Our Approach and review methods
SBorgerson Consulting Services plays a different role and uses a different approach and review method than most Banking Consulting firms use. Auditors, and 3rd Party Compliance Companies, offer valuable and needed services with different goals. Similarly, Management Consultants can provide a valuable and needed service, most however, also use a different approach and use different methods for their review.
The single most striking difference between SBorgerson Consulting Services and most banking consultants’ services is the final report and work product. What differentiates our services from others is that our consultations are not high-level reviews from the clouds; our consultation is a deep dive into the data and output from your various systems. We look deep in the weeds with a goal of not just identifying deficiencies and weaknesses, but root causes and then recommend a corrective action plan. We can find systemic issues and identify the cause of the problem, typically a core system setting, or system loan product setting. We will look for and recommend a solution that remediates the issue at its core, preventing the issue from happening again with other loans.
The “deep dive” approach is used with all our reviews. We look deep into the data to understand the output and work product from your systems, procedures, and/or practices. For example, during a Loan Servicing Deep Dive Review, we look at
● current reports and transactions, both the core and General Ledger transactions.
● system settings
● loan notes and test loans, and
● root causes of deficiencies.
In a budget consultation we don’t pull numbers from a 10-year-old spreadsheet, we use the same approach, a deep dive. For example, when assisting an institution with budgeting their interest income:
● We look at the activity in the GLs to determine if they are appropriate for the loan and
loan transactions.
● We look at your P&L and factor in the amortization and payoffs.
● We perform a sampling review where we look at a loan note to make sure the income
booked is what it should be.
● We look at the Deferred Fee activity and transactions.
Only with this approach can you accurately estimate interest income and find weaknesses in your servicing settings that impact your revenue. Our interest income budget review also provides detailed information on your cash flow and cash position.
Having spent 30+ years managing the lending areas of local Banks and Credit Unions, most of which were smaller institutions, Steve Borgerson, the Founder of SBorgerson Consulting, has done every task associated with Originating and Serving a loan. He has spent his career looking at system settings, reading loan Notes and Loan Agreements, watching loan activity go through the core system and the accounting GL systems. He uses his eyes, knowledge, and experience, to identify and remediate system or procedural flaws, flaws that would result in regulatory or audit findings.
One takeaway from his many years in the lending arena is that every institution he has worked at, at some point in time, has had staffing issues. Poor or untrained staff members, regardless of whether they are past or present employees, almost always play a role in audit findings. Errors made in the past do not correct themselves when the person who made the error leaves the institution. Those errors remain behind the scenes and cause audit findings for years into the future. Many of these errors also lead to a recurring loss of interest income.
We are here and available to help ensure your institution’s future success.
