garritano, founder of PROGRESS in Lending Association. “While the COVID-19 crisis stopped us from introducing our 10th annual Innovations Awards in person, nothing can stop true industry innovation.”

“Our association named Advantage Systems’ AMB 7 Sierra as a top industry innovation because mortgage professionals need a solution that prioritizes real-time, easily digestible financial reporting at their fingertips and that is exactly what they get with AMB 7 Sierra,” Garritano continued.

“We are thrilled that our AMB 7 Sierra Reporting Package was listed among this year’s top industry innovations,” said Brian Lynch, President of Advantage Systems. “With the rapid switch to working remotely due to the COVID-19 crisis, our entirely browser-based solution allows mortgage professionals the ability to select the reports they need, when they need them.  These reports can be accessed from anywhere, at any time.”

Additionally, the awards were scored based on five categories: the innovation’s overall industry significance, the originality of the innovation, the positive change the innovation made possible, the intangible efficiencies gained because of the innovation and the hard cost and time savings that the innovation enables industry participants to achieve.

The association’s team virtually announced award winners on April 9, 2020. To watch the video and see the list of top innovations, visit PROGRESS in Lending Association’s website.

About Advantage Systems

Founded in 1986, Irvine, Calif.-based Advantage Systems is a provider of accounting and contract management tools for the mortgage and real estate industries. Advantage Systems’ Accounting for Mortgage Bankers (AMB) was developed in response to the need the company saw for a general ledger accounting product that could eliminate the spread sheets and manage the loan level detail required by the mortgage banking industry. In so doing, AMB gives its users the tool they need to be confident about the data being reported to management and others. For more information, visit www.mortgageaccounting.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Rachel Smedley
William Mills Agency
678-781-7236
rachel@williammills.com