Without CTG’s expertise and involvement, it would have been extremely difficult to integrate our other systems with Salesforce, and to satisfy our requirements. CTG’s project management ensured success, while helping to match the other vendor’s deliverables to our needs. The team was always flexible and willing to do what it took to get the job done. Even when the requirements changed, the CTG team was able to design and build a solution that will enable us to better serve businesses and individuals in Philadelphia for years to come. On behalf of our internal project team, our staff, and our clients who will benefit from the work that you have done, thank you!
PIDC
Advancing Economic Development – Unified Origination, Servicing & Accounting
PIDC is a non-profit organization founded by the City of Philadelphia and the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia in 1958. PIDC’s mission is to spur investment, support business growth, and foster developments that create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, and drive growth to every corner of Philadelphia. To achieve this mission PIDC attracts, manages, and invests public and private resources in the clients, communities, and markets that energize Philadelphia’s economy.
Purpose
PIDC had been using disparate systems to manage its business: Salesforce for Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) and loan origination, Portfol for loan servicing, and Microsoft Dynamics for accounting. This system set-up caused double or even triple manual entry as loans moved from one system to another, resulting in significant inefficiencies. Routine transactions were recorded multiple times, and these numbered in the hundreds each month. And while each system generated reports relevant to their function, it was difficult for PIDC to report on all aspects of their loan management in a holistic way.
PIDC’s priority was to streamline and automate these processes to reduce redundant entry and simplify reporting. But they were reluctant to replace any one system for another given their unique strengths. Instead, PIDC decided to integrate the three so that data is transferred automatically from one system to the next. Centralizing key data in Salesforce would also enable PIDC to increase visibility across the entire portfolio, in terms of both loans under management and loans in the pipeline.
Project Details
This phase of the project was a collaborative effort between PIDC and a number of partners: Craftsman led the Salesforce implementation and guided the workflow and process conversation with Salesforce as the hub of all three systems (servicing, origination, accounting). The phase began with 4 months of comprehensive design and prototyping, followed by 7 months to build and deploy the integrated solution. Upon completion, the following functionality is now in place:
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PIDC users can onboard loans from Salesforce to the servicing solution (Portfol) at the click of a button.
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PIDC users can generate, edit, and send pre-settlement fees from Salesforce to Portfol with a single click.
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An automated flow of payment records from Portfol to Salesforce to the General Ledger (Microsoft Dynamics). Principal, interest, and fee payments sync overnight and flow directly to their corresponding Billing Projects in the accounting system while preserving the payment’s Effective Date.
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PIDC users can view a borrower’s active loans within the Salesforce CRM, as well as comprehensive reports & dashboards for delinquencies, modifications, watchlists, total payments, and more.
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The integrated system connects each loan’s source of funds and its repayment account, so the Salesforce CRM represents the full flow of money from PIDC to the borrower and back.
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PIDC users receive email alerts for important events like write-off recoveries.
Ongoing Partnership
While the project was successful in achieving its objectives, PIDC now has an integrated system that needs to be carefully managed. Support tickets can span all three platforms, and any upcoming releases and enhancements needed to be thoroughly tested to ensure that there are no unintended consequences.
To ensure ongoing success in this multi-partner environment, Craftsman Project and Managed Services teams created a comprehensive governance plan. The governance plan outlines steps for addressing issues, maintaining and incrementally improving operations, and prioritizing enhancements, and allows PIDC to effectively collaborate with each team. Two weeks after project go-live this plan is already being executed, as Craftsman’s Managed Services team prepares for the next Salesforce release and deploys enhancement requests such as upgrading the Contracts and Collateral modules, as well as tracking New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) disbursements. Future work includes improvements in impact tracking and covenants management.
Tools + Technology
The following tools and technology were deployed as part of the integrated solution:
Salesforce Sales Cloud was deployed, with a tailored CRM, loan origination + fund management structure built by Craftsman. Portfol is used for loan servicing and Microsoft Dynamics for accounting. The three were connected using custom code provided by each partner. The Atlassian suite (Confluence + JIRA) for documentation and diagrams, as well as ticket management across partners