How to send a credit application to lenders without retyping it
Send it from the place the customer's answers already live. If your store uses CreditApp.ca, bkd.ai sends the application straight from the customer's record to your lenders, under the salesperson's own Credit App login, and brings every lender's decision back onto that customer's conversation. Nobody types the application a second time.
Why do dealerships retype credit applications?
Because the application and the lender portal live in different systems. The customer fills out a form on the website or answers by text, and those answers sit in one place. The lender portal wants the same answers typed into its own fields. Someone on the desk bridges the gap by hand, one field at a time.
That retype is not just slow. It is where a monthly income becomes an annual one, a previous address gets skipped, or a job start date is off by a year. The lender reads what was typed, not what the customer said. When the numbers do not match the pay stub, the deal comes back with conditions that never needed to exist.
We wrote about collecting the application in the first place in how to take a credit application over text. This post is about the other half: getting it to the lender intact.
What does a lender need to see on a credit application?
A lender needs complete, consistent answers: identity, current address and how long, employment and income with the pay frequency, and housing cost. If the customer has been at their address or job for under two years, most lenders also want the previous one. Missing or guessed answers are what turn an approval into conditions.
The rule worth holding to is simple. An answer the customer did not give should be blank, not filled with a default. A guessed marital status or a guessed time on the job looks harmless on the desk and reads as fact to the lender.
bkd.ai never fills in an answer for the customer. If something required is missing, it says so in plain words before anything is sent, and the rep goes back to the customer for it.
Who should submit the application to the lender?
The salesperson working the deal. Lenders call whoever submitted the application when they have a question or a condition. If the application went in under a manager's login or a shared one, the call lands with someone who does not know the customer, and the answer waits until the right person is found.
bkd.ai sends each application under the rep's own Credit App login. The rep links their login once. An admin decides which people on the team are allowed to send applications at all, so access to credit stays with the people who should have it. The rep also confirms the customer agreed to a credit check before anything goes out.
How do you track which lender approved a deal?
Put every lender's answer in one place, on the customer. Decisions usually arrive by email, in the lender portal, or by phone, and the rep is often the last to hear. When each lender's status, rate, payment and conditions sit on the customer's conversation, anyone opening that customer sees where the deal stands.
In bkd.ai, lender updates arrive in the customer's conversation as one card instead of a line per update. The best news shows first. Conditions open with a click, and anything the customer still has to do shows as a short list. A decline from one lender never hides an approval from another, because each lender is tracked on its own.
The deal moves forward on its own too. When the application goes to lenders, the deal moves to working the approval. When a lender approves, it moves to approved. It never moves backwards because of one lender's answer.
Frequently asked questions
Does bkd.ai work with CreditApp.ca?
Yes. bkd.ai is an integration partner with CreditApp.ca. A dealership admin connects the store once from Settings, using a one-time code pasted into Credit App. After that, applications go from the customer's record in bkd.ai to the store's lenders, and every lender's decision comes back onto that customer.
Can a salesperson send a credit application without a manager?
If an admin has given them access, yes. In bkd.ai, an admin chooses which people on the team can send credit applications. Each of those reps links their own Credit App login once, so lenders know exactly who submitted the deal and who to call with questions or conditions.
What happens if the application is missing information?
bkd.ai checks the application before it goes out and tells you what is missing, in plain words. It never fills a blank with a default answer, such as a guessed marital status or time on the job. The rep gets the missing answer from the customer, then sends a complete application.
Can I change the application after it goes to lenders?
Before it goes to lenders, edits in bkd.ai keep the application in Credit App up to date. Once lenders have it, bkd.ai stops overwriting it, because each lender now holds its own copy. Corrections from that point are made in Credit App, and bkd.ai opens it with one click.