Moneylender Professional in 2020

A lot has happened since the last time I posted.  The coronavirus outbreak that causes COVID-19 hit the world and put us all indoors.  I started a YouTube channel.  Moneylender has seen fifteenish updates, adding around 50 new things to the program alongside other fixes and changes.

Monthly sales of Moneylender went up and down during the pandemic.  Overall sales are growing.  In one two-week period we were getting one or two new customers almost daily.  It was an unprecedented rally – surpassing the highs from the December-January surge to set a new monthly all-time record in May.

COVID led to a lot of forbearance and other types of plans to ease the financial burden as businesses were shut down.  I wrote a new section onto the Settings tab – “Special Situations” where you can easily set up any combination of forbearance, reinstatement, waiving or capitalizing interest, and/or adjusting the escrow to be collected.  Of the handful of people that I’ve helped to use the new setting, the response has been very favorable.

I’m seeing a lot of referral sales, and for that I am immensely grateful.  I sent out a few thank you packages to customers that referred others, and that went really well.  I ordered more supplies to make more thank you packages in March, but didn’t want to send them amidst the urgent closures from the pandemic.  As we’re getting a grip on how to treat the virus, I’m looking forward to sending out another batch of thank you packages.

My YouTube channel is currently around 45 subscribers.  It’s not a tremendous number, by any measurement, but my videos are getting consistently better.  Each new video has seen a wider audience and better reception.  I’m also learning to be more proficient with the tools, so the production and editing of the videos has consistently gone up in quality.  It’s been fun to have no agenda for the channel except to share the things that make me happy.  Several videos revolve around Moneylender in one way or another, as it’s a really fascinating project with many opportunities to create things that really benefit people.

While Moneylender appeals to a broad audience, I think it’s really found a special place in the hearts of private lenders and note investors.  There are many large companies that use Moneylender, some have portfolios with 3000 to 5000 loans.  But most lenders that I see have between five and one hundred loans, with portfolios worth six to eight figures.  I’ve seen several nine figure portfolios, and maybe glimpsed a ten-figure portfolio once or twice.

Seeing my little program get such widespread use is a dream come true.  I’m so lucky for each customer that found their way to Moneylender over the years; for the customers that have paid me to add features to the software to meet their needs.  I’m grateful most of all for the people that found Moneylender, and then brought other people to the program.  Nearly half of recent sales say they were referred by a friend.  I am humbled and flattered and grateful.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

AutoPay has been going very well.  Every month has seen growth over the previous, even in the midst of COVID.  Our sponsor bank, that hesitantly agreed to let me push and pull money, has gone through a couple internal upgrades because we’re using their ACH mechanism more than any other customer.  The AutoPay system is pretty much solid.  All the stumbling blocks for borrowers and lenders have been removed.  I’m looking forward to rolling AutoPay out of Beta and into production in the very near future.

There are lots of other, really exciting features that I’m looking to add.  I’ve heard rumors that .NET 5 will be cross platform.  This means it might be possible to finally get Mac and Linux compatibility.  I have looked, over the years, at getting Moneylender to run on a Mac, but it’s always been about as much work as rewriting the whole program in a different language.

With the ACH mechanisms happily dialed in, I’ll be taking a more serious look into Visa/Mastercard payments through AutoPay, and giving lenders control over the application of convenience fees and which payment types will be accepted.

I still really like the idea of sending SMS messages directly from Moneylender, and I know that’s critical in places where email is not widely used but text messages are.  There are around 150 items on my list of cool suggestions, and perhaps we’ll be seeing more of them getting implemented in the days ahead, too.

The future is bright for Moneylender Professional.  I know my end of the bargain is to keep improving and supporting the program, and it’s a role I’m thrilled to fill.

The best adventures lie ahead of us.

-Josh Whitman, CEO
Whitman Technological