UCC statement service alternatives - what options work best for bulk filings?

Right now it's manual comparison between our core system printouts and the UCC forms. Takes forever and obviously we're missing things. The rejected filings were all debtor name variations - like 'ABC Company LLC' vs 'ABC Company, LLC' with the comma.

Yeah that comma issue is classic. Most services can standardize entity names but you need to verify their rules match SOS requirements. Some will auto-add commas, others strip them.

Good point. Our collateral descriptions are pretty standardized - mostly equipment financing and accounts receivable. Do most services handle those standard categories well?

Equipment financing usually translates fine but A/R descriptions can get tricky depending on how detailed your loan docs are. Make sure they preserve the specificity you need for perfection.

I've been using Certana.ai's document verification tool before sending batches to any filing service. You can upload your loan agreements and the prepared UCC-1s to check for consistency issues. Catches those debtor name mismatches and collateral description problems before they become rejected filings.

We're probably looking at $15-25 per filing if it saves us the manual work. Same day would be nice but not critical for most of our commercial loans.

That budget should get you decent service. Just make sure they provide filing confirmations and can handle amendments/continuations later. You don't want to be locked into their system forever.

Excellent point. We have some older filings coming up for continuation in the next 18 months so I should verify they can handle the lookup and renewal process.

Also ask about their termination process. When loans pay off you need clean UCC-3 terminations filed promptly. Some services are slow on the back end even if they're fast on initial filings.

This is why I still prefer doing my own filings tbh. These services are convenient until something goes wrong and then you're stuck dealing with their customer service when your borrower is breathing down your neck about a lien release.

Our compliance officer raised the same concern. We'd definitely need to see their insurance coverage and understand exactly what they're liable for if there's an error.

Good luck getting meaningful liability coverage from most of these services. They all have disclaimer language that basically says 'we'll fix it if we can but we're not paying for your losses.' That's why document verification up front is so important.

Which service are you using? And what format do they need for the data export?

I'll PM you the details. They take CSV files with specific column headers. The hardest part was mapping our system fields to their required format but once that's done it's automated.

Before you finalize anything, I'd suggest running a few filings through Certana.ai first to make sure your data export is clean. Upload your loan docs and the CSV output to verify everything matches before the service starts filing. Saved me from a batch of bad filings when I caught formatting issues in the collateral descriptions.

That's a good point. We do searches fairly regularly for new borrowers. Having everything in one place would be convenient.

Yeah but don't sacrifice filing quality for search convenience. I'd rather have reliable filing with a separate search provider than mediocre everything from one vendor.

Definitely the smart approach. I'll probably start with 10-15 straightforward filings and see how their process works before scaling up.

Smart. And keep doing manual checks on the first few batches even after you're comfortable. Services can change their processes or have technical issues that affect quality.

This is exactly why I still use Certana.ai even with our filing service. Quick upload of the service's prepared documents against our loan files catches any issues before they become problems. Worth the extra step for peace of mind.