Modernizing Document Collection for Financial Institutions

Hello, everyone. We're gonna give everybody just a couple more seconds here to join. Okay. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Hello, and thank you all for joining us today. My name is Naomi Nicholas, and I'm the senior marketing manager here at Alligent. In today's session, we'll discuss the challenges financial institutions face when requesting, collecting, and managing documents and how Allergen document portal provides a more secure centralized way to improve visibility and reduce manual follow-up. Joining us today are Jen Mitchell, our director of product management for AccuAccount, and Cameron Marks, our director of product management for FastDocs. If any questions come up during the webinar, please feel free to drop them into the chat. We'll answer as many as we can at the end of the session or follow-up with you afterwards. And with that, I'm gonna hand things off to Jen and Cam. Alright. So today, we're talking about something that almost every financial institution deals with on a on a daily basis, and that's requesting and collecting documents from account holders and third parties. So on the surface, it's straightforward. You need a document, you ask someone for it, and the document comes back. But, operationally, the process can get complicated very quickly. Different employees may be requesting information. Different departments may be interacting with the same person. Documents can come back through different channels. Someone need... Someone still needs to track what's still missing. And once something arrives, employees need to know where to find it. So that's the problem we're going to focus on today. We'll look at the document collection challenges financial institutions face, then we'll show how Allogene document portal provides an alternative approach. Most importantly, we'll demonstrate the document portal as a standalone solution and then briefly discuss how it can extend into the broader Allogene ecosystem. So Allogene focuses on technology for financial institutions across payments, enterprise, and content management and loan management. Our solutions are purpose built for banks and credit unions. And that financial services focus is important to the conversation we're having today. Within the Allogene ecosystem, UniFi supports payment workflows, fast talks addresses, document imaging, capture workflows, and other enterprise content management capabilities. And AccuAccount supports commercial loan management, exception tracking, document intake, and those related workflows. And now we have Allogene document portal focused specifically on document collection for account holders and third parties. Document portal has a very focused job, improve the way your institution collects documents from people outside the institution. The broader Allogene story includes integration, financial institution expertise, security and governance, analytics reporting, and continued innovation. Today, though, we're going to take those themes and apply them to a very specific operational problem, document collection. So let's start with what that that problem actually looks like. Jen? Thank you. Alright. So document collection is routine part of financial institutions' workflows, but the process can become fragmented very quickly. Before before we look at the... Our approach to this, I want to understand which of these challenges might be familiar to you. So first, we're gonna look at these challenges. We'll start with coordinating document request. When requests are coordinated through separate employees or channels, borrowers and third parties may receive duplicates or confusing outreach. The next one... The next challenge we have is securely collecting documents. When documents arrive through email, shared drive, or paper, staff take on more manual handling, and the institution may face greater risk. The third one is tracking outstanding requests. Without a centralized view of outstanding requests, follow-up becomes harder and delays are more likely. Managing document access. When access is limited to one person or location, others may struggle to find that information that they need. And then the last one is maintaining a consistent process. Inconsistent processes create friction for both staff and the... Your customers who are submitting the documents. So if you had to choose one, where do you experience the most friction today? Coordinating requests, collecting documents securely, tracking what is still outstanding, accessing submitted documents, or keeping that process consistent? We're actually gonna push out a poll right now if you would share your top challenges at your financial institution. We'll give you just a minute here to fill that out. Looks like we're getting some responses here. Alright. I'll just give you a few more seconds. Alright. Looks like maintaining a consistent process, and I think that probably covers all of these challenges. That's really where it all falls into place. Alright. So the common thread is not simply the document itself. It is the lack of one consistent visible process. Let's look at a better approach can provide for you. So now that we've talked about the challenges, let's take a step back and define what we're actually trying to accomplish with Algin document portal. I think it's important to look at these four interconnected goals, security and compliance, user experience, operational efficiency, and faster loan processing collectively rather than separate separate benefits. Improving the way documents are requested and collected can affect the the experience of the person sending us the document, the employee waiting for it, and ultimately, the business process that depends on So let's start with security and compliance. One of the challenges we've discussed is that documents may be collected through email, shared drives, or other unsecured or inconsistent methods. Our goal is to move towards a standardized secure way for those documents to be received. But there's another dimension to this beyond, secure collection. We also want greater control and visibility around the process itself. What was requested? What was submitted? And maintaining an auditable record of document submissions. So when we talk about security and compliance, we're not simply talking about protecting the file. We're talking about bringing more control and consistency to the process surrounding that file. The second goal is user experience. And there are really two users, we need to think about here. There's the employee inside the financial institution who needs the document, and there's the borrower, applicant, guarantor, account holder, or third party that needs to provide it. Instead of having the method vary depending on which employee or department made the request, the goal is to establish a more consistent document collection experience. For the employee, that means moving away from individually managed document requests through disconnected processes. For the recipient, it means having a defined user friendly and intuitive way to respond. A good document collection experience should make it clear what is being requested and provide a consistent way to return. Third goal is operational efficiency, and this connects directly to several of the challenges we saw. We're trying to reduce the friction created when request... Requests have to be coordinated manually, when employees have to search for returned information, or when someone has to remember which requests still need follow-up. And that's why centralized visibility is so important. So this allows us to provide a defined way, to submit the document request, keep track of what's outstanding, and make the resulting information accessible within that process. And then finally, faster loan processing. Documents are often inputs to a larger business process. In lending, progress may depend on receiving the information that's been requested. That's why this goal connects naturally to the first three. If we can make the request process more consistent, provide a standardized way to collect the information, and give employees better visibility into outstanding requests, we're addressing the sources of friction that can otherwise affect the lending process. The goal isn't simply, digital document collection. The goal is a better document collection process. Alright. So we're gonna combine those challenges that we looked at into really three categories, requesting the documents, collecting the documents, and accessing the documents. We're gonna start with requesting the documents. The first opportunity is to standardize how document requests are created and and, obviously, communicated. When employees use different methods to request documents, the experience varies depending on who initiated the the request. A centralized approach creates a more consistent experience for borrowers, applicants, guarantors, and even the third parties. It also gives staff a shared view of outstanding request. That visibility helps reduce duplicate or overlapping outreach and make it easier to follow-up when a request is incomplete. The benefit is really coordination. Everyone can work from the same request process instead of relying on individual inboxes, spreadsheets, or separate tracking methods. So once the request is coordinated, the next question is is how is the document... Or how are the documents gonna be returned securely and consistently? So our next one is collecting the documents. The second opportunity is to give recipients one secure consistent way to submit documents. Email and shared drives may be familiar, but they create an inconsistent collection process and can require additional manual handling. A secure intake process provides a single destination for document submission. This reduces the need to send sensitive documents through email and lower reliance on paper based or manual workflows. It also makes the submission experience clearer for the borrower or third party because they know where they're going to be sending the requested information. The goal is not to just digit... Digitize an existing manual process. It is to create a controlled intake path that is easier for the recipient and more manageable for the institution. So now that we talked about the collection, the next one we're gonna talk about is gonna be accessing. K. There we go. The third opportunity is to move documents collection out of individual silos and make the process visible to the appropriate users across the whole financial institution. When requests and submissions are tied to one employee's inbox or tracking method, other team members may not know what has been requested or even what has been received. Shared access allows authorized users to review requests by date and give the institution a broader view of activity. Maintaining an auditable record of document submissions supports transparency. Organizing collected documents by user also helps staff understand who initiated or managed the request. This is where the process becomes operational rather than personal. The institution retains visibility even when the responsibility is shipped or another employee needs to step in. Now I'm gonna hand it over to Cam to review how the document court... Portal can be implemented. So an important aspect of what we're sharing today is is that we're not prescribing one deployment model. Algin document portal is designed as a multitenant cloud based solution that can fit into a financial institution's environment in flexible ways as a standalone solution integrated with Allogene CCM products or connected to third party solutions. That flexibility is important because institutions don't all start in the same place on this journey. Some may want to solve the document collection prop... The problem we've been discussing. Others may already use an Allogene product such as AccuAccount or FastDocs and want document portal to become part of those existing workflows. And others may have a different line of business or content management platform where an API level integration is the appropriate approach. So let's look at these three models. For standalone document portal for some institutions, the starting point may simply be we need a better way to request and collect documents from account holders and third parties, and that's where the standalone option is particularly compelling. You can approach document portals specifically around that business need. The solution is designed to centralize document intake, reduce operational friction, and apply more consistent governance to the document collection process. Second, integrated with Allergen account... Allergen products. For for organizations already using Allergen solutions, there's an opportunity to take that experience further. Document portal is positioned to work with FastOx and AccuAccount by allowing those documents, collection, to become part of the broader workflow supported by those solutions. In an integrated scenario, the goal is to bring that collection experience closer to the Allogene application and business process where the documents are ultimately needed. For an existing Allogene customer, document portal isn't just another application, becomes an extension of the workflow you're already using. AccuAccount, for example... The AccuAccount example later in the presentation will illustrate what that deeper integration can look like. Initiating document requests from AccuAccount, requesting multiple customer loan or collateral documents, reviewing and approving return documents within AccuAccount, and routing approved documents to the appropriate document tab and clearing related exceptions. So now document portal isn't simply solving a document collection as an isolated process. The collection experience becomes connected to the Allogene business application where employees are already managing the corresponding work. And then Document Portal is positioned to support scenarios involving third party solutions. For institutions with other lines of business lending, content management, or or operational systems, the integration discussion becomes how can document portal provide the document collection experience while fitting into the technology ecosystem you've already invested in. At an API level, that's the integration strategy, allowing document portals, document collection experience to participate in the broader business workflow. Bringing the three together, you take... The takeaway here is that the institution's flexibility... The institution has flexibility in how the document portal fits into their ecosystem. Stand alone. Start with the document collection problem itself. Allergen integrated. Bring the document collection into workflows associated with solutions like FastOx and AccuAccount. And last, third party integration. Address the document collection challenge seamlessly through other solutions that would benefit from this capability. Alright. So let's move out of the slides and actually show you what this looks like. First of all, I want to review the five challenges that we've been looking at here. So let's talk about those five challenges. Coordinating requests, securely collecting documents, tracking outstanding requests, managing document access, and then establishing consistency. As we walk through the doc portal, watch how the workflow relates back to those challenges. Screen here. Okay. So let's start here rather than immediately creating a request. The reason is really important. Document portal isn't just about sending someone an upload link. We're managing the actual document request. This dashboard gives us a centralized view of the request employees are working with. Now let's initiate a document request. This is where we're addressing our first challenge, creating a consistent way for employees to begin the process. Yeah. Employees can... Yeah? Just so you're aware, we're not seeing your screen. Oh, let me go back in here. I apologize, everyone. Go to this, and let me share my other screen. Okay. I apologize. Let me back up one here or two. Thank you. I can confirm we're seeing it now, Jen. Okay. Thank you. Alright. So let's start here rather than the immediate creating of a request. This is actually the doc portal dashboard that you're seeing here. This dashboard gives us a centralized view of the request employees are working with. Now let's initiate a request. This is where we're addressing our first challenge, creating a consistent way for employees to begin the process. Employees can determine if they need a single document request or use a predefined checklist under the multiple documents. As you enter the relevant information, we're establishing who we're requesting information from and what we're asking that person to provide. In the example, we are requesting a specific document for a specific loan. Adding notes to the request allows users at the financial institution to securely communicate with the borrower. Once you click the send, an email is actually sent to the borrower. We're creating a defined request rather than starting an unstructured email conversation. This is the borrower... This is where the borrower will receive an email that will allow them to securely sign in to the financial institution secured public portal. Now we're gonna switch the perspectives. The external recipient needs a clear path to respond to this request. Rather than deciding how or where to send the information, the recipient is being brought into that document portal process. For a multiple document request, the borrower borrower will see a card within the public document portal. This request may have several document requests from the financial institution. The borrower can then click on any of the requested documents to see more information about that request. Once the borrower is ready to upload the document, they can... Or drag and drop the document, they can click on the upload, and they can drag and drop that document right into that request. Within the public portal, the borrower has the ability to see the documents that are waiting for review from the financial institution. In this case, you can see the two most recent pay stubs have a little icon here that they're waiting to be approved by the financial institution. As you can see here, the public document portal allows not only the FI to communicate securely with the borrower, but the borrower can communicate securely with the financial institution as well. Now the recipient submits the requested document. Think back to our second challenge, secure collection. The presentation recommend... Recommended approach is to replace email and shared drives with a secured intake process. This is that collection portion of the workflow. Now let's move back to the financial institution. Once again, we're not searching through an inbox to see whether somebody responded to our request. We're returning back to the document workflow. Receiving a document doesn't necessarily mean the business process is complete. The institution still needs the opportunity to review what was submitted. Once the financial institution is ready to review the document, they can use one click to view, approve, or reject the document. Once the user at the financial institution reviews the document, they can approve or reject the document. Because the document was approved, it allows the employee at the financial institution to send a note back to the borrower letting them know the document was approved. You may want to make a note to the borrower letting them know you are waiting for additional information or maybe that the loan is moving forward. Okay. Now we're gonna go back to the presentation here. I apologize for the back and forth. Okay. I'm gonna stop sharing again. Again, I apologize. I'm gonna share my screen again. K. Alright. So now back on this slide, let's stop for a moment and look at what just happened. We started with an identifiable document request. We provided the recipient with a defined way to respond. The document came back through the process, and the institution could access and review the response. That's the document portal value proposition, bringing the request of the collection of the requested information into one managed experience. Awesome. Thanks, Jen. So up up to this point, we focused primarily on Algin Document Portal as a standalone solution and shown how it can help provide a more consistent way to re... Request and collect documents. But for organizations that already use, Allegiant's enterprise content management solutions, there's an opportunity to take that experience further. Rather than treating, the document portal as a separate destination, the collection process can become part of the workflow your employees are already using. That's an important distinction. In the standalone model, document portal provides the environment for managing that collection process. With an integrated Allogene experience, we're looking at how that same collection process can connect with AccuAccount or FastOx, bringing document, document requests and returned information closer to the business process where those documents are actually needed. How can we make requesting and receiving documents a natural extension of the work that our employees are already doing? Let's take a look at what that integrated experience can provide. So this is where we start to see the value of bringing a document portal together with AccuAccount and FastOx. The overall objective is straightforward. Streamlining document management by bringing document collection closer to the systems and processes where employees are already working. Initiating request directly. First capability is to be able to initiate document requests directly. Think back to one of the challenges we discussed earlier. Different employees using different methods to request information. An integrated experience gives us an opportunity to initiate that request from the Algent solution associated with the underlying business process rather than requesting the employee begin somewhere else. We can also request multiple documents at once. That's important because many financial services processes don't depend on a single document. A lending or account related process may require multiple items. Rather than thinking about each of those as an an independent interaction, the integration supports making multiple document requests as part of the process. The integration can also use contact information that's already available from the core. From a user experience perspective, that's an important part of the integration. We're looking to take advantage of the information already available in the workflow rather than forcing employees to re... To treat document collection as an entirely disconnected activity. The document's been requested and returned, but receiving the file isn't necessarily the end of the workflow. The integration... The integrated experience supports reviewing and approving submitted documents. Not simply moving files from one person to another. We're managing a document through its life cycle. And then once a document has been approved, the objective isn't just to successfully receive the document. It's used to connect that document to the environment where it needs to be managed and used. And within an... With... In the Accu account workflow specifically, that process can go a step further by automating automatically clearing related exceptions as documents are received and approved. This serves to connect the document collection to the downstream work that depends on that document. And that's really the distinction I wanna leave you with. The stand alone document portal gives you a focused way to secure and improve how documents are requested and collected. Integration with AccuCounter FastDocs gives you the opportunity to extend that value to the business workflows where those documents are being used. So whether your institution is looking to solve document collection as a standalone challenge or connect it more deeply into your existing ecosystem, the goal remains the same. Reduce the friction between requesting a document, receiving it, reviewing it, and putting that information to work. Alright. We will move on to our q and a sec... Section. If you have any questions, now is the time to drop them into the chat. We'll start with a few that came in earlier. First up is is there a virus check done on documents that are uploaded through the portal? Yeah. I I can take this one, Naomi. Yes. Absolutely. All of the documents that come in and are requested from that end consumer get get virus scanned prior to even the review step that, your knowledge workers within your institution will will, take advantage of. Thanks, Cam. The next question we have is, is the customer notified when a document is approved or rejected? I'll go I'll go ahead and take that one, Naomi. Yes. They are, they do receive an email letting them know if the document was approved or rejected, and you actually get to define those emails and what they look like. Thanks, Jen. And it looks like we've got time for one more. Can I set up recurring notifications to remind a customer if they haven't submitted the requested document yet? Yeah. I'll I'll take that one too. At this time, no. But it is already on our road map for the next version of document portal where it will have an automated notification date. Great. Thanks, Jen. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for questions today. If you submitted submitted a question that we didn't get to, we'll follow-up with you afterwards. And if any additional questions come to mind, please feel free to reach out to marketing@allergen.com or visit our website. Before we go, be sure to check out our events page for upcoming webinars and other opportunities to connect with us. Again for spending part of your afternoon with us. We appreciate you joining, and we hope you have a great rest of your day. Have a great day, everybody.