What Are Policy Checks?
Policy checks are automated validations against a funder’s internal criteria. In MCA and small business lending, these may include rules about revenue levels, time in business, minimum daily balances, or restricted industries.
By applying these rules upfront, teams prevent unqualified deals from entering the underwriting queue.
Policy checks typically appear at the scrubbing stage, once the packet is captured and parsed. Operators use them to make sure deals align with appetite before investing time in a deeper review.
How Do Policy Checks Work?
Policy checks follow a clear flow that saves time and reduces wasted effort.
- Rule definition: The funder defines eligibility criteria such as revenue thresholds, acceptable industries, or account health requirements.
- Submission review: Each packet is checked against these criteria as soon as it arrives.
- Pass/fail outcome: If the deal meets the rules, it proceeds; if not, it is flagged or removed.
- Follow-up action: Declined submissions are either closed out or sent back to brokers with a quick notice.
Heron automates policy checks within its scrubbing process.
- Automated intake: Submissions are pulled in from email, portal, or API.
- Rule application: Heron applies eligibility and appetite logic, such as revenue minimums or negative balance flags.
- Structured outputs: The system writes a “policy check pass” or “policy check fail” result into the CRM with details.
- Next step: Passes move directly to underwriting, while fails trigger decline emails or exception queues.
This makes sure policy rules are applied consistently and early in the workflow.
Why Are Policy Checks Important?
For brokers and funders, policy checks prevent wasted time. Without them, underwriters may spend hours reviewing deals that never qualified in the first place.
Automating this step ensures speed, accuracy, and scale. It improves turnaround time by routing only eligible deals forward and strengthens broker relationships by giving quick, consistent answers.
Common Use Cases
Policy checks are applied across high-volume deal flow.
- Screening out submissions from ineligible industries.
- Rejecting deals with insufficient monthly revenue.
- Flagging applicants with repeated overdrafts or excessive NSFs.
- Filtering out packets missing the required time-in-business.
- Applying appetite rules to route only viable deals to underwriting.
FAQs About Policy Checks
How does Heron automate policy checks?
Heron applies funder-defined rules to incoming packets during scrubbing. Results are written into the CRM automatically so that only qualified deals advance.
What outputs should teams expect from policy checks?
Teams see structured results such as pass/fail indicators, flagged risk signals, and notes on why a submission was blocked. This makes sure decisions are clear and traceable.
Why are policy checks important for efficiency?
They prevent underwriters from wasting time on unqualified deals. By filtering early, teams maintain faster turnaround times and reduce operational costs.