What Is Appetite Screening?
Appetite screening means evaluating incoming submissions against a funder’s preferred deal profile. In MCA and small business lending, this may include revenue levels, time in business, daily balance requirements, or acceptable industries.
Submissions that fall outside of appetite are flagged early, saving underwriters from wasting time on deals that cannot be funded.
Appetite screening typically appears during the scrubbing stage, when data from applications and bank statements is first structured. Operators use it to make sure deals are routed appropriately before deeper review begins.
How Does Appetite Screening Work?
Appetite screening works by applying funder-defined rules against structured submission data.
- Criteria definition: Funders set thresholds such as minimum monthly deposits, negative balance limits, or restricted industries.
- Automated evaluation: Each submission is checked against those thresholds.
- Result classification: Deals are marked as “in appetite” or “out of appetite.”
- Next step routing: Submissions in appetite advance to underwriting, while out-of-appetite submissions are declined or rerouted.
In Heron, appetite screening is embedded directly in the scrubbing process.
- Data capture: Submissions arrive via email, portal, or API and flow into Heron.
- Automated scrubbing: Heron parses key fields such as average daily balance, revenue, and industry.
- Rule application: Appetite rules are applied instantly to those fields.
- CRM write-back: Results such as “in appetite” or “out of appetite” are logged in the CRM with details on why.
- Action trigger: Out-of-appetite deals can auto-generate decline notices, while qualifying deals move directly to underwriting queues.
This makes sure funder rules are applied consistently at scale, without manual review.
Why Is Appetite Screening Important?
For brokers and funders, appetite screening ensures resources are not wasted. Without it, underwriters spend hours reviewing deals that were never eligible, creating delays and higher costs.
By automating appetite screening, Heron speeds up decision-making, improves accuracy, and helps teams handle surges in volume without slowing down. It also strengthens broker relationships by providing faster answers on whether deals fit.
Common Use Cases
Appetite screening is applied daily to keep the deal flow efficient.
- Flagging submissions with insufficient monthly revenue.
- Filtering out deals from ineligible industries.
- Declining submissions with excessive NSFs or overdrafts.
- Routing only in-appetite deals to underwriting.
- Logging out-of-appetite results automatically in the CRM for reporting.
FAQs About Appetite Screening
How does Heron automate appetite screening?
Heron applies funder-defined rules as part of scrubbing, comparing key fields against appetite criteria. This step happens instantly, without manual review.
What outputs should teams expect from appetite screening?
Teams see structured CRM results that show whether a deal is in appetite or out of appetite, along with the specific reason, such as insufficient revenue or restricted industry.
Why is appetite screening valuable to brokers and funders?
It saves underwriters from spending time on ineligible deals, improves turnaround times, and keeps operations focused only on submissions that have a chance of being funded.