In today’s world, technology has provided more opportunities than ever to enable businesses to stay focused on mission critical activities rather than spending time and money on internal processes and infrastructure. One such technology model related to computer software is called Software as a Service (SaaS). The SaaS model is fast replacing the traditional software licensing model. Instead of purchasing software and installing it on servers that must be purchased and maintained, paying annual maintenance fees for the software and having to apply upgrades to the software as they are released, the SaaS model frees businesses from these costs and time consuming processes. The SaaS model provides computer software in a hosted environment accessible via a web browser. There is no computer hardware to install, no software to install, no environment required to house the computer hardware, no backups to perform, and no staff required to perform all of that work. SaaS vendor owns the computer hardware, the software, provides the environment to house the hardware, performs the back ups and provides the staff to do all of the work. The costs associated with SaaS typically are either a small per use fee or a flat fee per month. That’s it. As a result, businesses can free up time and money to focus on what really matters to their success, providing the services or producing the products for their customers. Find out how MDC Software’s EmpowerCLS employs the SaaS model. Customers sign on to their account via the web and generate complete law firm quality documents using our loan document software by entering loan data in an easy to use interface. Within a fraction of the time and cost normally associated with creating a set of commercial loan documents, customers can have dynamically generated, customizable loan documents at their finger tips.
Don't get behind the proverbial 8 ball when entering into an agreement to use a prospective vendors software for generating your commercial loan documents. Listed below are several items to consider.
- What is the total cost of ownership will I have a large upfront capital expenditure that could possibly be avoided if I go with a service provider instead? Is there a low cost loan document package that I could consider instead
- Does the software generate a proprietary set of documents that I can't modify. Will you or your counsel be able to change easily if the need arises or will I need to totally redraw the documents if a change to one phrase or item is required?
- Is the vendor responsive to change requests to the loan document templates?
- How simple is the software from a user's perspective can users enter the data available to them at the time and then easily come back to the loan and enter additional loan information when it becomes available?
- What kind of training is required? Often, complicated to use systems yield a very expensive training cost for staff.
- Does the vendor have track record of responding to issues with their current customer base?
- Will I have additional costs associated with equipment, updates for the loan document software applied by my staff. Am I responsible for backups and disaster planning?
- Does the vendor provide a secure method of delivery from the software application to various destinations either through secure email or some other sort of secure delivery?
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