Commercial Funding Partners selects LTi’s ASPIRE platform to support growth

Commercial Funding Partners (CFP) has selected LTi Technology Solutions’ ASPIRE lease and loan management platform to support its back- and middle-office operations as the US equipment finance provider looks to accommodate increasing transaction volumes.

CFP will use ASPIRE across areas including servicing, billing, payments, tax administration and capital markets activity, replacing a number of manual processes currently used to manage its lease portfolio.

Founded in 2012, CFP operates as a direct equipment lender, funding transactions ranging from $500,000 to more than $100 million across sectors including manufacturing, medical, construction and power generation. More than 40% of its business comes from repeat customers.

The decision to implement a new platform follows growth in CFP’s portfolio and transaction volumes, which had increased the operational demands associated with its existing processes.

Lease portfolio administration had largely been handled manually, including elements of billing and tax management, while contract documentation also involved manual processes. According to the companies, the increasing scale of CFP’s activities created a requirement for more formalised servicing controls and greater consistency across its operations.

Under the new arrangement, ASPIRE will provide CFP with a single system for servicing, billing and tax operations. Automated billing and payment processing will replace elements of manual invoicing and collections, with around 90% of CFP customers currently making payments through Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions.

CFP will also introduce jurisdiction-level tax automation, replacing processes previously managed manually.

The platform will additionally provide a system of record for CFP’s capital markets activity, including discounted and sold transactions, as the lender develops its syndication and securitisation activities.

Buddy Zarbock, CEO and Founder of Commercial Funding Partners, said: “CFP has spent almost four decades building a lending business on speed, relationships, and getting deals done right, and our system needed to keep pace with that.

“We were not just looking for software to replace spreadsheets. We needed a partner who understood equipment finance well enough to help us stand up the kind of servicing infrastructure our credit facility requires, without slowing down the business that got us here,” added Traci Dolphin, President at Commercial Funding Partners.

“LTi’s experience with lessors at our scale, and ASPIRE’s depth across billing, tax, and capital markets, made this an easy decision.”

“That clarity makes for a strong implementation, and we are looking forward to giving their team a platform that can scale alongside their portfolio for years to come.”

The implementation will initially focus on CFP’s core servicing requirements, with further ASPIRE functionality available as the lender’s operational and portfolio requirements develop.