What’s criminal? Lenders beware – amendments to Criminal Code under Bill C-274

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An Act to amend the Criminal Code Bill-C-274 (the Bill) entered first reading in the House of Commons on May 11, 2021. The Bill would amend1 the definitions of “criminal rate” and “interest” in subsection 347(2) of the Criminal Code, while also repealing section 347.1, which had allowed certain exceptions for payday loans.

The Bill will be of interest to lenders, especially payday lenders and other non-traditional lenders, as the amendments proposed would lower the criminal rate at which interest charged or received is under the Criminal Code from 60% to 30%.

To continue to read the text by Me Joyce M. Bernasek and Me Ramz Aziz from the law firm Osler, follow this link.

 

In the Loan Manager, is it possible to change a payment date for all loans at the same time?

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Q: In the Loan Manager, is it possible to change a payment date for all loans at the same time? For example, I want to change the date from March 26 to March 27?

A: This can be done in batch but each date will have to be modified. You can do this for “Due Pmt” and “Paid Pmt” lines only.

  • Go to Tools > Post Payments
  • Check “Use Date interval”
  • Enter dates between March 26, 2021 and March 26, 2021 (or other dates)

In theory, you would change only the Due Pmt lines so therefore you don’t have to check “Include all Payment Line statuses”.  In the following example, I checked the option but this is usually not necessary…

Afterwards, you need to copy and paste the March 27 date (the new date) and modify line by line (faster with Ctrl C and Ctrl V (copy/paste) compared to manually entering teh date):

You will then be able to modify the dates and the lines will become light green. The chronological order of the lines must be followed:

Once the changes are done, click “Apply” and dates will be modified.

Margill Installation – Network Drive not Displayed – Windows 10

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You are installing a Margill product and do not see your mapped network drive on Windows 10. Here is how to solve this in many cases anyways…

This is not as difficult as it seems…

Turn on SMB Direct from the Windows Features and edit the registry key called EnableLinkedConnections.

  1. Click the Start button, click Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off.
  2. Select the check box next to the SMB Direct feature to turn it on.
User-added image

To configure the EnableLinkedConnections registry value:

  1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start programs and files box, and then press ENTER.
  2. Locate and then right-click the registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
  3. Point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
  4. Type EnableLinkedConnections, and then press ENTER.
  5. Right-click EnableLinkedConnections, and then click Modify.
  6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
  7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

How can I enter multiple payments and advances in a loan without having to enter them one by one? I have over 100 in one loan. I have the data in Excel.

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Q: How can I enter multiple payments and advances in a loan without having to enter them one by one? I have over 100 in one loan. I have the data in Excel.

A: Very easily, in seconds with a simple 4-column Excel sheet.

Go to Tools > Post Payments. On the top of the window, far right, you will see the “Bulk Payment Import” button. Of the two options, choose “Import new payments” (payments can be actual paid payments, upcoming payments, advances (additional principal), etc.)

The window will then show you the required Excel file format with the 3 required data columns and others that are optional:

  • Column A is the loan ID (this can be the MLM ID or your unique ID)
  • Column B is the Date
  • Column C is the amount (always positive)
  • Column D, in this case required since you are importing payments and advances, will specify what the amount is (a payment, what type of payment or an advance)

You can add additional information such as a line comment, a check number, other data, even that the payment should be a fixed principal payment (see the ?).

For Column D of the Excel file, you would specify what the amount is:

A Paid Payment would be a 4 in column D, and an advance would be a 14. If an amount is due but not yet paid, then this would be a 1 (so something in the future, not in the past).

 

Here is a sample Excel sheet with 2 advances (12,000 and 15,000), 5 Paid payments and 10 Due payments in the future:

The result is all good since no errors are shown. Errors would be shown in red with descriptions of whey they are in error (wrong dates, illogical scenarios, loan is not Active, etc.): To import press on “Insert lines”:

 

See also: Importing batch payments in Margill Loan Manager (CSV, Excel)

Can Margill software be used for HOA (Home Owners Association) collections along with the interest calculation?

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Q: Can Margill software be used for HOA (Home Owners Association) collections along with the interest calculation?

A: Yes, very easily without needing an agency to do these calculations.

Many law firms and accountants are tasked with collecting HOA assessments and find it time consuming with a risk or error when this is done by hand or in a spreadsheet.

Option 1 – Low volume

Margill Law Interest Calculator can be used to do these calculations when there is a low volume (less than 20-25). You can even import the assessment amounts and dates as well as the payments made with a very simple 2-3 column Excel sheet.

Example of a HOA collection table where assessments are included as well as payments and attorney fees:

Nice need reports can also be produced in PDF formats that show how payments are applied.

Option 2 – Higher volume 

If your volume if greater than twenty or so cases (and can go to the hundreds or thousands), then Margill Loan Manager would be a better solution since all data is stored in a nice-neat database in which assessments, payments, attorney fees and costs can be added in bulk though a spreadsheet. You can also manage payments and collect through ACH payments – so you can actually service the HOA assessments. Furthermore, you can instantly provide your client with balances for all outstanding assessments.

For more information, please contact us at 1-877-683-1815 or by email [email protected]

 

How can I see interest that accrued on unpaid payments?

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Question:

I have a question regarding interest accruing on unpaid payments. We have a franchise that is working on their cash flow right now and we wanted to give them an updated statement on what is owed to us for their franchise loan. How can I see interest that accrued on unpaid payments? So for example if their payment was due back in March of last year and they want to make a payment. How can I show them the interest that accrued on that payment?

Answer:

This is found in the “Outstanding” columns:

The interest is a very close approximation since uses a slightly different way of calculating interest than the normal method (really not a big difference, so no need to worry about this).

In the reports see under the Outstanding theme:

 

 

How to change the Windows Short date format

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Margill prefers a date format that contains 4 digits for the year. This is especially important for calculations that may (if these still are out there!) predate the year 2000. How to change the Windows Short date format: Windows 10 gives you various ways to change the short date format (Control Panel or Settings) 1) […]

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Early payoff – How to do this in Margill Loan Manager

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Q: How to do an early payoff in Margill Loan Manager

A: For example, the loan term was originally for 5 years or 60 months (so end date was in June 2020). The borrower calls you, the creditor, and wishes to payoff his/her loan early, on October 12, 2018.

Original payment schedule:

 

I first recommend to take a snapshot of the full 60 month payment schedule – this was we have an easy to consult original payment schedule. Click on “Attach”. A PDF will be attached to the Record.

Next change the date to October 12, change the payment to 0.00 so the payoff balance is now shown (64,297.75 in this case). Notice I also changed the 2018-11-01 payment date to 2018-10-13 to see my daily interest on the balance (4.92 per day).

Change the Payment to 64,297.75 (for Oct 12).

You can then delete the next lines that are no longer required (right mouse click).

You could also decide to add extra fees for an early payoff if the contract included this (use Column fees or Line status fees). This will increase the balance of course.

Also, you could create a special payment-type Line status to identify all your early payoffs. Could be interesting for your reports.

If the final payment is late, nothing stops you from changing this final date to enter the true payment date. Extra interest will accrue.

Can you walk me through how I would update MLM to the latest version on the Cloud?

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Question:

My Margill Loan Manager is installed on a server on the Cloud.  It wants to have me input a path and so on, and I was not comfortable starting it. It also said to back up MLM data first, and I am not sure if that is necessary for me given that we have the server back-up every night.

Answer:

When all goes smoothly, an update should take 3-4 minutes.

If not already done, download the full update (for existing clients) at www.margill.com/get. Download from the remote server, not from your personal computer. This way, the installer will already be on the Cloud, as opposed to being on your PC.

Run the Margill Installer. It will ask for the path for the software installation. The default setting will usually be the last installation path or the C: drive which is where Margill is usually installed on the Cloud.

The Data (so where the database resides), when installed on C:\Program Files (x86) will usually be under C:\Program Data\MLM_Data.

If it is not there (as it usually should be), then an error will appear, and you will have to find the proper Data path. Search for the “DB” folder using the Windows search tool. Depending on who did the installation, data could be anywhere, so let’s hope the person who installed did a good, clean job!

ALWAYS do a backup. Everything should go smoothly with the update, but never take the chance; do a backup.

You will need basic knowledge of Windows to do this unless your paths are all properly configured.

If a client makes a payment, how do I feed that into the program?

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Question:

Hi – I’ve been giving your software a trial, and really like it.

The only thing I haven’t been able to do is feed information into the ledger. For example, if a client makes a payment, how do I feed that into the program? How does it know when a payment hasn’t been made? And if someone makes a partial payment, does it automatically adjust the remaining payments?
Answer:
You will notice that when a schedule is created, the “Line status” for each line is “Due Pmt.” You then manage the payments as they are paid (or not paid) by changing this Line status to Paid, Unpaid, Partial payment, etc.

You can do this loan by loan. Or, a much much faster way, is to use the Post payment tool, probably the most important tool in software where you can batch update payments.

Post payment tool to batch update Due payments

The software usually does not recompute payments – it recomputes the interest for the remaining of the loan automatically. Fees can also automatically be added for unpaid payments for example – you create the rules (Tools > Settings > Administrator settings > Column Fees Automatic).
When a borrower does not pay, the loan will show a balance. You could also decide to recompute the payments, or you can extend the loan (after an agreement with the borrower). This can all be done with the powerful right mouse click.