What Are FTE Savings?
Full-time equivalent (FTE) savings refer to the number of staff hours that are eliminated or redirected thanks to automation. In MCA and small business lending, this usually comes from replacing manual steps like sorting inboxes, checking packet completeness, and rekeying fields into the CRM.
This concept shows up in workforce planning and ROI reporting. Operators use it to demonstrate the tangible benefits of automation by comparing headcount needs before and after deployment.
How Do FTE Savings Work?
FTE savings are calculated by measuring the time spent per task before automation and comparing it to the time after automation.
- Baseline capture: Teams track how long agents or offshore staff spend on intake, scrubbing, or rekeying.
- Automation application: Repetitive steps are automated, reducing labor needs.
- Time savings: The hours saved are tallied across submissions and scaled to full-time equivalents.
- Redeployment: Saved time can be reinvested into underwriting, broker management, or growth tasks.
In Heron, FTE savings are achieved by replacing manual intake and prep with automation.
- Automated intake: Submissions are pulled from shared inboxes without human review.
- Automated scrubbing: Completeness checks, policy checks, and fraud detection happen instantly.
- CRM write-back: Clean fields are populated without rekeying.
- Exception isolation: Only edge cases require manual touch, freeing up significant staff hours.
This transforms repetitive workload into scalable automation capacity.
Why Are FTE Savings Important?
For brokers and funders, FTE savings are important because headcount is the largest cost in operations. Without automation, teams must hire or outsource as volume grows.
Heron creates measurable FTE savings by taking on the tasks that previously consumed full-time roles. This enables teams to scale deal flow, reduce operating costs, and improve employee satisfaction by moving staff into higher-value work.
Common Use Cases
FTE savings are applied in ROI analysis and workforce optimization.
- Quantifying how many roles are repurposed after automation.
- Demonstrating ROI for executives considering automation investments.
- Showing how staff are redeployed into underwriting instead of data prep.
- Comparing headcount needs before and after workflow automation.
- Highlighting reduced dependency on offshore outsourcing.
FAQs About FTE Savings
How does Heron deliver FTE savings?
Heron automates submission intake, scrubbing, and CRM write-back, cutting out the manual hours that staff or BPO providers would otherwise spend.
Why are FTE savings valuable for MCA brokers and funders?
They show the concrete labor benefits of automation. Instead of hiring more staff to handle volume, teams can scale throughput while holding headcount steady.
What outputs should teams expect from tracking FTE savings?
Teams gain clear workforce metrics, such as roles eliminated or hours repurposed, along with improved throughput and lower cost per submission.