Cash flow statements show how money moves in and out of a business, capturing operating, investing, and financing activities that reflect financial health. For MCA brokers and funders, these statements reveal repayment capacity, liquidity strength, and cash management behavior.
However, collecting and managing them manually creates bottlenecks in underwriting pipelines.
Heron automates the intake of cash flow statements from multiple submission sources. Whether received via email, portal upload, or API, Heron captures the document, identifies it as a cash flow statement, and moves it seamlessly into the funding workflow.
This eliminates manual sorting, renaming, and routing, ensuring that every document lands in the right place—fast, accurate, and ready for scrubbing.
Automating intake transforms what was once a repetitive administrative step into a high-speed entry point for underwriting, creating smoother handoffs between brokers, funders, and operations teams.
Use Cases
- Capture submissions from shared inboxes: Heron automatically ingests cash flow statements sent to addresses like “underwriting@” or “submissions@.”
- Normalize formats: Different brokers send cash flow statements in varied layouts. Heron standardizes filenames, metadata, and document order.
- Auto-route to appropriate queues: Based on content and broker source, documents are sent to the right underwriting or validation team.
- Trigger next steps: Once received, Heron automatically sends the file to scrubbing or validation, removing manual forwarding.
- Attach to CRM records: Documents are linked directly to the correct merchant, ISO, or deal record.
- Identify duplicates: If the same statement is submitted twice, Heron flags it before processing.
These use cases help funders handle higher submission volumes without overloading staff or delaying funding timelines.
Operational Impact
Automated intake drives measurable efficiency improvements across all submission channels.
- Speed: Cash flow statements enter the pipeline immediately upon arrival.
- Accuracy: File matching prevents duplicates and mislabeling.
- Scalability: Teams handle larger submission spikes without manual triage.
- Consistency: Standardized intake eliminates variation in naming, routing, and tracking.
- Transparency: Every document is timestamped and logged for audit and traceability.
Heron replaces slow inbox management with real-time, automated intake that keeps underwriting queues consistently supplied and up to date.
Data Flow and Routing Logic
Heron’s intake engine is built for flexibility and precision across multiple input sources.
- Email ingestion: Brokers and ISOs forward cash flow statements directly to designated intake addresses that sync with Heron.
- Portal uploads: Files uploaded through partner or broker portals are automatically detected and queued for processing.
- API submissions: Integrated partners can push documents directly into Heron’s API, enabling zero-touch submission.
- File classification: Once captured, Heron identifies the document type, validates its naming structure, and tags it as a cash flow statement.
- Routing: The system determines which queue or user group should handle the file next: scrubbing, validation, or underwriting.
- Error handling: Invalid or incomplete submissions generate alerts, routing them to exception queues for manual correction.
This framework guarantees that every document moves through the correct operational path without the risk of loss or duplication.
Governance and Data Integrity
Heron’s intake process supports strict control and oversight, essential for financial institutions.
- Audit logging: Every incoming document is recorded with sender details, timestamp, and source.
- Access control: Only authorized personnel can view or move sensitive financial statements.
- SOC 2 alignment: Heron’s intake framework meets recognized data handling and privacy standards.
- Exception tracking: Documents failing to meet submission criteria are flagged for follow-up.
- Version control: When updated statements arrive, the system keeps prior versions accessible but clearly labeled as superseded.
- Monitoring dashboards: Operations teams can monitor submission volumes, latency, and completeness in real time.
These controls keep the entire document pipeline transparent, traceable, and compliant with financial industry expectations.
Cross-Document Alignment
Cash flow statements rarely exist in isolation—they often arrive alongside balance sheets or profit and loss statements. Heron’s intake logic groups these documents automatically.
- Automatic grouping: Related files from the same submission are bundled together.
- Broker tagging: Files are linked to the broker or ISO who sent them for contextual tracking.
- Chronological order: Multi-period statements are labeled and ordered automatically by date.
- Packet creation: The grouped documents become a single underwriting-ready packet.
- Status synchronization: Updates in Heron’s system immediately reflect in the CRM record.
This cross-linking prevents misalignment and gives underwriters a complete financial context in one view.
Implementation Best Practices
Teams can adopt intake automation efficiently by following these steps.
- Redirect shared inboxes: Forward existing underwriting and submissions inboxes to Heron’s intake addresses.
- Define routing rules: Set up automatic logic for queue assignment by broker, volume, or program type.
- Monitor the first submissions: Verify successful classification and routing of early test cases.
- Connect CRM systems: Enable write-back so that received files immediately attach to merchant records.
- Review intake dashboards weekly: Track performance metrics and identify any submission anomalies.
- Scale intake volume gradually: Expand to include additional document types once cash flow statements run smoothly.
Following this rollout process ensures consistent adoption across all teams and minimizes friction.
Benefits of Using Heron for Intake of Cash Flow Statements
- Speed: Instant capture and routing replace hours of manual inbox management.
- Accuracy: Intelligent classification ensures correct document tagging and placement.
- Scalability: Handles high submission loads without additional staff.
- Transparency: Real-time tracking and audit logs create operational clarity.
- Reliability: No lost, misplaced, or duplicated submissions.
Heron’s intake automation transforms an operational bottleneck into a continuous, self-managing pipeline that keeps underwriting flowing smoothly and predictably.
FAQs About Intake for Cash Flow Statements
How does Heron identify a cash flow statement?
Heron uses content-based classification to detect document type automatically, recognizing headers and structure that distinguish cash flow statements from other financial documents.
Can Heron handle multiple submissions from the same broker?
Yes. Each submission is timestamped and tagged with broker metadata. If multiple statements arrive for the same merchant, Heron keeps the latest while preserving older versions for audit.
What happens if a submission is incomplete or corrupted?
Heron detects incomplete or unreadable documents and flags them in the system. A missing-info request is automatically sent to the broker to provide the correct file.
How quickly does intake occur after a broker sends a statement?
Intake begins instantly once the file arrives via email, portal, or API. For most documents, classification and routing are completed within seconds.
How does intake automation help underwriting teams?
By keeping the CRM populated with up-to-date documents and eliminating manual steps, underwriting teams can focus on analysis and decision-making instead of file management.
