Appraisal FirewallX Enhancements 

Scheduled for Friday, December 15, 2023

Release Information for Managers


Starting Friday morning, December 15, 2023, a new version of Appraisal FirewallX will be available for you and your clients. In this final release of 2023, we are adding new Manager-level Fee Settings, a client-wide Users report, place PDCs via credit card, and several more anticipated new features! Continue reading below for a complete description of each enhancement we are introducing.

Refer to our Knowledge Base for more extensive training materials.

New Enhancements for Managers

Capture Fees for PDCs and Scorecard

Appraisal Firewall is excited to announce that we have added new Manager-level settings for collecting Property Data Collection (PDC) billing fees and separating Standalone Scorecard fees from Scorecards run on an order-by-order basis! The inclusion of these new fee settings will ensure your accounting departments have accurate and precise fee summaries when reconciling monthly reporting. Additionally, through the introduction of PDC billing, you can recover credit card merchant fees incurred from processing credit card payments on PDC orders. Please refer to the Order PDCs by Credit Card Payment segment below for more information.
 

How To Use These Features:

Property Data Collection Fees

From your Manager account, access the Settings section (gear icon). A new Property Data Collection line item has been added to the Residential billing fees section.



Here, Managers can enter the billing fee that will be charged to your clients to recover any merchant fees assessed for processing credit card orders and designate if your fees will be percentage (%) or flat ($). Please note that the Paid By will always reflect Originator. This amount will be passed down to all your clients’ division settings (if those clients place PDC orders). PDC orders paid via credit card will reflect this amount as a new line item on the system generated invoices.
 

Separated Scorecard Fees

In the Additional Order Types section, we have added a new Appraisal Scorecard – Standalone Fee field to designate a specific fee for those clients that also place Scorecards independently of a full appraisal order. This will mitigate the pricing challenges of those clients that place Scorecards individually and within an order.



Please note that the Enable Appraisal Scorecard setting under the Appraisal Order Add-Ons section remains unchanged – this enables clients to order Scorecard and the fee entered is the default amount passed down to all clients’ divisions where Scorecard is run within an order. If you currently have an Appraisal Scorecard fee set for your clients’ divisions, this fee will automatically be applied to the new Appraisal Scorecard – Standalone Fee section within a division.

New, All Lender Users Report

Managers now have access to a Lender Users report that will produce a singular report of all your clients’ users directly from the Reporting screen! You no longer need to generate multiple, individual reports to assemble a list of users across all your clients. This report will display every user under every client, including the user type, contact information, and when the user last logged into their accounts.
 

How To Use This Feature:

Login to your Manager user account and choose Reporting. The Lender Users report will be located at the bottom of the Standard Reports section. Expand and select Run Report. A complete list of all your clients’ users can be found within the report.

New Enhancements for Managers and Lenders

Order PDCs via Credit Card Payment

Based on your feedback, Appraisal Firewall is eager to announce that PDCs will now be eligible to be ordered via credit card payments! With so many clients collecting appraisal fees via borrower credit card, extending this feature to PDCs ensures your clients can maintain their order placement process, with the prospect of increasing PDC order volume. By extension, eCheck and Bank Account are also available payment methods to place PDC orders. Streamlining this functionality will also aid in payment reconciliation when invoicing clients, reducing the frequency of orders not getting included in billing reports.
 

How To Use This Feature:

Within the New Order form, we have applied the Payment Method dropdown menu to the Order section when Property Data Collection – Value Acceptance/ACE is selected. Based on division settings, available payment methods will be listed.



The payment method process remains the same as it does for any other Residential product type. Please note that billing fees will be incurred on PDC orders if placed by credit card, eCheck, or Bank Account, which is why entering a PDC Billing Fee at the Manager-level is advantageous. This amount will always be determined by the Manager and paid by Originator.

New Dashboard Columns

We have updated the dashboard column customizer to include Appraiser Company and Lender ID to the Available Fields list. Now your accounting teams can add and customize columns to quickly assemble payment remittance information, directly from the main dashboard.
 

How To Use This Feature:

From the main dashboard screen, select the column customizer feature. Appraiser Company and Lender ID can be found at the bottom of the Available Fields list. Drag the tiles to the Current Fields and Commit. Your dashboard will update automatically and populate the appropriate data. Additionally, we have added these new options to the Export All feature and Custom Reporting. Please note that Appraiser Company information has been hidden from Supervisors and Originators to ensure compliance protocols remain in place.

Delivering Appraisal Reports to Co-Borrowers

Automatic delivery of the appraisal report to the borrower has long been a favorite feature within Appraisal Firewall. Now, we are extending that same option to co-borrowers! This will ensure all involved parties have access to the appraisal report, with less manual intervention performed by processors.
 

How To Use This Feature:

We have added a new CoBorrower’s Email field to the New Order screen, within Edit Details of an order, and the Delivery Options section of the Documents tab for Residential and Commercial product types. Please note this field will remain optional. If your clients supply the co-borrower’s email address and based on your clients’ post-delivery workflow, the borrower and co-borrower will automatically receive the Property Document(s) email notification to their respective inboxes at the designated time of report approval. Activity and tracking in the Communications Log remain unchanged.

Deliver Verisite Reports to Borrower(s)

Verisite’s array of products are now eligible to be delivered to your borrowers directly from the Documents tab! Now, users can send any Verisite report to their borrowers instantaneously from the order without navigating through multiple screens. We have even added the tracking and activity to the Communications Log!
 

How To Use This Feature:

Access a completed Verisite order. From the Documents tab, select the Verisite PDF Output box under Documents, and choose Delivery Options. If the borrower email addresses were provided, they will automatically populate under the Borrower Copy fields. Choosing Send will trigger the report delivery to the borrower(s) and post the activity to the Communications Log

Enhanced Property Classifications Section

We have updated how custom-created Property Classifications are displayed to clearly distinguish the default classifications from user-created classifications. Additionally, once custom classifications have been created, they can be removed at any point by Managers and Administrators, which will mitigate Customer Support inquiries to remove unnecessary custom classifications.
 

How To Use This Feature:

Access a client’s division. Choose Edit Settings and expand Property Classifications. Any custom property classifications will be designated with an asterisk (*) to differentiate those classifications from the default options. All custom property classifications will have an ‘X’ adjacent to them so Managers and Administrators can easily remove the classification.



Select SAVE to ensure the classification is removed. Please note removing the custom classification from the division will also remove it from Pricing, the New Order form, Edit Details, and Controlled Rotation.

New Enhancements for Lenders

Division Name Added to Report Completed Notifications

We have added the Division name to the Report Completed email notification, so users have more identifying information when reviewing emails. Users will no longer have to access the order directly to confirm which division the report was recently completed under.
 

How To Use This Feature:

This feature has been automatically applied for your convenience. The Division name will be present in the body of the email notification and displayed exactly how it is listed in the division’s settings.