What Are Touches Per Submission?
Touches per submission tracks the number of human interactions needed to process a packet from intake to decision. These touches can include opening emails, renaming files, checking for missing pages, entering data into the CRM, or sending follow-up messages.
In MCA and small business lending, this metric is important because high submission volumes mean small inefficiencies add up. Operators use it to identify how many keystrokes or clicks are required before underwriting can start.
How Do Touches Per Submission Work?
Touches per submission are measured by counting interactions across the workflow.
- Initial handling: Staff open an email or portal submission and save the documents.
- Document prep: Files are renamed, sorted, or checked for missing pages.
- Data entry: Key fields such as applicant name or bank balances are typed into the CRM.
- Follow-ups: Staff sends emails requesting missing documents or clarifying details.
- Final routing: The completed packet is moved to underwriting.
In Heron, touches per submission drop dramatically because automation completes most steps.
- Automated capture: Submissions are pulled from inboxes without anyone opening them.
- Auto-scrubbing: Heron checks for completeness, duplicates, and risk signals automatically.
- CRM write-back: Clean data fields are written into the CRM in real time.
- Exception routing: Only flagged cases require a human review, reducing touches to near zero for clean packets.
This changes the workflow from several manual interactions per submission to just one review when needed.
Why Are Touches Per Submission Important?
For brokers and funders, touches per submission show how much labor is being spent on intake. High touch counts mean teams are overloaded with low-value work like copying and pasting or chasing missing documents.
Reducing touches lowers costs, speeds up decisions, and allows teams to scale deal flow without hiring more staff. With Heron, brokers and funders can reallocate staff to underwriting and client relationships instead of repetitive processing.
Common Use Cases
Touches per submission are reduced in everyday workflows when automation takes over repetitive steps.
- Eliminating manual data entry by writing parsed fields directly into the CRM.
- Reducing repeated email handling by auto-forwarding submissions to Heron.
- Cutting duplicate reviews by catching and removing repeated packets.
- Removing the need to manually rename or organize files.
- Limiting human involvement to exception handling only.
FAQs About Touches per Submission
How does Heron lower touches per submission?
Heron automates the intake, scrubbing, and CRM updates, leaving only exceptions for human review. This eliminates repetitive actions like opening emails, typing data, and renaming files.
What outputs can teams track to measure touches per submission?
Teams can monitor the average number of interactions per packet before and after automation. Metrics include email opens, data entry actions, and follow-up messages, all of which should drop sharply with Heron.
Why is reducing touches per submission valuable?
Lowering touches frees staff from repetitive processing and allows them to focus on underwriting and funding. It also improves consistency by reducing human error and speeds up deal cycles.