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DATE:
AUTHOR:
The SPARK team
RELATED ROADMAP ITEMS:
Generate To Do Tasks based on Master Stage
Release Notes Administration General Updates SBA

SPARK 8.1.1 Release Notes

DATE:
AUTHOR: The SPARK team
RELATED ROADMAP ITEMS: Generate To Do Tasks based on Master Stage

The SPARK 8.1.1 release is planned for Saturday, September 7th. This update includes several changes related to E-Tran and some quality-of-life improvements. The maintenance window will occur from 11:00 PM CT on Saturday, September 7th through 9:00 AM CT on Sunday, September 8th.

What's New

E-Tran - Special Ownership Types

SPARK has been updated to support "Special Ownership Types" to align with the latest E-Tran changes introduced in July. Special Ownership Type is a new field that can be enabled on any of the following features:

  • Lead Forms - Existing lead forms will not include special ownership types by default.

  • Referral Workflow - The existing referral workflow will automatically include special ownership types. Disabling special ownership types for referral partners is not supported in this release.

  • Information Requests (Business Information Activity) - The business information activity will include the new special ownership type field by default.

  • Add / Update Business - The internal add / update business page will include the new special ownership type field by default.

In addition to the new field, we've updated our SBA Form 1919 and E-Tran mapping for business borrowers, entity owners, and business guarantors.

As part of this change, the SBA converted several legal structures to special ownership types (e.g., Joint Venture, Cooperative, ESOP, ROBS, etc.). If your instance of SPARK had a business using one of these legal structures, it will be automatically updated to have a legal structure of "Unknown" with the appropriate special ownership type. For example, if a business had a legal structure of ESOP, it will now have a legal structure of "Unknown" and a special ownership type of ESOP.

This is the list of updated Legal Structures in SPARK:

  • 501(c)19 Non-profit Veterans

  • 501(c)3 Non-profit

  • 501(c)6 Non-profit Membership

  • C Corporation

  • Government / Municipality

  • Limited Liability Company

  • Limited Partnership

  • Non-Profit Childcare Center

  • Not-for-profit Organization

  • Partnership

  • Political Sub-Division

  • Professional Association

  • S Corporation

  • Single Member LLC

  • Sole Proprietor

  • Trust

  • Unknown

This is the list of new Special Ownership Types in SPARK:

  • 401(k) or ROBS 401(k) Trust

  • Cooperative

  • ESOP

  • Housing Cooperative

  • Independent Contractor

  • Joint Venture

  • Qualified Joint-Venture

  • ROBS

  • Self-Employed

  • Tenant in Common

  • Tribal Concern

  • Trust Owning Entity

E-Tran - Reconsideration Indicator

We've updated step 1 of SPARK's E-Tran submission workflow to support sending the "reconsideration indicator". The most common scenario for submitting a loan application for reconsideration is when a non-delegated lender wants to resubmit a loan application when the SLA score is below the 155 threshold.

Generate Tasks Based on Master Stage

We've added the ability to configure "To Do" task types to be automatically created based on a master stage. This gives you more control over when a task should be created.

SPARK Invoice Reporting

We've added a new invoice report in SPARK Configuration to provide more visibility into what packages are included in a monthly invoice "batch". This report is only available to users who have the "Can View Invoice Reporting" permission. If you'd like access to the new invoice report, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

SBA Ownership Validator

A new stage change validation rule has been added to align with the SBA's ownership requirements. This new rule will require that all business borrowers have at least 51% ownership documented. Please reach out to your CSM if you'd like to update your stage configuration to use the new validation.

What's Changed

Package Team Visibility for Referral Partners

The package team that is visible to a referral partner using the Referral Partner Portal has been updated to only show team roles that have been configured to be visible to external parties - this includes both applicants and referral partners.

SBA Form 413 and Installment Accounts (Auto)

When documenting installment accounts for a personal financial statement (SBA Form 413), lenders and applicants will be required to select Auto or Other so that SPARK can map to the installment account (Auto) line item on SBA Form 413. We proactively updated historical installment account line items to reflect "Auto" or "Other" based on the content that was entered (e.g., "car loan", "auto loan", "truck loan", "ford f150", etc.).

What's Been Fixed

  • Credit Memos and Decision Requests - We reverted a recent change so that credit memos are only locked once they are considered "signed". This was changed in a hotfix.

  • Decision Requests and Approval Configurations - We deployed a hotfix to remove the ability to change the approval configuration for non-companion packages.

  • Committee Approval Section in Credit Memos - We deployed a hotfix to fix an issue where the Yes and No boxes were not being checked in a credit memo that was approved by a committee.

  • Debt Schedules for Phased Loans - We deployed a hotfix to address an issue where the debt schedule page wouldn't load when the loan was set up with two phases.

  • Document Listing Performance - We deployed a hotfix to address a performance issue in the document listing that was impacting customers who use custom commentary sections with large images.

  • Decision Tracking Validation for Committees - We deployed a hotfix to fix an issue where a committee approval could not be created due to an incorrect validation error regarding the "number of approvers" being required.

  • Searching for Tasks from To Do Panel - We deployed a hotfix to fix an issue where users were unable to search for a task from their dashboard in the Tasks to Complete panel.

  • Save Button for Memos and Letters - We reverted the behavior of the "Save" button in both the memo and letter feature so that Save stays on the same page instead of returning to the list. This was updated in a hotfix.

  • Credit Memos and Document Organization - We deployed a hotfix to fix an issue where new credit memos were not being "organized" into the appropriate view and folder on a Document Listing.

  • Shared Fees Button in Project Accounting - We deployed a hotfix to hide the "Shared Fees" button in project accounting when the package was not a companion.

  • Commentary Sections and Numbered Lists / Bulleted Lists - We fixed an issue related to the inability to turn lists off in commentary sections by toggling the respective list button (numbered / bulleted).

  • Business Ownership Table and Titles - The business ownership table in the Business Listing feature was not displaying the titles based on the legal structure of the business. All possible titles were included. This has been updated to only include titles that are valid for the selected legal structure.

  • Duplicate Businesses on a Package - We changed our duplicate check to provide a warning when someone tries to add a business that already exists on a package.

  • Prepayment Penalty Description - We fixed a bug where the custom prepayment penalty description was not getting set on non-SBA products that were configured to have a prepayment penalty by default. It would only get set when editing the terms.

Find Out More

Stay tuned for the latest features and subscribe to your favorite categories. You can view our product roadmap at any time here.

If you have any feedback or questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or submit a ticket to the SPARK Support Team. Your feedback will help us make SPARK the best loan origination software in the market!

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