Loan Origination Platform

The problem

Leads arrived cold from purchased lists. Documents came in by hand over email. Lender coordination lived in threads nobody could audit, and applicants had no idea where they stood, so the team fielded status calls all day. Information was getting lost at every handoff.

The approach

I embedded with the client and mapped origination end to end before writing any code: every step, every handoff, every place a document or a decision went missing. The losses clustered at three seams: intake, document routing, and status communication.

The build

One system replaces the whole path. Postgres is the single source of truth, and Row Level Security is the security boundary, so applicants only ever see their own file.

1. Prequalification. A rules-based engine scores each applicant against the firm's lender programs before anyone on staff spends time on them.
2. Application portal. Applicants sign in and fill out the application at their own pace. Progress saves as they go.
3. Documents. Uploads land in storage tied to the application, not in someone's inbox.
4. Signatures. The system generates prefilled PDFs and collects e-signatures inside the portal.
5. Staff CRM. The team works a pipeline view with document review and status updates that applicants see live.
6. Lender package. One export assembles everything a lender needs to make a decision.

Transactional email goes out through Resend at each status change, so nobody has to send a manual update.

The rebrand

We rebranded the business at the same time. Financial Lending Specialists became FLS Capital Advisors, with a new name, a new identity, and a new site built around the intake flow. Compare the old site with the new one.