What Is a Decision Email?
A decision email contains the results of the underwriting review and is a core part of the MCA and small business lending workflow. These emails typically state whether a deal is approved, declined, or requires conditions before moving forward.
Decision emails appear whenever a broker or ISO submits a packet to a funder and receives a formal response. Operators use them to update CRM records, trigger follow-ups, and keep the pipeline current.
Some teams may call them “approval emails” or “decline notices,” but the decision email is the broader term since it covers all possible outcomes.
How Does Decision Email Work?
At a general level, decision emails flow through these steps:
- Input: A funder sends an email with the outcome of an application, including terms like amount, rate, or repayment schedule.
- Core action: The broker or team member reads the message to determine the decision and any conditions.
- Output: Deal status is updated, and action is taken to move the deal forward or close it out.
- Follow-on: If approved, the team proceeds to funding steps. If declined, the broker may move the deal to another funder.
In Heron’s workflow, decision emails are automatically parsed and structured:
- Intake: Emails arrive in shared inboxes such as underwriting@ and flow into Heron.
- Scrub/Checks: Heron identifies the outcome (approved, declined, or conditional) and extracts terms like offer amount, repayment period, and stipulations.
- Write-Back: Structured data, such as deal status, funding amount, and decision date, is written into the CRM.
- Next Action: Approved deals move to underwriting or funding, declined deals close out, and conditional deals trigger a stip request or follow-up.
Heron makes sure decision emails update records in seconds, removing the need for manual copying and pasting.
Why Is a Decision Email Important?
For brokers and funders, decision emails are critical because they communicate the outcome of every deal. Without timely updates, deals stall, brokers lose visibility, and underwriters waste time chasing missing details.
Heron automates this step, which reduces turnaround time, improves accuracy in CRM records, and prevents important decisions from being buried in inboxes. For brokers and funders, decision emails reduce manual rekeying and make sure every outcome is logged clearly.
Common Use Cases
Decision emails play a central role in deal management.
- Updating deal status automatically when a funder approves or declines an application.
- Capturing offer amounts and repayment terms directly from emails.
- Recording stipulations so the team knows what documents are required.
- Triggering next steps like moving a deal to funding or sending a stip request back to the broker.
- Closing out declined deals quickly to focus on new opportunities.
FAQs About Decision Email
How does the decision email reduce manual work for brokers/funders?
Decision emails often contain multiple details that would normally be copied into a CRM by hand. Heron parses these automatically and writes them back into structured fields, saving hours of manual data entry.
Where in the Heron workflow does the decision email happen?
Decision emails are part of the intake stage but directly influence the write-back and next action steps. Heron captures the decision, updates the CRM, and routes the deal to the correct queue automatically.
What outputs should teams expect from decision emails?
Teams receive structured CRM updates, such as status (approved, declined, conditional), offer amount, repayment terms, and stip requirements. This keeps records clean and ready for underwriting or funding.