Finance Advisory Co.: How streamlined workflows built a foundation for growth
For this relatively new business, rapid growth demanded team alignment and a streamlined tech solution to ensure a consistent experience for clients and lenders.
Founded in 2022, Finance Advisory Co (FinAd) is an Adelaide-based specialist commercial broking firm offering bespoke lending solutions and advice for SMEs and self-employed business clients.
The business began as a partnership between like-minded professionals with decades of experience in commercial lending. FinAd is now a team of 8 staff and growing.
Faced with the challenge of needing team alignment to support their relatively new but rapidly growing brokerage, FinAd quickly needed to find a tech solution to streamline their processes and ensure a consistent experience for both clients and lenders.
When seeking a technology solution to help with writing commercial deals, most of the advice received was to use Word and Excel, says FinAd Director, Ben Collins. The main approach in place being to use fragmented systems and ‘build-as-you-go’. “There was a bit of panic at that point… we quickly realised the industry was predominantly built to support home loan applications rather than commercial.”
“Your team can’t all go about things their own way when you’re trying to grow a business, build a brand and deliver consistency. It’s important for us to have one platform and one approach.
“Finding a tech solution was key to being able to scale,” Collins says. “As are a relatively new business, one of our key objectives was to standardise our processes to obtain greater efficiency and consistency. We needed a secure way to request and manage data, and to deliver a professional experience.”
CitoPlus is used business-wide to offer a single streamlined approach to managing loan applications and workflow. It powers data collection, analysis and application preparation, making key client information transparent and easily accessible to the team members and third parties who need it.
The fact that it was all-in-one platform and slashed the time spent preparing loan submissions made choosing CitoPlus a “no-brainer”.
“Rather than having to build the solutions yourself, to have it all in the one secure platform is really important.”
Confident delegation means more time for Brokers to close deals
Although FinAd’s whole team uses CitoPlus, tasks are separated depending on each member’s role and experience.
FinAd leverages the power of CitoPlus to speed up deal creation by delegating the initial set up of the commercial application to admin staff, including creating the loan structure and obtaining searches. CitoPlus’s streamlined workflow and automations quickly help build a framework for each loan submission, from sourcing and organising client information, to financial analysis and building the credit paper.
“The ability to better delegate some tasks to admin staff is significant,” says Collins. Brokers have the foundation of the transaction set up for them and can quickly focus on progressing the deal, with all the key information they require at their fingertips.
“It’s automated, it’s quick. We save a heap of time and get on the right track to begin with.”
In particular, CitoPlus’s exceptional search functionality means no nasty surprises when it comes to engaging with new clients. “We get on the right track to begin with”, says Collins. “With groups who have multiple entities – we quickly understand who the directors are and who owns what – right from the start… we don’t waste time on rework.”
A launchpad for growth
An unexpected benefit of CitoPlus’s intuitive workflow is the ability to bring new staff up to speed quickly. Previously, training new staff would require significant time and resources – a scarcity for any new business.
The problem becomes worse without alignment of processes across the team. “Having different processes, or no process, across brokers also makes it really challenging to train and manage staff as they are having to learn everyone’s idiosyncrasies. Instead, the CitoPlus standardises the process, provides helpful tools, and has built-in instructional guides to help with training. “
“It’s an intuitive system. Even without a lending background, staff can navigate their way through the process and order of events. It’s logical and sequential and there’s support on hand when you need it,” says Collins.
Commercial lending can be chaotic at times and it’s easy to get lost. With CitoPlus’s ease-of-use and hands-on customer support, new staff are up and running quickly, Collins says. “When you’re starting a new business and growing a team quickly, having the right systems in place helps everyone be productive from day one.”
“CitoPlus has really thought through the end-to-end process.”,
The winning formula
“Speed and accuracy are key competitive advantages for FinAd, and CitoPlus enhances this,” says Collins. “The integrated search function allows creditor watch, beneficial ownership and title searches to be done in seconds. This is a huge plus for us – it ensures we are completely across the client’s corporate structure upfront, avoiding the ‘oh no’ moments that can otherwise occur towards the later stages of an application. The added plus is that we avoid the need for other subscriptions, saving time and money.”
“The time saving varies but is always in the hours,” says Collins. “The ability to better delegate some tasks to admin staff is also significant.”
And the cornerstone to growing a thriving brokerage? A brand-first approach to delivering a consistent experience to brokers and lenders, building lasting trust and loyalty. “CitoPlus’s all-in-one platform approach was critical for maintaining a consistent process and standard when dealing with clients and lenders. Without a platform, we ran the risk of fragmenting, with each broker operating very differently,” says Collins.
A partner to grow with
The customer support from CitoPlus, including customised implementation advice and training, ensured a smooth onboarding for FinAd. “We’ve grown with CitoPlus to a degree …CitoPlus’s customer support has been great and ensured we get the most out the platform,” says Collins.
“There are always new useful features being added and we are looking forward to the lender integrations that are starting to roll out, so we can go from indicative offer straight to submission. This will be a significant time saver… It’s a no brainer.”
