- DATE:
- AUTHOR:
- The SPARK team
SPARK 7.9.8 Release Notes
The SPARK 7.9.8 release is planned for Sunday, December 17th. This update includes support for E-Tran Compliance Pre-Check, minor updates to SBA Eligibility for SOP 50 10 7.1, and Product-specific snippets. The maintenance window will occur from 9:00 PM CT on Sunday, December 17th through midnight CT on Monday, December 18th.
What's New
E-Tran Compliance Pre-Check
This release includes support for the Pre-Check API in SPARK. This will allow customers to Pre-Check a package before submitting it to E-Tran. For packages under $500,000, lenders must choose whether to run a Pre-Check or SLA score the package, since the SBA does not permit both. Please reach out to your CSM if you would like to enable support for the Pre-Check.
Dashboard Drill-down
On any screen in SPARK that includes a river chart visual, such as dashboards, users can now click a stage in the chart to view a list of packages in that stage. From that list, they can take action on packages or select other stages in the river chart to view. This update has been applied to:
Personal Dashboards
Manager Dashboards
Executive Dashboards
Lead Dashboards
Referral Partner Detail for Lenders
Homepage for Referral Partners
Affiliate Cash Flow in DSC
Affiliate Businesses can now be included in the Global and Pro Forma DSCs under Debt Service Settings. Additionally, the management of Cash Flow Participants has been moved to Debt Service Settings.
Individuals can be included in DSCs that have the following sub accounts: Personal Income, Personal Debt, and/or Personal Cash Flow. Businesses can be included in DSCs that have the following sub accounts: Affiliate Income, Affiliate Debt, and/or Affiliate Cash Flow.
Product-Specific Snippets
Snippets can now be created for specific products. By default, all of your existing Snippets will be available within any package regardless of the product. When adding or updating a Snippet, you'll be able to choose which products are applicable.
Additional Automation Triggers
We've added two additional triggers for running automation workflows. It is now possible to have a workflow run when a package changes to a specific stage and when a package is manually created.
API Updates
Although our package extract API endpoint has been available for a while, we've added schema documentation as well as details related to the various SPARK data types available within the API. Three new endpoints were also introduced to provide the full list of collateral types, source types, and use types available within your instance of SPARK.
What's Changed
SBA SOP 50 10 7.1
We've added a new SOP for 50 10 7.1. SBA loan packages not yet sent to the SBA will default to the new SOP. We've made the following changes to our eligibility sections based on the revisions in the SOP.
General Eligibility - We updated the verbiage and instructions for loans that have received an unacceptable SLA score.
Occupancy / Leasing - The Occupancy / Leasing section will now be available for debt refinance.
Refinance
We added a new question to ensure that the debt being refinanced is current.
We added a new set of questions within the Same Institution Debt sub-section regarding credit exposure.
We removed the SBA Refinance sub-section within refinance as it is no longer applicable.
Size Standards - We have removed the EPC / OC question regarding affiliation for new loan packages.
Credit Available Elsewhere - We have removed the question regarding the liquidity of owners.
Negative Spreads for Variable Rate Loans
SPARK now supports entering a negative spread for loan terms with a variable rate.
Proxy Approvals and Documentation
It is now possible to upload documentation when approving a decision request on behalf of someone else. By default, the name of the document placeholder is "Supporting Documentation for Recorded Decision," however, it can be renamed as needed.
Read-only Tasks & Enhancements to Dashboard Tasks
Users who do not have the permission ‘Can Manage All Tasks’ can now click into a Task to see a read-only summary. On Dashboard Task Lists, All users also have access to Task shortcuts via a more (…) menu on the Task list row, e.g. Assign to Me, Delete Task.
Flood Insurance Tooltip
We've updated the flood insurance tooltip to "If an SBA Lender is taking the business real estate as collateral, and if the loan proceeds are being used to refinance, acquire, install, improve, construct, or renovate real estate and/or machinery and equipment, the loan recipient must obtain flood insurance on the collateral and its contents if it is located in a special flood hazard area."
Document Upload Improvements throughout SPARK
We’ve updated various legacy document upload processes throughout SPARK to use our standard document upload function that is used on our Document Listing:
Applicant Equity Tracking
Applicant Forgiveness Application
CAIVRS
Disbursement Manager
Equity Tracking
Franchise Analysis
Lender Forgiveness Application
Loan Authorization
Modifications
SBA Eligibility
What's Been Fixed
Withdrawing / Declining Packages - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue of declining or withdrawing packages that originated as a "legacy" web lead.
User IP Tracking and API Requests - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue with API authentication. We track IP Addresses for every user that authenticates to SPARK including API users and the way we were tracking API authentication requests caused a performance issue.
E-Tran and Interest Only Payments - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue with our E-Tran mapping to send the term of the loan when the payment type is interest only.
Cash Flow Improvement Calculation - A hotfix was deployed to improve how we handle the SBA Eligibility cash flow improvement calculation for debt schedule entries using non-monthly payments.
Trailing Space after Primary Contact Name on Generated PDFs - A hotfix was deployed to remove a trailing space that was visible after contact names in generated PDFs.
Closing Statement PDF - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue with how the PDF of SPARK's closing statement was generated.
Payment Calculation for Referred Packages - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue with SPARK's payment calculation for products configured with a default term, reference rate, and spread. The initial payment amount that was calculated was incorrect.
External Document Placeholder and "External Stage" - A hotfix was deployed to hide placeholders that are externally facing when the placeholder is configured to only show the placeholder once the package reaches a certain master stage.
Deleting Collateral tied to Auto-generated To Do Tasks - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue where collateral could not be removed when it was associated to a to do task that was automatically created.
Generating Forms on Checklists - The generate forms button on checklists has been updated to only include forms that are available on the checklist.
Non-SBA Products and SBA Eligibility - SBA Eligibility should now work consistently on non-SBA products.
Find Out More
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If you have any feedback or questions about this release, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email us at support@lendwithspark.com. Your feedback will help us make SPARK the best loan origination software in the market!