Commercial underwriting often slows down because lenders spend hours manually entering data from complex borrower financial statements before meaningful credit analysis can begin. This manual process delays decisions, frustrates lending teams, and limits the volume of loans an institution can process efficiently.
To help solve this challenge, BeSmartee offers FlashSpread, an AI-assisted financial spreading solution that automates the extraction, classification, and standardization of borrower financial data. By reducing manual preparation, FlashSpread enables lenders to spend more time evaluating credit risk and less time entering data.
We sat down with David King, Chief Operating Officer at BeSmartee, to discuss how AI-assisted automation is streamlining commercial credit workflows and helping financial institutions make faster, more informed lending decisions.
Q: Manual data spreading is a traditional pain point in commercial lending. What specific inefficiencies does FlashSpread eliminate for credit teams?
David King: The biggest inefficiency isn't credit analysis itself. It's everything that has to happen before an analyst can begin evaluating the credit worthiness of a borrower. Credit teams spend hours locating financial information, entering data into spreading templates, checking calculations, and making sure everything is standardized. That's valuable work, but it's also repetitive and time-consuming.
FlashSpread automates much of that preparation. It extracts and organizes borrower financial data into a consistent format, allowing analysts to spend less time on manual data entry and more time applying their expertise to evaluating risk and making sound credit decisions.
Q: How does FlashSpread leverage AI and OCR technology to ensure data accuracy while handling the complexity of personal and business tax returns?
David King: Commercial financial documents aren't standardized. Every borrower, accountant, and CPA firm formats information a little differently, which makes automation challenging.
FlashSpread combines optical character recognition (OCR) with AI-assisted document processing to identify, classify, and extract information from a wide variety of tax returns and financial statements. The platform also includes validation workflows that allow lenders to review extracted data before it's finalized. Our goal isn't to remove human expertise from the process. It's to reduce the amount of manual work required while giving credit professionals confidence in the information they're reviewing.
Q: Speed is critical in today’s competitive market. How much time can lenders expect to save in their underwriting process after implementing FlashSpread?
David King: While results vary depending on the institution and loan complexity, many lenders reduce financial spreading from several hours to just a few minutes. That time savings compounds quickly across an entire credit department.
More importantly, faster financial preparation means analysts can spend more time evaluating borrowers instead of preparing financial information. That helps institutions improve turnaround times without sacrificing the quality of their credit decisions.
Q: Credit workflow automation is becoming the standard. How does FlashSpread integrate with existing loan origination systems to provide a seamless transition for lenders?
David King: Technology should fit into existing lending workflows, not force institutions to replace them.
FlashSpread is designed to integrate with leading commercial lending platforms and loan origination systems, allowing institutions to incorporate automated financial spreading into their current credit process. That minimizes disruption for users while helping lenders modernize one of the most time-intensive steps in commercial underwriting.
Q: Beyond simple automation, how does the platform help lenders improve their overall risk visibility and portfolio consistency?
David King: Consistency is one of the biggest advantages of automation. When financial information is extracted and standardized in a consistent way, analysts spend less time reconciling formatting differences and more time comparing borrowers on an apples-to-apples basis.
That consistency supports stronger credit analysis, improves collaboration across lending teams, and creates a more standardized credit process throughout the organization. The technology helps prepare the information. The lender still applies the judgment.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you see the role of AI evolving within the credit lifecycle to further empower commercial lenders?
David King: I don't see AI replacing commercial lenders. I see it helping them become more efficient.
As AI continues to evolve, I believe it will take on more of the repetitive, administrative work that slows down the credit process, whether that's document classification, financial spreading, identifying inconsistencies, or surfacing information that deserves closer review.
Credit decisions will continue to rely on human judgment, experience, and relationships. AI's role is to help lenders spend less time preparing information and more time making informed decisions that serve both their institutions and their borrowers.
Q: Why is data accuracy just as important as speed in the commercial underwriting process?
David King: Speed only creates value if lenders can trust the information they're working with. If inaccurate data enters the credit process, it can lead to unnecessary rework, inconsistent analysis, and ultimately poor lending decisions.
That's why we've placed such a strong emphasis on both accuracy and efficiency. FlashSpread is designed to help lenders quickly extract and organize borrower financial information while providing the validation and review capabilities needed to maintain confidence in the data. When credit teams have accurate, standardized financials from the start, they can focus on evaluating risk, identifying opportunities, and making informed lending decisions rather than questioning the quality of the information in front of them.
At the end of the day, our goal isn't simply to help lenders spread financials faster. It's to help them make better credit decisions by giving them reliable data as quickly as possible.
By automating the most tedious aspects of the underwriting process, FlashSpread enables lenders to shift their focus from manual data entry to informed credit analysis. The product’s ability to convert raw documents into structured, credit-ready spreads in minutes provides a significant competitive advantage in a fast-paced lending environment.
As financial institutions face increasing pressure to scale their operations without compromising on risk management, integrated technology solutions will be vital. FlashSpread stands as a key component of BeSmartee’s commitment to driving innovation, providing lenders with the tools necessary to accelerate their workflows and make faster, more confident credit decisions.
To learn more visit https://www.besmartee.com/contact-flashspread/
