Continuing on with our efforts to bring real-time balances to fruition, we have now released the next stage of development to selected customers.
Release Summary
Release 1.4 will see the introduction of drawdowns into the real time balances program. Introducing drawdowns will have a number of advantages for both customers and the back end of our system. Processing drawdowns at the start of the loan will immediately produce the following data:
Populate the loan start date
Populate the loan expiry date. This is based on the term set and is calculated from the loan start date
Immediately produce a capital balance
For customers who post multiple drawdowns against a loan, this process will automatically update the capital balance.
There are a number of transactions that are currently excluded from this process, these include:
Drawdown fees are not presently processed in real time and will be handled by the batch
Lease loans are also currently excluded from the process owing to complexities around the GST component
Drawdowns processed via Manual Transaction (aka from reserve)
Edits and deletions of drawdown transactions
As with previous real time balance transactions, customers are able to see if their transaction has been processed in real time by viewing the System Process Message at the bottom of the drawdown reconciliation. A “completed” message means that your transaction has been processed in real time:
Users who are only just becoming aware of this project are requested to view previous release information found here.
Known Issues and notes:
Reserve balances are not yet included in the real-time balances and will be updated via the batch when your batch process runs.
To enable this process to work, the real time transaction system needs to work in sync with the standard batch process system. On the very rare occasion where there may be a conflict between the real-time processing and the standard batch processing, where two transactions have been processed for the same loan within a very brief time frame, a transaction may get out of sync, we are working to solve this and have processes in place to accommodate this. The time frame at the moment for this potential conflict window is a matter of minutes during the standard batch processing, we ask users to be mindful (in the short term) of what time the standard batch process runs on your system (generally on the hour) and be aware of multiple transactions taking place for the same loan during this time.
Feedback
As we continue to introduce new features, customer communication and feedback is paramount. If you experience any difficulties with the real-time capital repayments process outlined above or in previous correspondence, if you receive an error that you should not be experiencing, or if it simply doesn’t function as it should per the description above, we request customers to raise a support ticket immediately. It is only with actual real-time use of the system that we are going to be able to iron out any of the creases. Please rest assured that we have also enabled additional background monitoring to catch issues as they may arise.
Addendum - Mini Release 1.4.1
As at 5.4.2024 – existing customers have received a mini release which has improved the real-time balances project. The following enhancements have been introduced to the system:
Drawdown deletions: Customers who have entered a drawdown incorrectly into the system are now able to delete that drawdown and have the real-time balances system update the balances immediately (there may be a delay of about 5 seconds while the system sends and receives data). This functionality is for single drawdown loans only, loans with multiple drawdowns will be handled via batch.
Services Tax (GST/ VAT) on rental/ lease loans has now been included. For customers utilising the rental/lease loan types, Services Tax (GST (inclusive)/ VAT) will now auto calculate based the total drawdown amount and is excluded from the capital balance and therefore, also excluded from interest accruing.
A drawdown brokerage record type has been included for customers paying brokerage fees. Services Tax (GST (inclusive)/ VAT) on the brokerage is excluded from the total drawdown amount and is therefore also excluded from interest accruing on the GST/VAT amount.
We look forward to your feedback, and will be moving forward with continued releases over the coming weeks/ months.
*Please note that no release communications were posted for release 1.3 which focused solely on back end processes.