What Are Institution Options, Anyway?

If you’ve spent any amount of time looking through our help documentation, you may have noticed that the phrase “institution option” comes up a lot. But what exactly is an institution option? Whether you’re a new employee trying to learn the ins and outs of our system, or a veteran who could use a refresher, continue reading for an overview and some examples of this extremely important aspect of GOLDPoint Systems (GPS) programming.

Overview

In a nutshell, institution options are system settings that can be adjusted by GPS to meet your institution's specific needs. Each client uses a different configuration of settings that is managed by GPS on their behalf.

Institution options are continually being created and made available as clients request custom enhancements to their systems. This happens quite regularly, as institutions are frequently offering new services or needing to comply with changing regulations. In fact, creating a new option is one of the more common methods used by GPS to fulfill client requests. This is a win-win-win solution: The client gets the functionality they need and GPS can make the option available to other institutions.

Examples

Over the past couple years, GPS has created institution options that allow its clients to:

• Limit the allowed character length in certain fields on the Credit Reporting screen
• Disburse negative reserve balances to the General Ledger at payoff
• Require a Payoff Description before a loan can be paid off
• Determine which CDIA directives it follows for determining the Date of First Delinquency on bankrupt accounts
• Prevent interest-bearing loans from allowing a Last Transaction date to be set before the Effective Date of a payoff
• Set a default transaction to use when adding force place insurance to an account
• Mask account numbers during in-house customer-directed transfers
• Enable the debit card funding feature for their customers
• Automatically recalculate the P/I Constant after force place insurance is canceled
• Assess a late charge on qualifying accounts every day, including weekends and holidays
• Place holds on incoming customer-directed transfers for a specified number of days
• Amortize force place insurance over the life of the loan, rather than the policy term
• And many more!

These options are now part of the ever-growing list of hundreds of options available to GPS clients. Consult the Help Center and contact your GPS account manager to learn more about institution options and figure out which options are best for you. Does the perfect option not exist? Well then, let’s talk about making it happen!