Crowe has joined the growing number of firms offering solutions to aid in Paycheck Protection Program participation. The new Crowe PPP Loan Forgiveness Platform for Lenders is designed to help lenders manage loan forgiveness, which will be the next step in the process for small businesses receiving money through the program.
The PPP allocated billions of dollars in federally guaranteed loans to American small businesses to maintain their payrolls through the COVID-19 pandemic, which will be forgiven if the borrowers meet certain Small Business Administration criteria. Forgivable costs fall broadly into four categories: payroll, business mortgage interest payments, business rent or lease payments, and business utility payments.
“In this unprecedented time, customer relationships are more important than ever, so it is essential for lenders to establish an efficient and comprehensive process to work through PPP loan forgiveness with their customers,” said Ryan Plourde, consulting principal and leader of Microsoft CRM services at Crowe, in a statement. “We utilized our team’s long-standing experience working with financial institutions and our relationship with Microsoft to develop this platform to help lenders navigate through the potentially changing requirements surrounding PPP loan forgiveness to better assist their customers throughout the process.”
The platform is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and allows financial institutions to design a process to work through PPP loan forgiveness with their customers using the following features:
- Submission portal: A centralized place for borrowers to complete applications and upload all required documents as well as communicate directly with staff and access personalized advice, from FAQs to instructional videos.
- Forgiveness amount determination: This preconfigured calculator uses web-based technology to collect and interpret information for lenders and their customers to determine forgiveness amounts based on PPP requirements. The calculator also provides users the ability to save input and add to the workflow.
- Standardized, repeatable workflow: Manage workflow through the entire forgiveness process step by step, from borrower request to SBA submission to approval and beyond. This tool includes cloud-based technology built for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and hosted securely on the Microsoft Azure cloud; review and validation of customer-provided documentation; checklists to confirm aspects of forgiveness are covered; and executive-level reporting, insights and metrics.
- Specialized support: Crowe specialists can help with the PPP loan forgiveness process and are available to support and augment staff, perform second-line quality assurance and manage the SBA submission. The specialists can interpret specific situations based on PPP guidance, assist with operational setup and governance, and educate and train call center personnel and relationship managers.
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