SPARK 8.1.7 Release Notes & Webinar

The SPARK 8.1.7 release is planned for Saturday, April 26th. This update includes significant improvements to Automated Packages and Document Analysis. The maintenance window will occur from 11:00 PM CT on Saturday, April 26th through 9:00 AM CT on Sunday, April 27th.

Please join us for a release webinar on Thursday, April 24th at 11:00 AM CT, where you can see a demonstration and ask questions about the content of this release. Sign up for the release webinar using this link.

What's New

Improved Automated Packages

We've significantly improved Automated Packages, enabling lenders to leverage tax return data to automatically create Businesses, Individuals, and ownership details, generate Income Statements and Balance Sheets for Businesses, and produce Cash Flow Statements for Individuals.

Create a Package and Invite the Primary Contact

When an applicant is assigned upon creation of an Automated Package, they are invited to SPARK and receive an Information Request to upload tax documentation.

Invite Additional Individuals

Lenders can add additional Individuals to the Automated Package. Each Individual is invited to the Package and assigned an Information Request to upload their tax documents.

Review Tax Documentation

Lenders can review uploaded documentation from each Individual and choose to accept or reject the provided files.

Submit for Tax Return Analysis

Lenders can submit up to 10 tax documents, each ≤10 MB, for analysis once all tax documentation is received.

Issue Resolution

After analysis, SPARK highlights validation issues that must be resolved before converting to a full Package, along with confidence issues for tax return fields below the set threshold, which can be addressed individually.

Customize Included Entities and Tax Forms

Lenders can select which Businesses, Owners, Individuals, and financial statements - Income Statement, Balance Sheet, or Guarantor Cash Flow - to include in the Package.

Internal Assignment of Automated Packages

Lenders can now assign Automated Packages to themselves by uploading up to 10 tax return documents for analysis by SPARK.

Improved Tax Return Analysis

We've also made significant enhancements to tax return analysis in SPARK. These updates streamline the entire process - from submitting analysis requests to reviewing detailed extraction results - making it easier than ever to review the results of an analysis. With improved submission options, historical tracking, clear notifications, and intuitive navigation between extracted entities, users can efficiently address validation errors and confidence issues, ensuring a smoother and more effective review workflow.

Submit Tax Return Analysis Requests

You can now analyze tax returns from the Document Listing; however, it's still accessible from the Global Action Menu. This streamlined process minimizes navigation steps, enabling users to quickly submit tax returns for analysis without leaving the current view.

View Historical Analysis Requests

The Document Listing now displays a history of all Document Analysis Requests. This feature provides a timeline of past analyses, making it easier to review previous submissions and monitor changes over time.

Timely Alerts & Notifications

Enhanced alerting mechanisms now inform users immediately when a Document Analysis completes. With clear, timely notifications, you can review results as soon as they’re available, ensuring no delays in your workflow.

Enhanced Summary of Analysis Results

The analysis review workflow now includes a comprehensive summary of all extracted entities, including Businesses, Owners, Individuals, Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and personal tax returns. This consolidated view simplifies the review process and helps you quickly assess the overall analysis results.

Increased Visibility into Validation Errors & Confidence Issues

We’ve improved the display of validation errors and confidence issues that require human review. Detailed indicators and clear messages help pinpoint exact areas needing attention, making it easier to understand and address discrepancies.

Improved Reviewing and Updating of Financial Information

Tax return line items are now aligned in a more intuitive manner, complemented by an enhanced PDF preview that provides a clearer view of financial data. Improved PDF field highlighting makes it easier to quickly review financial details.

Accessible Resolution of Confidence Issues

Users can now resolve confidence issues directly within the analysis interface. This hands-on resolution capability streamlines the process of correcting issues, allowing for a smoother workflow and more accurate final outputs.

Link Existing Individuals and Businesses

We have enhanced support for repeat customers by allowing you to link existing Individuals and Businesses with the flexibility to choose between using the information stored in SPARK or the data extracted from the tax return.

Intuitive Navigation Between Extracted Entities

Navigation through the various entities extracted by Document Analysis has been revamped for a more intuitive experience. Quickly switch between Businesses, Owners, Individuals, and tax returns with ease, reducing time spent searching for key information.

Support for Schedule L / Balance Sheet

SPARK now supports extracting Schedule L from 1120, 1120-S, and 1065 tax forms, allowing lenders to automatically spread a balance sheet. Like our Income Statement spreading, only one Balance Sheet template per tax return is currently supported. This feature must be enabled in your SPARK instance. If you're interested in enabling this feature, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Document Analysis Throttling

We have introduced throttling based on your subscription tier. Standard SPARK customers can submit up to 50 Document Analysis Requests per month, while Premium customers can submit up to 100 per month. Once your monthly limit is reached, new Document Analysis Requests will be blocked until the next month.

What's Changed

Ownership Percentage Validation

We’ve updated our ownership validations to ensure that the combined ownership of borrowers and co-borrowers identified as first-level principals is at least 81%. 1st level principal entity owners and operating company guarantors also require the same ≥81% threshold. This change impacts SPARK's standard SBA Ownership Validator and our E-Tran Submission validations.

This change was included in a hotfix and is related to the SBA's Policy Notice 5000-86574 that went into effect on March 7th.

Citizenship SBA Eligibility Section

Under the new requirements, SBA-backed financing is now limited to Businesses with 100% beneficial ownership by U.S. citizens, U.S. Nationals, or Lawful Permanent Residents. No ownership from Individuals lacking these statuses is permitted.

Updated Eligibility Questions:

• Question 1: “Is the applicant Business 100% owned and controlled by U.S. citizens?” will now only auto-answer if 100% ownership is documented, though lenders can override the answer.

• Question 2 (Displayed if Question 1 is answered No): “Is the applicant Business 100% owned by citizens, U.S. Nationals, and/or those with lawful permanent resident status from USCIS?”

This change was included in a hotfix and is related to the SBA's Policy Notice 5000-86574 that went into effect on March 7th.

New SBA Form 1919

The SBA released an updated version of Form 1919 in response to Executive Order 14168.

This change was included in a hotfix and is related to SBA's Information Notice 5000-865585 that went into effect on March 19th.

Date of Birth Required for E-Tran Submission

The E-Tran validation rules have been updated to require a Date of Birth for all Individuals sent to E-Tran. This includes Individual Co-Borrowers, Individual Owners of Business borrowers (first-level principals), Individual Owners of operating company Guarantors in EPC/OC transactions, secondary principals, and Individual Guarantors. Now, any Individual in these roles missing a Date of Birth will trigger a validation error when attempting to submit to E-Tran.

This change was included in a hotfix and is related to the SBA's Policy Notice 5000-866054 that went into effect on March 27th.

SBA Eligibility for Environmental Policies and Procedures

A new eligibility question was added to the E-Tran submission to certify that lenders will comply with the SBA's Environmental Policies and Procedures in SOP 50 10:

"Lender certifies that it will comply with SBA’s Environmental Policies and Procedures in SOP 50 10. If this loan is being processed under non-delegated authority, Lender certifies that if the project includes real Property, and the Property is Contaminated, Lender will not disburse the loan unless the Environmental Investigation and the Environmental Investigation Report(s) have been approved by SBA. Note: Capitalized terms are defined terms in SOP 50 10."

This change was included in a hotfix and is related to the SBA's Policy Notice 5000-866054 that went into effect on March 28th.

Updated UI for Delete, Withdraw, Decline, and Restore Package Actions

We've enhanced the look and feel of these actions to align with standard SPARK design patterns, while the underlying functionality remains unchanged.

Updated Descriptions of Tax Return Strategies

The descriptions we used for our Tax Return Strategies were out of date. They have been updated as follows:

• Tax Return Strategy: A specific strategy for tax returns that generates placeholder(s) for all Individual principals and for new or existing Businesses that are borrowers, lessees, guarantors, affiliates, or sellers.

• Tax Return Strategy for Applicants and Guarantors: A specific strategy for tax returns that generates placeholder(s) for all Individual principals and for new or existing Businesses that are borrowers, lessees, or guarantors.

Entity Owner History Form Name Change

We've updated the form name from "Entity Owner History" to "Business History" to better reflect its use for Businesses that are not necessarily entity owners.

2024 RMA Dataset

RMA data for 2024 is now available in Financial Analysis. All new financial analyses will default to the 2024 dataset, while existing analyses continue to use the originally assigned year.

Referral Partner API Updates

• Refer Package includes productTypeId: Referral Partner API users can now specify a product type when referring a Package. The productTypeId must be valid for the referral partner, and if omitted, the first enabled product associated with the referral partner is used.

• List Package Documents: Retrieves all document placeholders for a Package along with their metadata.

• Get Package Document: Retrieves a specific document placeholder for a Package, including its metadata.

• Download Package Document: Downloads a file previously uploaded to the referred Package, permitted only if the referral partner originally uploaded the file.

• Remove Document: Removes a file attached to a document placeholder, but only if the referral partner user uploaded it.

• Upload Document: Uploads a new file to an existing document placeholder.

• List Referral Team Members: Lists all referral partner users who have access to the Package.

• Get Referral Team Member: Retrieves details of a specific referral partner team member with access to the Package.

• Add Referral Team Member: Adds a referral partner team member to the Package, provided the new member is associated with the same referral company.

• Remove Referral Team Member: Removes an existing referral partner team member.

Note: These endpoints are part of v3 of the SPARK API.

Eligibility Code for SBA Community Advantage Loans

The SBA removed Eligibility Code 101 for SBA 7(a) Community Advantage Loans which triggered an E-Tran error. As part of a hotfix on April 10th, we are no longer sending this code to E-Tran.

What's Been Fixed

• New E-Tran Eligibility Question: Fixed an issue by adding a required E-Tran code that represents the "No Beneficial Owner is an ineligible person. Ineligible persons include, but are not limited to, foreign nationals, those granted asylum, refugees, visa holders, non-immigrant aliens under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15), those under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and undocumented aliens who are in the U.S. illegally." question in E-Tran. This change was included in a hotfix.

• Lumos PRIME+ Automation: The PRIME+ Automation Activity was updated to honor the age of the last report, allowing lenders to rely on the existing report instead of triggering a new request. This change was included in a hotfix.

• Excel Export of Product Document Placeholder Configuration: We updated this Excel export to exclude Document Placeholders that are globally disabled. This change was included in a hotfix.

• Required Guarantors within SBA Eligibility: Updated the logic to exclude ESOP/Trust Businesses from the "Required Guarantors" evaluation in SBA Eligibility. This change was included in a hotfix.

• Companion Package Guaranty Fee Calculation: We addressed an issue where SPARK was including a USDA loan amount as part of the companion guaranty fee calculation. Now only SBA products are included in the companion guaranty fee calculation. This was resolved in a hotfix.

• Entity Owner History Tab Visibility: We fixed an issue where the "Entity Owner History" tab was visible on Packages that didn't have an Entity Owner History form defined.

• View Deleted Placeholders in Document Listing: We updated the display to show a count of (0) when no placeholders have been deleted, clarifying why the option is disabled.

• Controlling Visibility of Specific Consolidated Pro Forma Balance Sheet Periods: We fixed an issue where users were unable to control the visibility of a specific period for a pro forma balance sheet on a consolidated analysis.

• Companion Package Team: We fixed an issue where selected package team members were not being assigned upon Companion Package creation.

• Lumos PRIME+: We resolved the following issues identified in our Lumos PRIME+ integration: Collateral will no longer be passed as "false" all the time, Prediction Explanations are no longer inverted, and Loss Given Default has been fixed.

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.