Product Release Notice
December 2009

Introducing The Mortgage Office™ Version 1.9.18
In our continuing effort to provide you with the most technologically advanced and easy-to-use loan servicing and origination software found anywhere, Applied Business Software, Inc. is pleased to announce the newest release of The Mortgage Office™. This update contains exciting new features and enhancements that will benefit you and your business.

You may download the update from this site, or if you prefer to receive a CD-ROM by mail, please fill out, sign, and submit a Software Update Request form via U.S. mail or fax. The updates will be processed in the order received. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions regarding the quality and usefulness of our products. Your comments help us improve our products to better meet your needs.

Thank you for your continued support of The Mortgage Office™.

Best Regards,
ABS Software Development Team

Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility. On October 2009, Microsoft released its latest operating system – Windows 7. ABS is proud to announce that The Mortgage Office™ version 1.9.18 is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7. As the leading developer and global provider of software systems and solutions to the lending industry, ABS has a long track record of promptly supporting the latest version of the Windows operating system.

Conversation Log. Use the new conversation log to track interactions with the borrowers, lenders, vendors, and other contacts.  This new record-based log allows you to track both incoming and outgoing calls, subject matter, date and time, the name of the caller, and a rich-text based detail of the conversation. Additionally, you can schedule a date to follow-up for you or someone else. This new module is included at no additional cost to our customers on maintenance.

Sample Conversation Log Control and Edit Form

At any time, you can print a single conversation or the complete conversation log. The main control contains an Outlook-like preview pane which enables you to quickly view the details of a conversation as you navigate the grid.

Email Messages. A check box has been added to the send message form allowing you to track messages sent to borrowers, lenders, and vendors in the conversation log.

Send Message Form

Loan Master Report. By popular demand, the option to include the loan notes in the loan master report has been added to the report assistant. All formatting, images, hyperlinks, and text are printed as they were originally entered in the loan notes window.

Sample Loan Master Report

Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). ABS received Transaction Level Report (TLR) certification for CIIS 7.0 from The Community Investment Impact System (CIIS). CIIS is the web-based data collection system that CDFIs and CDEs use to submit their Transaction Level Reports (TLRs) to the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund).

The integration between The Mortgage Office™ and CIIS will offer ABS’ growing network of CDFIs and CDEs the ability to track all necessary information to easily generate their annual Transaction Level Reports (TLRs) and transmit it directly to the CIIS system - significantly streamlining the compliance process and eliminating redundant work.

Export TLR Assistant

Additionally, the CDFI reporting module of The Mortgage Office™ does extensive data validation prior to generating XML file to ensure compliance with CIIS 7.0 and reduce or eliminate the possibility of the XML TLR file being rejected by CIIS due to errors.

Organize Business Contacts in One Place. This module offers a powerful contact manager to help you save time, improve service, and marketing. Easily send e-mails to one or more contacts, create and print custom letters, labels, rolodex cards and more. You may create personalized direct marketing campaigns with your own contact groupings and according to your own requirements. This new module is included at no additional cost to our customers on maintenance.

Business Contacts Sample Screen

SmartViews. With a simple click of a button, you can now sort the SmartViews in ascending or descending order by display name.

LendersViewCentral. The account portfolio page of the popular web publishing site has been updated to report lender’s net interest rate and net payment amount. Therefore, if you are reporting "net" amounts to your lender, the account portfolio information will now match the lender statement.

Lender's View Central Account Portfolio Page

Canada's Provinces Support. In our ongoing commitment to our Canadian clients, Web Publishing Central has been updated to support the Canadian provinces. Web Publishing Central is a cost effective, state-of-the-art solution that allows you to provide your clients with Web access to their account information from their home computers at any time.

Lender's View Central My Profile Page

Goods and Services Tax (GST) / Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). ABS is excited to announce full support for Canada’s GST/HST. The goods and services tax (GST) is a tax that applies to the lender servicing fees, and must appear on the lender checks and monthly lender statements. Three provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador, harmonized their provincial sales tax with the GST to create the harmonized sales tax (HST). The HST applies to the same base of taxable goods and services as the GST. Although the lender pays the tax, servicers are responsible for collecting and remitting it to the government on a regular basis.

For additional information on how GST/HST works, what is harmonized sales tax (HST) or what is taxable or exempt, visit the Canada Revenue Agency web site.

Primary Phone Number. No more guessing which phone number to try first when calling a borrower, lender or vendor. You may now designate which phone number is the contact’s primary number. Just click the down arrow and select one. An orange flag will be displayed next to the primary phone number.

EasySearch. This new tool has been implemented throughout The Mortgage Office™ and helps you to quickly find items in one or more columns and apply a filter to the grid. Simply start typing the information you are looking for and watch the grid display only the records matching the criteria.

Beneficiary's Demand for Payoff. This borrower notice has been enhanced to automatically generate a detailed addendum with a breakdown of the unpaid charges amount.

Sample Beneficiary's Demand for Payoff

Sample Unpaid Charges Addendum

Reminders. The loan account displayed for linked reminders is now a hyperlink allowing you to quickly access the parent loan file.

Sample Reminders Screen

One Update You Can't Afford to Miss. After more than 9-months of development and testing, and with invaluable input from our customers, we are happy to announce the long awaited release of the latest version of the Loan Origination module of The Mortgage Office™.  Loan Origination has been completely rewritten from the ground up to include hundreds of important changes, large and small. What changes have been made? There are too many to list here, but we’ve outlined a few below.

IMPORTANT. This new version requires version 7.0 of Internet Explorer or newer. The latest version of IE can be downloaded for free at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer.

IMPORTANT. Custom loan origination documents created with the prior version of The Mortgage Office™ will not work with the new release. Although you may still use Microsoft VBA technology, this new version implements the much easier-to-use Word Mail Merge as the principal design tool.

RESPA Ready. On January 1, 2010 the biggest overhaul of the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act in 30 years will take effect. Only you can ensure that your company stays compliant with the new RESPA regulations, but with the new Loan Origination module from The Mortgage Office™, you’ll have the necessary forms and system functionality to help you meet or exceed the new rules and procedures.

“For the past few months our entire team has been working hard to ensure our customers remain in compliance, and at the same time responding to their product enhancement requests”, said Carlos Nodarse, vice-president of product development at ABS.

New User Interface. The loan origination module now supports the same explorer-like, easy-to-use graphical interface you've become accustomed to with our other modules. All information is easily accessible and centralized. The new form-centric approach makes it easier to enter the required loan information, while working in an intuitive and smart environment.

Sample Loan Origination Screens

Business Today. Monitor and manage your loan origination business more effectively with up-to-the-minute information reporting on a range of key factors. It displays snapshots of current, statistical, historical data, and performance trends.

Sample Business Today Screen

Ideal for the owner/manager, Business Today currently includes the following eight controls:

• Tasks Pending
• Bank Account Balances
• Top Performing Loan Officers
• Loan Closings by Month
• Broker Commissions by Month
• Revenue Projection

For example, the Tasks control scans your database and alerts you of items needing your attention and pending tasks for today.

SmartViews. Use SmartViews to create customized loan windows based on user-defined criteria and provide easier, faster access to the loan information stored in The Mortgage Office™. You can select which loans are included or excluded, and change the way the information is displayed to best suit your needs.

Sample SmartView & Assistant

The contents of the SmartViews have the same functionality as the standard system-defined loan views and can easily be sent to Microsoft Excel or Word for further analysis. The system offers pre-defined SmartViews which you can use as-is or modify them to fit your individual needs.

Business Contacts. This module offers a powerful contact manager to help you save time, improve service, and marketing. Easily send e-mails to one or more contacts, create and print custom letters, labels, rolodex cards and more. You may create personalized direct marketing campaigns with your own contact groupings and according to your own requirements. This new module is included at no additional cost to our customers on maintenance

Business Contacts Sample Screen

Create New Documents Using Microsoft Mail Merge. Creating new loan origination documents is now easier than ever. Start with a new blank document or an existing template and use Microsoft Mail Merge to insert the required data fields. Mail merge is the easiest and most commonly used option to create custom documents.

Sample Mail Merge

IMPORTANT. Custom loan origination documents created with the prior version of The Mortgage Office™ will not work with the new release. Although you may still use Microsoft VBA technology, this new version implements the much easier-to-use Word Mail Merge as the principal design tool.

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.