Forth Pay Account Agreement Field Reordering

This update to the Loanosity Debt Settlement Loan (DSL) program will allow users to resubmit a contact to Loanosity from the very beginning if the original submission enters the "Declined" or "Withdrawn" status. This will allow CRM users to conveniently start over from the beginning of the loan application process, empowering them to rectify any previous submission errors and increase the odds of approval for their loan application. Additionally, this feature eliminates the need for CRM users to reach out to Forth Support via support ticket to submit a new application for Loanosity DSL if a contact's application was declined or withdrawn.

Automatic Population of Account Type

With this update, the account type field will automatically populate the account type on Forth Pay documents (such as the Forth Pay Bank Change Request document and the Risk Return document). This will eliminate the need for the consumer to manually select the account type on these documents. The account type field will automatically populate using the {ACCTTYPE} tag and may be used in other documents as you see fit.

Duplicate Management User Interface

In addition to making the user interface (UI) more intuitive, with tools such as additional dropdown menu options for filtering, the Duplicate Management page now accommodates multiple companies being added by adding a new setting for “Check across companies”. This is presented as a company selection box where the companies that moved over are the companies the system will check duplicates against for the company the user is modifying the settings for. Other updates related to this updated interface include disabling the “save changes” button while the save is happening or if the user unselects all search fields, as well as not refreshing the entire page when a company is saved or deleted.

 

API Updates

Transaction Types & Subtypes API Endpoints

With this update, a user is now enabled with the ability to grab all transaction types and subtypes via the API. We created an endpoint for both transaction types and one for transaction subtypes.

Get all Advance Assignments Endpoint

With this update, a user can retrieve all advance assignment options available as defined by settings so that they can understand which assignments exist and what they can assign to an advance on other API calls. This was enabled by creating a new API endpoint under “Advances” to retrieve all advance assignments available on an account.

Get Transactions Endpoint To Allow Transaction Status Filtering

With this update, the CRM user is now able to retrieve transactions from the CTX “Get Transactions” endpoint based on transaction statuses, to access relevant data via the API.

This update enhances this particular endpoint to allow users to filter transactions within an advance based on specific transaction statuses and provides users with greater control and flexibility in accessing relevant transaction data via the API.

Bank Account Details Integration via API

This new feature enables the ability to retrieve banking information via the FORTH CRM API. This can be used in conjunction with third-party applications. We created a new GET API endpoint to retrieve the bank account name stored on the contact record. This display of bank account information only displays the last four (4) digits of the account number for security purposes.

Get Paused Value via API

This update to the “Contacts” API improves the functionality of the API by implementing a new feature that allows users to retrieve the paused value (true or false) for contacts. This will provide users with the ability to programmatically access the paused status of contacts within the Forth CRM system.

Update Debt Record by ID to allow Bulk Updates

This update provides the ability to bulk update debts in the CRM via the API. This would then allow for multiple debts to be updated on a single API request. This updates the “debts” endpoint to support updating multiple debts on a PUT request where the user passes an array of debt objects with the debt ID present of the debts they wish to update.

Update Contact Return Value via API

This update enables the return of a customer record that was submitted via the API. It adds an endpoint to return a contact’s file. With this feature, the system can only return a file that is currently submitted. If attempting to return a file that is not submitted, an error message will be generated.

Get Enrollment Details via the API

This feature provides the ability via a new API endpoint to get all transactions available on a contact record. This will permit the creation of third-party custom applications to display current transaction details (in a read-only format) retrieved via the Forth API, from a customer’s record.

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August 2023

These Release Notes for August 2023 list several new features and improvements, and are organized as follows:

• What’s New (2)
  • Field-Level Suppression for the Debts Fields
  • User Lockout Enforcement
• What's Improved (5)
  • Process Refunds of Dropped Forth Pay Clients
  • Stronger Forth CRM Password Requirements
  • Add Customer Name Field to Decisions Page for Unmatched Transactions
  • Description Box for API Generation
  • Update Fee in the Loanosity DSL Calculation
• API Updates (6)
  • Create Advance via API
  • Set Commissions and Advance Assignments via API
  • Send an Email to Contacts
  • Clixsign & Generated Document Types in Lender Submission API
  • Contact Enrollment Value via API
  • Create Note API Response

This month’s Release Notes are focused on the great work performed by our Forth Development and Quality Assurance Teams to enhance your user journey. Get ready to elevate your CRM Experience with Forth!

 

What's New

Field-Level Suppression for the Debts Fields

This new feature allows administrative users to control which debt fields certain users or user groups have access to when adding or editing a debt in the system. It was built to expand the existing functionality around field-level permissions to include the debts feature in the system. With this feature, we have added debt information to the field-level permissions via a new "Debts" section that enables the selection of an individual debt field to be enabled or suppressed as editable via a checkbox. This applies to system-provided fields and custom fields defined for the account.

User Lockout Enforcement

In line with NIST 800-63, this new feature improves our security with a user lockout function based on the number of invalid attempts made by that user. This prevents malicious or forced attempts in your system and protects the data housed within your account. If the user has ten (10) consecutive invalid attempts, the system will lock out the user for 30 minutes.

During this 30-minute window, no one can take action to unlock, as the user is not locked out, but rather in a “cooling” off state. After this expires, the user is able to log in again and gets 10 more consecutive attempts. If the user fails these 10 attempts as well, then the user is locked out and can ONLY be unlocked by an admin, via a one-time use temporary password sent to the user. The system will also now track invalid user login attempts for all users logging into the Forth platform.

What's Improved

Process Refunds of Dropped Forth Pay Clients

Until now, you were required to contact Forth Pay if you need to reverse fees or process a refund to a consumer after cancellation. This update offers a solution to our Forth Pay clients that provides greater control over refund processing. We introduced the capability to schedule advances and refunds yourself for a dropped or canceled Forth Pay client. This feature reduces the need for re-enrollment or Forth Pay intervention. With this solution, you may initiate these refunds only when a client has been canceled from the program, you can only schedule client refunds and no other transaction types, and you can only schedule ACH Credit refunds to the account on record, nor do you have the ability to update the banking information before scheduling a client refund.

Stronger Forth CRM Password Requirements

This update strengthens the already robust password requirements within Forth CRM, to better ensure the overall security of your account. This update helps minimize the risk of unauthorized access and potential data breaches and provides clear prompts via validation messages and a feedback loop. The updates have been performed to exceed new security guidance from NIST and the federal government’s information security standards.

Customer Name Field on the Decisions Page for Unmatched Transactions

This update makes it easier for users to identify unmatched transactions on the Settlement Decisions page, without the user having to read the comments.

Description Box for API Generation

This update provides the ability to set a description for each set of API credentials that are generated in the CRM. This feature added a description box with a maximum limit of 250 characters to the API Key generation window on the REST API page. This description will now appear in the table of credentials once it has been saved, as a new column in the table. This solution improves clarity for users in terms of what keys are used for by letting them set their own description for each credential set.

Update Fee in the Loanosity DSL Calculation

Previously, the Loanosity DSL integration only factored in earned performance fees (EPFs) that are in the “FEE1” slot. With this update, we have adjusted the integration to calculate any fee that has a fee type = percent, is deferred, and is active. This allows a DRSP to use this integration, regardless of what fee slot they utilize for EPF.

 

API Updates

Create Advance via API

This update provides the ability to create an advance on a contact via the API. It adds an endpoint, and a POST request to this new endpoint, with the Contact ID present. Upon advance creation, the advance will now go into the status that is already defined. Click HERE to access this setting.

Any updates to the advance via API will be done with a PUT request on the advance endpoint referencing the ID of the advance created in this way.

Set Commissions and Advance Assignments via API

With this update, a user now has the ability to set commissions and advance assignments via the API. It allows the user to leverage the API to assign advance commissions and assignments. These updates assume that the advances being updated in this way have NOT been funded. This is enabled by creating a new API endpoint that uses a PUT request to update an advance by its ID within the Centrex API.

Send an Email to Contacts

This new feature enables clients to send emails to contacts through the API to easily communicate and allow attachments of uploaded files and files within the CRM to the email. This feature has been enabled by adding a new send email endpoint to the Forth CRM API, supporting the POST method with FormData. There is a maximum attachment size on the email of 20MB. This was done to stay below the maximum known threshold of many email clients around 25MB. These attachments must be one of the following content/MIME types to be accepted: jpeg', png', pdf, zip, gzip, msword, pjpeg, csv, 'text/plain', and msexcel'. NOTE: The Forth CRM does not currently perform real-time antivirus scanning of attachments.

Clixsign & Generated Document Types in Lender Submission API

This new feature enables lenders to identify and categorize documents attached to submissions via the API. It allows the lender to see the document types and Clixsign parameters for documents within the Centrex CRM when pulling submissions via the Get Submission Details API Endpoint. This will allow the programmatic identification of documents included as part of a submission for automated underwriting and decision purposes. This solution utilizes the existing "Get Submission Response" API endpoint. This option is applicable for PDF & HTML documents. This document type tracking feature is only available for documents generated or Clixsigns sent after November 2022. No tracking info exists before this time and it cannot be recreated. The document type value must correspond to the document type set at the individual template level.

Contact Enrollment Value via API

This feature allows a user to enroll a contact via the Forth API. This feature facilitates an enrollment flow in an automated capacity. Our solution was to create an API endpoint that enrolls customers into the Forth system (subject to Enrollment settings). In addition to enabling contact enrollment via API, this solution enforces parity to enrollment flow at the CRM UI, as well as enables clients to automate their enrollment flow via the usage of 3rd party applications. All saved plan/compensation template/banking data is unaffected just as you would expect manually enrolling via the UI.

Create Note API Response

This new feature returns the Note ID in the API response of the "Create Note" endpoint. The Note is also now visible in the CRM under the Contact Dashboard. This allows the user to know the Note ID after a Note is created via API.

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September 2023

This month’s Release Notes are focused on the great work performed by our Forth Development and Quality Assurance Teams to enhance your user journey. Get ready to elevate your CRM Experience with Forth!

 

What's New (6)

Let Forth Take Care of Your Compensation Templates

This new optional feature offers a simplification of the management of compensation templates, including creation and design, by FORTH agents. Leave your comp templates in our hands and prevent client users from accidentally editing or deleting them. This feature has been released as a disabled add-on, so if you prefer to manage your compensation templates as you have been, you can!

Create Deliverability Windows for SMS

This new feature provides the ability to set delivery windows for a user's SMS campaigns. This will allow the user to further customize when the SMS campaigns are sent and then define a delivery deadline. This will help ensure company compliance with industry-standard rules around communication. In addition, this will better enable clients to control the messaging and when those messages can be delivered and prevent situations where DSRP consumers get notified after hours.

Interface to Update Policy Group for GCS Contacts

This new feature provides the user the ability to change the selected GCS policy group in a post-enrollment capacity. On the enrollment details screen, a new dropdown option has been added titled "GCS Policy Group". From this dropdown, the user would select from all available policy groups that are tied to the credentials saved for the company the user/contact is assigned to. When selecting a new policy group; the policy group that Forth uses locally with that contact is updated.

Enhanced Password Requirements

With this new feature, admins can facilitate their users to maintain strong passwords to ensure the overall security of accounts. It helps ensure that password requirements are clear, understandable, and enforced in a standardized manner across the system. This will minimize the risk of unauthorized access and potential data breaches, and ensure users understand the password requirements, and clear prompts are provided via validation messages/feedback loop. These requirements include a new minimum (12) and maximum (20) for password characters (superseding recommendations of NIST 800-63b). Passwords now must have all of the following: One uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one numeric digit, and One special character (e.g., !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *). Emojis and non-ASCII characters are not allowed.

Adding a Trigger Event for Debts Updated

This new feature allows clients to create a trigger event named 'Debt Updated,' allowing them to set conditions based on 'Debt Status.' This will enable them to receive notifications whenever the Debt Status field is updated, informing them of important changes. As a result of this feature, clients will now have the ability to select "Debt Updated" (replacing Debt Made Legal) from the "Event Name" drop-down menu while setting up trigger events, utilizing the existing fields in the system for the initial implementation of the "Debt Updated" trigger event. Finally, this feature streamlines the process by using "Debt Status" as the key field for the trigger condition. The Debt Updated trigger event won't be triggered for API updates and Credit Pull updates; it's solely intended for manual updates within the Forth CRM.

Prevent Users from Deleting Contacts that have Advances

This new feature provides the ability to prevent a user from deleting a contact that has a FUNDED advance(s) in the system. However, if a contact has no advances that have been funded still be able to delete that contact and all associated advances deleted as well. This will help improve overall coherence in the system as advances associated with deleted contacts will no longer show up in the advances tab and cause confusion as they cannot be accessed due to the contact it is tied to being deleted. It also helps prevent scenarios in which contacts whose advances have been funded in the system can be deleted - which helps achieve overall better data integrity.

What's Improved (6)

Add ForthPay return reason & Gateway hold status to the Servicing tab

This update to Forth Pay adds a view of a payment return reason. This information is useful in recapturing NSFs, which is a common task to ensure full payout for submissions. With this update, the Forth Pay return reason is now displayed in the transaction table within the servicing tab. This update also added a "Gateway Hold Status and Reason" that now allows affiliates to more easily complete the steps required to release the hold. This helps facilitate full payouts.

Update Memo Description for Earned Performance Fee Type

This update adds the phrase "Earned Fee" in the memo description line for all transactions with the type Earned Performance Fee to indicate that the fee is associated with the respective creditor's name. The updated memo description will now be displayed correctly in the system interface and in any generated reports or statements. The goal of this feature is to provide clarity and understanding for the fee transaction. An example of the new memo format would be: "Earned Fee- CREDITOR NAME".

Request Release Button Control

This update improves transparency and efficiency when applying the Request Release function within the CRM. When you click this new color-coded “Request Release” button, you now greatly reduce the chance of producing duplicate Forth helpdesk tickets, causing less confusion and saving you valuable time.

The “Request Release” button will be automatically disabled immediately, and then turn red after it has been clicked, or a client is enrolled into the program for the first time.

The “Request Release” button will be enabled again immediately once a Forth Pay agent acts on the account, after 24 hours from the initial click. or 24 hours after the button is disabled after enrollment. This will help reduce the creation of duplicate help tickets. As a bonus, when the button is disabled, a user-friendly tooltip will appear, keeping the user informed. It will read, “The button will be enabled after a Forth Pay agent acts on the account or 24 hours have passed since the initial click.”

Faster Loading of Edit Settlements Page

The settlements page, available from the “Contacts” module/tab, currently loads settlement check images directly. This inherently slows down the settlements page and the user experience.

By presenting links to the check images rather than loading them all at once, the DSRP settlement page of a contact now loads more efficiently. In addition, the implementation of links does not compromise the accuracy of settlement check information, and will still allow users to access the images as needed.

Standardizing Two Decimal Points for Key Percentage Fields

With this new feature, the Forth system has been updated to remove rounding and to accommodate two decimal places precision (i.e., changes in how percentage figures are displayed to include two decimal places). This update affects specific fields in the CRM, namely the 'Settlement %', 'Original Amount in percentage', 'Current Amount in Percentage', 'Verified Amount in Percentage', 'Percentage of Current', 'Percentage of Original', and 'Percentage of Verified' and sets them to be accurate to two decimal places. This enhancement will align them precisely with the 'Offer %' for more consistency and accuracy in business decision-making.

Update Credit Bureau Connection (CBC) Integration

The CBC Integration needed to be refreshed to support a few changes in XML node structure. As a result of this refresh, a Credit parsing tool was implemented, and PDF generation was improved.

 

API Updates (2)

Add Creditor Reference Information to Create and Update Settlement Offers Endpoint

This new feature adds the ability to include Creditor Reference Information when creating and updating settlement offers for settlement payments by Check. This will allow users to provide additional reference information related to the creditor, DRSP (Debt Relief Service Provider), and any special instructions for the settlement offer. The changes will be applied to the existing API endpoints for POST and PUT. This addition will not only enhance the settlement offers API endpoints to include the Creditor Reference Information, but will also improve the user experience by providing a way to capture and manage additional reference details.

Add Time in Status to Get Contact by ID API Endpoint

This new feature updates our contacts endpoint on the API to retrieve the time in the status field. Additionally, it updates our workflow endpoint upon GET to return full status history. The goal of this feature is to enable the retrieval of how long a client has been in a certain status & enable clients to better keep track of their customer base. This feature will now report in such that the newest/most recent status change in the history reflects first in the feed.

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October 2023

What's New (1)

Allow Clixsign Requests to be sent to Linked Sponsor Contacts

This new feature allows the sending of Clixsign requests to a linked sponsor contact from the original contact account so that the linked sponsor can collaborate with the contact they are sponsoring and electronically sign on important documents. "Sponsor" has been added as a signer type (allowing users to select it for any assigned signer slot (1-9)), available in the dropdown menu option. In addition, the system now pre-populates the sponsor's information, i.e., Name and Email from the program sponsor field when selected from the dropdown. Such Clixsign documents are now displayed on both the original contact and the sponsor’s contact dashboard. This new feature was released to enhance collaboration and document management within the CRM application, as well as to streamline and improve the signing process by requesting signatures from sponsor contacts and improving workflow efficiency.

 

What's Improved (5)

Creditor Selection for SMS

This update facilitates the use of individual creditor information with the SMS feature. With this update, the Forth system allows the pre-filling of a designated creditor’s information using creditor-specific tags for SMS templates. This enables broader capabilities with our SMS feature and allows us to send specific creditor/settlement-related updates to the customer.

We added a new dropdown menu option within the ‘SMS’ subtab of the contact dashboard (accessible via the Contacts tab) to select a creditor (see the image below).

You may type in a creditor’s name and the option will auto-fill (see left below) or use the dropdown to make your selection (see right side of the image below). This new dropdown organizes the options as enrolled creditors listed at the top and unenrolled creditors after that for easier searching, and each listing includes the creditor name followed by the Creditor ID.

When a creditor is selected, any template that gets loaded from this point forward and contains the correct tags will populate that creditor’s information.

Lastly, making a creditor selection within this new process now appears in the History / SMS log.

Settlement Rebalance after Reversal Transaction

This new feature enhances Forth Pay accuracy in rebalancing settlements following Unauthorized Return/Reversal transactions. In addition, we noticed that settlement payment transactions remained in a Pending status instead of being updated to Low Balance if and when the Unauthorized Return caused a consumer's dedicated account to have insufficient funds for the said transaction(s). This refinement ensures that settlement payments are correctly matched on the Decisions page, avoiding accidental payments when funds within Forth Pay are insufficient.

The changes included backend coding and script updates, updates to existing queries to extend how far back we search for pending settlement transactions, and a new automatic trigger of a low balance payment to be visible in a settlement transaction.

Update CFT Integration to Retrieve Client Escalations

This new feature offers a real-time view of CFTPay escalation reasons directly from the Forth CRM dashboard, This requirement outlines the integration of the escalations API with CFT based on the provided API documentation. The aim is to efficiently retrieve and store escalation details and subsequently display these details on specific pages of the platform, including the Enrollment Details page and the Client Dashboard, to make informed decisions and act accordingly without switching between platforms.

Required Address Entry for Settlement Payments via Check

We performed an update to our system that streamlines your settlement payment process. With this update, the Forth system displays the mandatory address fields (address 1, city, state, and zip code) in the payment information section when the user selects a check, check overnight, or check 2nd day as the settlement payment method.

If any mandatory address fields (indicated via asterisk) are left incomplete, the system will prevent the settlement offer from being saved and will display an error, highlighting the field(s) that need attention.

To rectify this, the field in question will be highlighted with an exclamation mark indicating that it is necessary to fill in the field. When all mandatory address fields are filled out, the settlement offer will be saved with the entered address information. The system saves the now-completed address information with the settlement offer data for future reference and reporting purposes.

Benefits of this update include the elimination of the hassle of settlement payment checks being returned due to incomplete or missing address information, the accurate and timely receipt of settlement payments (boosting client satisfaction and trust), and the improvement of the efficiency and accuracy of the settlement payment process.

Update CREDITSCORE tag to Work with Xactus360

With this new feature, the Forth system has been updated to allow the {CREDITSCORE} tag used to render the credit score saved on a credit pull from the Xactus360 integration. This update enables proper tagging functionality to allow clients to populate the credit score on document, email, or SMS templates. If multiple scores are present, the highest score will be chosen.

 

API Updates (4)

Publish Contact Lists Endpoint

This new feature adds the ability to pull contact lists from the system. We published our lists endpoint so that clients can export a list of contacts by list ID and get the contacts they need for their relevant campaign. This enables the contact lists endpoint to be visible on the FORTH API documentation and enables service-type users to interact with this endpoint.

Multiple Schedules for a Specific Settlement Offer via API

This update was made as part of an overall Marketing Automation Project for our clients to help drive value.

This feature allows the retrieval of the Amortization Schedule, Settlement Schedule, and EPF Schedule for a specific settlement offer through the {{settlement_offers/{id}}} endpoint. This enhancement will provide a more comprehensive view of each settlement offer. This feature enhances the current endpoint to return additional schedule information for each settlement offer and improves the efficiency of our backend system by combining two endpoints into one. When a GET request is made, the server should respond with the appropriate schedules.

Modify, Create, and Update Debt API Endpoints to Accept ECOA Values

This feature allows the passing of standardized ECOA codes to the Forth CRM API to create and update debts in the CRM. This modification to the “Create Debt Record” and the “Update Debt Record” endpoints will allow users to standardize the passing of fields between systems and reconcile and sync data between them. In addition, this feature will accept ECOA standardized values for debt ownership (i.e. Who’s Debt), as well as be able to create and update debts with the ECOA values.

Add Permissions for Service Users Accessing API Endpoints

This new feature is another enhancement to your API management experience! This enhancement gives you granular control over which API endpoints your automations and integrations can access. These capabilities enable you to apply security best practices and limit how much data can be accessed by a specific party. This allows you to restrict access to API keys generated using various credentials sets, limiting what third parties using those keys have access to and further enhancing CRM security. In other words, you can control who can access what on the API. Benefits of this feature include the broadening of security capabilities around your API, restricting API keys to certain endpoints, and improving overall governance of API access by CRM users and administrators.

NOTE: This feature is available only for service user API keys

A dropdown menu can now select those credentials generated and tied to a service user. The listing of available API endpoints is grouped by their object type (advances, authorizations, calls, etc.), with checkboxes available to allow or block access (see example page below).

When an endpoint is enabled for a particular credential set, external services using that credential set may interact with the chosen endpoint. When disabled, the system returns an Invalid Access error, indicating that those credentials do not have proper access.

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November 2023

What's New (6)

User Interface to Control Client Refund Type

This new feature provides an easier and cleaner user experience over Client Refund Types. Now, you no longer have to scroll through options to select a refund subtype that applies to you. The Client Refund Subtype dropdown menu will now ONLY offer the refund payment options configured for your client.

NOTE: This update only impacts clients that utilize Forth Pay and does not affect any other gateways.

The following client refund transaction subtypes (which now default to “ACH Credit”) are available:

• ACH Credit

• Bank Wire

• Check

• Check 2nd Day

• Check Overnight

Replace Debts After Credit Pull

This new feature controls system behavior around debt handling after credit is pulled to merge or delete existing debt information. You will now find a brand-new Credit Pulls section on the Debt Settings page, accessible via the Admin tab. When you activate the checkbox provided in this section, your system will automatically eliminate outdated contact debt data and replace it with the most current information from credit reports, but only for new unenrolled contacts.

We also updated our credit pull process to account for this new setting (which is turned off by default). If enabled, the system checks that the contact has no enrollment date. If there is no enrollment date, the system deletes all debt information and re-inserts data from the credit report.

Finally, we rebranded the Add/Edit Debt Status permission to Modify Debt Settings.

NOTE: This feature is designed for contacts who have never been enrolled in a debt settlement program and requires that credit is pulled through Forth CRM using one of our credit pull integration providers.

 

Forth DataHub

Introducing Forth DataHub, the ultimate tool to enhance your data exploration within the Forth ecosystem. Developed in partnership with Secoda, Forth DataHub is your AI-powered companion to the Forth Managed Data Cloud (MDC), tailored towards efficient documentation, cataloging, and seamless data object discovery.

DataHub empowers you to delve deeper into the core system objects, such as contacts, debts, offers, transactions, and more. With its user-friendly interface, you can easily navigate tables, common queries, frequently asked questions and other valuable resources. We also removed the old Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) as DataHub provides a more intuitive, comprehensive, and powerful solution.

Benefits of Forth DataHub include gaining insights into the structure of key system objects required to build performance reporting; easily searching and referencing data objects including all metadata and object properties; and with a large collection of frequently asked questions, saving you from the hassle of opening tickets and searching the list in case the community has already answered your query.

Allow DRSP to Process Refunds for Dropped Forth Pay Clients

Traditionally, you have been required to contact Forth Pay if you need to reverse fees or process a refund to a consumer after cancellation. Never again!

We developed a solution to this challenge that provides greater control over refund processing. We introduced the capability to schedule advances and refunds yourself for a dropped or canceled Forth Pay client. This feature speeds up refund processing time and reduces the need for re-enrollment or Forth Pay intervention.

With this solution, you may initiate these refunds only when a client has been canceled from the program, you can only schedule client refunds and no other transaction types, and you can only schedule ACH Credit refunds to the account on record, nor do you have the ability to update the banking information before scheduling a client refund.

Processing a Refund Payment for Dropped Clients starts with selecting a Canceled client via the Enrollments Tab, and selecting “Refund Payment” (see red highlight in the image below).

NOTE: This update only applies to Forth Pay Clients using the Forth CRM who have dropped from the program and have an Account Closure & Balance Refund Request Form in place.

In addition, these pre-approved client refund options are readily available via a Sub-Type dropdown menu on the Transactions page.

Loanosity DSL Updates

Several improvements were made to the Loanosity DSL Integration. These include:

Transmit Gateway Information - This update to the Loanosity DSL integration significantly expands the eligibility of consumers that can be submitted via the integration. We revamped the mappings page for the Loanosity DSL integration, introducing a dedicated section for payment gateway settings. There are now mappings for the following payment gateways: FORTH Pay, RAM, CFT Pay, and GCS. This new feature is designed to allow DRSPs to submit contacts that are enrolled in the gateways that are supported by Loanosity, where previously, only FORTH Pay Gateway contacts were able to be submitted to Loanosity DSL via the integration. Each payment gateway section now includes mappings for key fields associated with FORTH Pay, RAM, CFT Pay, and GCS. These fields are Routing Number, Account Number, and Dedicated Account Number

Sending Payment Frequency - We updated the integration to send the payment frequency of the program to Loanosity DSL as part of the enrollment process. This will be done by sending payment frequency saved on the enrollment plan.

Add Settled Balances - We added the settled account balances (not the calculated balances) of enrolled debts to the API transmission between FORTH and Loanosity DSL

Add Client Savings) - We updated the Loanosity DSL integration to include the client escrow account balance that is currently saved in the API transmissions/requests that get sent to Loanosity.

Settlement Offer Tags via Webhooks

Formerly, when DSRPs attempted to webhook settlement offer details and map it to the client's notes, the information came over as the tags. This new feature updates the "Settlement Status Change" event trigger to support the transmission of fully rendered settlement offer details into a readable text format via webhook which can be used to update affiliate accounts of the offer details.

Upon any settlement status change, the system now initiates the webhook in which the system now transmits settlement offer details where placeholder tags are replaced with actual client data.

This feature streamlines the communication of settlement offer details between the CRM system and external affiliates or integrated systems; reduces data processing requirements for recipients by ensuring webhooks transmit fully rendered information; and enhances data accuracy and efficiency in updates communicated through webhooks.

 

What's Improved (6)

Push Estimated / Requested Loan Amount with the New Credit America (NCA) Integration

With this update, the NCA integration now includes a mappings page in the integration settings to map the EstimatedLoanAmount field in the NCA API to a CRM custom field. The estimated loan amount value is then transmitted based on the custom field it is mapped to. This lets a customer map their internal value for the estimated loan amount. Ultimately this allows the NCA integration to include the estimated loan amount value in the application request that is sent. When transmitting the EstimatedLoanAmount field to NCA it sends in the correct format (any price/dollar fields are converted to numeric).

New Source for Revolving Credit Limit in Xactus360

This improvement (available for all Xactus 360 customers) updates a specific field related to the revolving credit limit in the XML received from Xactus360. This changes the mapping for this field from the PORTCBL field to the RevolvingCreditLineUsed field attribute for the revolving credit limit mapping. This new value will be expressed as a percentage in the score models section of the Contact Dashboard.

Note: No previous customers will be updated as part of this change, only new credit pulls going forward.

Email Lender Submission with Multiple "To" Addresses

For Centrex Business Finance Accounts - Until now, when you submitted an advance via email to a lender that had multiple submission contacts, the system sent separate emails to the contacts. With this update, the system now sends a single email, so multiple representatives at the lender organization can view and respond to submissions in the same email thread.

Move Process Date and Process Next Business Day with Supervest

For Centrex Business Finance Accounts that use Supervest, we are moving transactions to the next business day and also processing transactions one day in advance. This change updates a transaction’s process date that is being created for Supervest from today to the next business day. In addition, it updates the back-end logic for processing transactions to process transactions from today to the next business day.

Add SAVE Plan for Student Loan Accounts

With this update, Forth now offers the “Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan for student loan accounts. The SAVE Plan is the newest income-driven repayment (IDR) plan offered by the U.S. Department of Education. This plan will replace the existing “Revised Pay As You Earn" (REPAYE) Plan. We updated the “Retrieve Loans and Programs” page of the system to add SAVE as a new student loan repayment plan option within Forth’s student loan calculator.

In addition, a modification was made to our Student Loan Calculator in the background to account for updated poverty line percentage values used in the SAVE plan (compared to the existing REPAYE plan).

 

API Updates (1)

Pausing a Contact via API

This new feature adds the ability to pause a client via the API which would pause all payments from being initiated from that client. We created a new endpoint to update a contact to the ‘paused’ state in the system. When a contact is paused in this fashion their payments will not process just as if they were paused manually via UI and the UI will reflect the paused state. Contacts may also be un-paused at the UI when paused from the API.

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December 2023

What's New (6)

Credit Card Data Displaying on the Advance Page

This new feature addresses credit card data displayed on the Advance page. Merchant Cash Advances typically “re-pay” with ACH payments, which is the way 99% of Centrex Business Account users use the system, however, certain clients, collect “re-payments” via credit card transactions. For those accounts, CC payments are created daily by the system and processed like any other card payment. Formerly, the user needed to navigate back to the contact record to fill in the credit card form. We added a view for this under the “Funding Info” tab. modules/advances/view-funding.php. This should toggle on/off based on the “Repayment Method” selection.

Ytel Phone System Updates

Ytel to Get Contacts with Tasks in “X” Status

This new feature adds the ability to filter tasks on the task reports by contact status in addition to the other filters on the page. It adds "Contact Status" as a contact company filter to the query on the task reports page, which will enable further reporting and workflow capabilities with our task page
https://login.forthcrm.com/index.php?module=stats&page=task. It now displays as a multi-select dropdown option sorted by the file types enabled on the account and then the stage/status within that file type.

Ytel User Role

This new feature supports our mutual clients with Ytel and standardizes the Ytel setup process by providing a standardized user role with all permissions enabled they need to perform their setup activities using both FORTH CRM and the Ytel platform. This new Ytel user role will not be a billed user role nor will contacts with this user role be able to be logged into from a super admin/admin user from the edit user page in the CRM.

Settlement Voided Reason Reporting

This new feature provides settlement voided reason reporting within the settlement settings user interface. Previously, when voiding a settlement there was no option to provide a reason as to why the settlement has voided. Adding this ability allows additional reports to be created based on the reason why a settlement was voided. This enables broader reporting around settlements and enables the ability to customize voided reasons for the settlement.

Clixsign Documents to be Copied via Webhook

This new feature allows a user to transmit completed Clixsign documents via the tags system/webhooks from an affiliate to a backend, and have the underlying files copy between accounts. We added a new tag {CLIXSIGN_DOC_IDS}, which is a comma-separated list of document IDs to be transmitted, eg: {1538896, 1538892}. The system will now recognize these IDs and copy the completed Clixsign PDFs from the webhook origin account to the destination account. The PDFs will show up under the uploaded docs tab. No Clixsign metadata will be transferred in this process and only a PDF(s) will be received. The selected document will then be accessible in the destination account on the uploaded docs tab.

 

What's Improved (2)

Cancellation Page Refunds Bypass Gateway Hold

We made a crucial update to our system that enhances the security and efficiency of refund processing for consumers. In our continuous efforts to provide you with the best service, we have identified and addressed a potential loophole in the refund process. Specifically, we implemented a solution to prevent non-approved refunds from being processed when a consumer is on a Forth Pay Gateway Hold. Benefits include:

• Enhanced Gateway Hold Security: Refunds for consumers on a Gateway Hold will only be processed after hold requirements are met and released.
• Exclusion from NACHA Batch Process: Client refund transactions designated as "ACH Credit" will no longer be picked up by the daily batch process when the Hold Reason is "Banking Information Changed."
• Improved Process for Dropped Client Refunds: If a consumer is on a process hold of "Banking Information Changed" and the client is dropped by the DRSP, the hold reason will not change until a Forth Pay agent reviews the consumer authorization and updates the hold to "Dropped by DRSP." This ensures a seamless process for client refunds.

CRM Controls for Return Codes

This update adds four ACH Client Debit Return codes for consumers on a gateway hold for Invalid Bank Accounts and Returned Payment Holds. The initial piece of this update involves the following two return codes:

• R15 (Beneficiary / Account Holder Deceased)
• R20 (Non-Transaction Account)

Previously, Forth Pay put the consumer on gateway hold with “Invalid Bank Account” for the following ACH Client Debit Return from the bank: 'R02', 'R03', 'R04', or 'R16'. With these updates, R15 and R20 return codes will now place the consumer’s account on hold with the reason - Invalid Bank.

The second portion of this update involves the following two return codes:

• R08 (Payment Stopped)
• R09 (Uncollected Funds)

Previously, Forth Pay put the consumer on gateway hold with “Returned Payments Hold” for when consecutive ACH Client Debit Returned as 'R01'. With this update, the system will place the consumer on hold after three consecutive attempts with the same code or a combination of these codes, with the reason - Returned Payments Hold. To make this transition smoother, we ask DRSPs to familiarize themselves with these specific return codes mentioned above that place their consumers into the Hold status.

 

API Updates (3)

Paginated Contact List via API

This new feature introduced a new contact lists endpoint that supports the ability to retrieve a paginated list of contacts from the FORTH system. Specifically, this feature enables 3rd party systems to pull list data in a paginated format, which enables further automation capabilities for clients who wish to build more of their processes on top of the FORTH API. This new endpoint will be limited to 100 contacts returning at a single time. This feature also applies to the CTX API.

API User Selection Dropdown

This update allows users to see the service user's information for context when generating API keys for them on the REST API page in the Admin tab. In other words, it allows the user to know which user ID credentials are being generated. This feature modifies the “Select a User” dropdown on the REST API admin page to show additional information. The same information is shown for both service and standard users, and the use of the feature assumes the client has the Forth CRM API addon enabled and has access to the REST API page.

Settlement Offers for a Contact via API

This feature allows the CRM user to retrieve all settlement offers associated with a contact based on a specific Debt ID. This simplifies the process of accessing settlement offers for a contact. When a valid Debt ID is provided, the system now returns all associated settlement offers. and enhance API integration efficiency by reducing the dependency on pre-known offer IDs. Enhancing this aspect of the CRM system should significantly improve user satisfaction as well as system efficiency.