Moneylender Professional 3: What’s New?

Moneylender Professional 3 loan servicing software is making its debut in 2017. The software’s creator, Josh Whitman, answers some questions to give you background and insight into the latest version. 

Why release Moneylender Professional 3 now?

Since its release in 2004, Moneylender’s user base has grown and grown. The lenders using our software deserve to have access to the latest innovations of modern technology. Some borrowers even demand it. 

Moneylender was created as a hobby project, but it’s become a major component of our business model. We’re serious about the role the application plays in the daily operations of hundreds of professional lenders. Many of our customers are casual lenders, and that’s great. But an ever-growing population of large businesses are using Moneylender to power their financing activities.

What are some of the changes between versions 2 and 3?

We've made a major change in storing loan data in order to: 

• Reduce inefficiencies in the original. 
• Work more rapidly for lenders with over 2,000 loans. Some lenders with 10,000+ loans in their portfolios have sluggish performance during certain bulk operations

Another big change is how loan data is shared on a network. The new fully-encrypted networking system lets computers in multiple physical locations share loan data from a single source without needing additional network security layers.

The loan record architecture was changed to let the loan calculator handle even more lending scenarios. 

• In most cases, the new architecture allows drastically faster loan recalculation than Moneylender 2. 
• The calculation system is totally transparent. You can see every transaction Moneylender 3 makes on each of the nine balances associated with each loan.

What are some additions that appear in Moneylender 3? 

• A big addition to our loan servicing software shows up in escrow account management. Moneylender 2’s escrow support is more of a work-around. Moneylender 3 allows the full accounting and balance tracking of escrow for mortgages. There’s also a RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) compliant escrow adjustment calculator.
• Another huge addition is the ability to print statements to PDF and email them directly to borrowers with just one click. A lender chooses a group of loans, and Moneylender sends all the statements out. If email isn’t an option for certain borrowers, statements can be printed and mailed.
• Images have returned – so lenders can again embed their company logos in printable statement templates.
• File attachments allow users to include scanned documents and other data in portfolio files. You can pull the files back out to the hard drive, as needed.

What’s the price for the newest version? 

We’ll be charging $329 per license for Moneylender Professional 3. We’re also bringing back Moneylender Express for $149. In this variation, users view just one loan at a time. 

Do any of the changes stem from customer requests?

Practically all of them. Some came from multiple requests. We think most users are going to appreciate the vast majority of these suggestions.

What’s the release timeline? 

We hope to have an Alpha version for our most intrepid users to play with by early October. The polished, production version should be available early in 2017.

What steps do you take to prevent new bugs?

All code has bugs. Internally, we have multiple tiers of application testing find and address as many issues as possible. The Alpha and Beta versions widen the user base to give us feedback about more complex bugs, such as problems handling exotic repayments in the real world. 

When our friends report everything’s good with their loans, and we’ve worked the program over multiple times, we’ll greenlight Moneylender 3. 

What kind of support is offered for the new version?

Same as we always have: unlimited phone and email support. Any bugs are immediately fixed and released in an update.

How long has it taken to develop the new version?

 A while… I started developing the new file system about seven years ago. Then I wrote the new network system. I rewrote the structure of the loan calculator in 2015. In 2016, we began rewriting the entire user interface, along with all the underlying code. We rewrote the whole application from scratch in the programming language C#. Moneylender 2 is written in VB (Visual Basic).

What if a customer doesn’t like the new version?

We’ll continue to support Moneylender 2 for at least two years after Moneylender 3 comes out. There are still people using Moneylender 1.1 out there. 

Customers who like Moneylender 2 will probably like Moneylender 3. We’ve tried to keep the program familiar while refining the user interface and improving the overall user experience.

How long do you think it will take to learn the new version?

For users of Moneylender 2, I think the biggest adjustment will be in managing loan settings. In Moneylender 2, all the initial settings on a loan were done in the Loan Record. In Moneylender 3, the Loan Record pretty much just holds the account number. Alongside the loan are unlimited principal payouts, interest rates, and late fee settings. 

These records exist in Moneylender 2, but you wouldn’t use them if you just made the loan and never changed the terms over the course of repayment. Moneylender 3 has streamlined Loan Wizards. Setting up new loans is faster and easier than in Moneylender 2. But you can still really fine-tune the loan settings.

What’s next on the horizon for Moneylender Professional?

Shortly after we release Moneylender 3 for production use, we’ll start implementing an automatic payment mechanism. It’ll be similar to printing statements. We’ll partner with a merchant services provider that specializes in services for lenders. We plan to add the ability to set borrowers up for auto-pay by:

• debiting bank accounts 
• using credit cards

We’re also going to try to integrate more interoperability. For example, we’ll support the IRS FIRE format for reporting 1098 tax data to the IRS later in 2017.

Further down the road, we hope to produce an API (application program interface) that allows lenders to develop their own code. This will further streamline and integrate Moneylender into their businesses.