Line of credit is another loan type supported by LoanPro. Rather than taking out a whole loan all at once, borrowers can use money gradually through a line of credit. These sums are restrained by an upper limit, meaning they can only borrow so much over a certain time period. That balance accrues interest, and the borrower makes regular payments over time. Typically, each billing cycle will end with a statement telling them how much they owe total, and a minimum payment that they must make each billing cycle. As they make payments and reduce their balance, they'll be able to borrow more money. This cyclical lending helps lenders keep borrower accounts open indefinitely.

To create a line of credit account, start in the Line of Credit Manager. The ‘New Line of Credit’ button is in the top right of the screen.

Clicking the button launch a walkthrough that covers these three set up steps:

1. Select Program
2. Configure Account
3. Assign Customer

Select program

Programs are templates for line of credit accounts. This is where the account gets all of its values for Setup and Settings. When you create a new account, you'll see a searchable list of your active programs.

Once you select a program, click ‘Next’ on the bottom right.

Configure account

Here, you'll enter basic information about the account, like the ID, agent user, source company, and Portfolios.

After filling in the account information, click ‘Next’ on the bottom right.

Assign customer

Just like on an installment loan, you can assign a customer (or customers) to a line of credit account. LMS shares the same list of customers throughout the system, so if you've already created a customer for an installment loan, you can easily assign them to a line of credit account, and vice versa.

Clicking the white ‘Link Customer’ button will pull up a list of existing customers; the ‘Create Customer’ button will open a walkthrough to guide you through inputting the necessary information to add a new customer.

Account Summary

When you look at a specific line of credit account, the first page that pulls up is the Account Summary. Just like a Loan Summary, this page gives some basic info about how the account is performing, letting your servicing agents understand the big picture the moment they look at an account.

This article will explain exactly what's here and what it does, but if you'd like more context about how these accounts work, see Line of Credit Accounts – the Basics.

Summary page

To reach the summary page, navigate within LMS to the Lines of Credit tab and then select a specific line of credit account. You'll also be directed here if you click on an account that's linked from elsewhere, like a customer page, a parent account, or a report.

The summary page is divided into two main parts: a summary box and transactions. The summary box contains quick figures for the most important numbers on an account. Transactions are the actual ledger of swipes, payments and other actions that affected the account's balance. 

Summary cards

The idea behind the summary box is to give agents the info they need as quickly as possible by having it all in one place. Here's a quick breakdown of what you'll see:

Clicking the ‘Make a Payment’ button will open a pop-up window where you can log a payment. Because the summary box is available on each page of the account, you'll have the ability to log a payment easily without having to switch between pages. 

Transactions

Beneath the summary box is a list of all the transactions on the account This provides a place to quickly access transaction history, and keep up to date with purchases made on an account.

Account linking

Lenders who offer multiple line-of-credit and loan accounts to a single borrower want an easy way to maintain them. Instead of having to constantly switch between accounts to perform simple servicing tasks, lenders want to put their servicers at ease by streamlining the process to make it more efficient and manageable. Our account link feature does just that.

Similar to our loan account link feature, you can link multiple loans and other accounts to one main, or ‘parent’, line-of-credit account. One of the main benefits of this feature is the ability to split payments across the linked, or ‘child’ accounts. This way, the borrower can make a large, single payment on one account and have it be applied to all of their accounts at once. In this article, we will go over how to link accounts and manage them in the software.

To begin linking an account, navigate to Account Settings > Account Link within an individual line-of-credit. 

If there are no existing child accounts, you'll be presented with two options: ‘Link Line of Credit’ and ‘Link Loan’. Clicking either option will pull up a menu where you can select which loans/accounts you'd like to link to the parent account. Once you've linked the loans/accounts, you'll be brought to the main account link page where you can begin managing all of your child accounts.

Managing Linked Accounts

The account link page is separated into three sections: Summary, Main Account, and Linked Accounts.

The Summary card gives you a quick glance at how all of your linked accounts are doing with the following values: 

Main Account

The Main Account section provides information on the parent account, such as the Total Balance, Available Credit, Next Due Date, Last Statement Date, Days Past Due and Amount Past Due. If you are viewing the account link page from one of the child accounts, clicking the Main Account's display ID will take you directly to that line-of-credit account. 

Linked Accounts

The Linked Accounts section will show you a table for the linked loan accounts and line-of-credit accounts, which you can switch between by clicking the ‘Loans’ and ‘Lines of Credit’ tabs above the table.

If you want to ‘Edit’ or ‘Delete' an account, you can do this by clicking the pencil or trash icon on the right side of each listing. Clicking ‘Edit’ will bring up a window where you can edit the linking settings for the account. 

Depending on which account type you choose, you'll be able to select the following options:

If you have a large list of linked accounts, you can filter your search by Display ID, Days Past Due, Amount Past Due, and Status. For loan accounts, there are additional filters for the Contract Date and whether it has a Portfolio. For line-of-credit accounts, you can also filter by the Open Date. 

If you want to link additional accounts to the parent line-of-credit, you can click the 'Link Account' button on the right side of the page in either the 'Loans' or ‘Line of Credit’ tab.