Product Release Notice
February 2005

The Mortgage Office™ includes fields for just about every piece of information you could want to store on a loan.  However, just in case you need something we did not include, The Mortgage Office™ now includes a special feature that enables you to create an unlimited number of user definable fields. 

User Defined Fields Screen

What is a User Defined Field? It is a place where information specific to your needs can be stored. Although the data stored in the field is specific to each file, the field becomes available in all files. For example, if you define a field named ‘Agreement Date' in the loan file, the field becomes available in all loan files, but the data stored differs from loan to loan.

User Defined Fields are Easy to Create and Use. Simply define the name of the field, the type of data that it will hold (text, currency, dates, phone numbers, e-mail address, etc.), the display formatting, and the order you want it to appear in the window. That's all!

UDFs Fully Supported by Letter Writer Assistant. Every new User Defined Field you create is also available when designing custom letters with Microsoft Word.

Sample Drop-Down Menu in Microsoft Word

This new optional module of The Mortgage Office™ fully automates the servicing and reporting requirements commonly associated with servicing and managing Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs), construction loans and revolving credit lines. It works in concert with the Loan Origination, Loan Servicing and Trust Accounting modules of The Mortgage Office™ suite of products.

Lines of Credit / HELOC Sample Screen

The following list is just a brief description of some of the features available in this new module:

• Assess finance charges and generate billing statements in a single step.
• Calculate finance charges using daily balance, average balance, highest or lowest balance.
• Supports variable and fixed rate loans, interest-only and graduated terms.
• Billing statements can be generated at any time with detailed account activity, summarized information and detailed finance charge calculation.
• Setup and monitor draw and repayment periods.
• Automatically recast payments during repayment period at regular intervals.
• Enforces minimum and maximum draw amount limits.
• Process cash advances effortlessly at any time.
• Automatically generate a check to borrower or third-party from a cash advance.
• Unlimited number of trust accounts can be maintained for cash advances.
• Accurately distribute mid-month cash advances to more than a single funding source or lender.
• Automated transaction and cash advance fees.
• Periodic account maintenance fees can be automatically assessed.

Generate Timely Billing Statements. Provide better service to your borrowers and avoid unnecessary billing questions by generating accurate and easy-to-understand statements. These multi-section statements can be generated at any time showing the account's activity for the period and complete finance charge computation detail.

Sample Statement and Assistant Steps

Process Cash Advances with Ease. The cash advance assistant will guide you through the necessary steps of processing borrower requests for cash advances including the ability to issue a check payable to the borrower or a third-party of his choosing.

Draw Cash Advance Assistant Sample Screens

For those of you that service loans with the added complexity of multiple funding sources, the assistant will accurately distribute mid-month cash advances to more than a single funding source or lender and prorate disbursements accordingly.

Management Reports. To service Home Equity Lines of Credits (HELOCs) and Revolving Credit you need accurate and timely information. The Lines of Credit / HELOC module of The Mortgage Office™ allows you to generate informative management reports at any time.

Sample Report Assistants Screen

HELOCs have become very popular with our customers over the last few months. To that end, we have developed a new HELOC add-on to the Loan Origination module. This add-on automates the origination of these types of loans.

Sample Loan Origination Line-of-Credit (HELOC)

This new module includes full support for:

• Maximum credit limit.
• Initial draw limit.
• Maximum/minimum draw limits.
• Adjustable-rate HELOCs, including margins, ceilings, floors, first and regular periodic caps, payment recalculations, and recasting.
• Monthly or quarterly billing options.
• Finance charge calculations based on average balance, daily balance, lowest balance or highest balance.
• Finance charge calculations based on 360 or 365 days per year.
• Automatic draw/transaction fee calculations.
• Automatic early closure fee calculations.
• Periodic account maintenance fee assessment.
• Late payment charges.

Support for Doss & Page HELOC Documents. This new module supports the standard set of documents developed by Dennis H. Doss of Doss & Page. This set consists of the following documents:

• Credit Line Agreement
• Declaration of Suitability
• Deed of Trust
• Important Terms
• Notice of Right to Cancel
• Oral Disclosure

Loan Origination – User Defined Fields. Support for user defined fields has also been added to the Loan Origination module. This feature adds tremendous flexibility to an already fantastic product.

Sample Loan Origination User Defined Fields

With the UDFs, you can add fields to the escrow to collect information that is unique to your types of transactions. Support for many different field types is available:

• Currency
• Dates
• Times
• Date/Times
• Yes/No (Boolean)
• Numeric
• Percents
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• URLs (website addresses)

To provide additional protection for your data you can now use a database password in addition to the user and group security available in The Mortgage Office™. This is often times desirable to prevent unauthorized direct-access to the database.

Database Password Dialog

If you use a database password, all users must enter that password before they are allowed to login to The Mortgage Office. Adding a database password is an easy way to help prevent unwanted users from opening your database directly.

A new design for the splash screen has been implemented to maintain a homogeneous look-and-feel throughout The Mortgage Office™. In addition to the standard copyright notice and license information, the product's release date and build number are also displayed.

During the application initial start-up, the splash screen fades in and out for a smoother and more pleasing transition.

Applied Business Software has launched a free desktop alerts service to deliver the latest news about The Mortgage Office™ directly to your desktop.

Sample Alert

If you want to keep a Desktop Alert visible so that you can take more time to read it, place your cursor on the alert before it fades from view. You can also move your Desktop Alerts by dragging them to a more preferable location on your desktop.

Some alerts are linked to an action or document. To open the related document of a linked alert, you must click on the message area. You will notice that the message for linked alerts is a hyperlink and that your cursor will transform into the familiar hand when hovering over the message area.

A new context-sensitive menu with several options has been added to the notes editor used to enter borrower, lender and vendor notes to simplify then insertion of hyperlinks to files, documents, e-mail addresses and web pages.

To insert a hyperlink, simply right-click with your mouse anywhere on the notes area to display the popup menu, select Insert, then Hyperlink to a File, Hyperlink to an E-mail Address or Hyperlink to a Web Address.

This section includes minor enhancements, modifications and corrections included in this release of The Mortgage Office™. Many of these are the result of suggestions made by customers and help us improve The Mortgage Office™ to better meet your needs.