Going Paperless: Madison Capital Transforms Operation in Less Than 30 Days

by Monitor Staff November/December 2007
Have you been putting off going paperless because you think it will take too much time to implement into your business? Think again. Madison Capital discusses how the company went from “paper weighted” to paperless lease transactions in less than 30 days.
Allan Levine Headshot Allan Levine COO, Madison Capital
Nancy Pistorio Headshot Nancy Pistorio EVP, Madison Capital
Samantha Moritz BDO, eOriginals, Inc.

Recently, Madison Capital made the decision to offer a fully paperless leasing transaction option, or e-leasing, to its clients. This meant adding electronic signature (e-signature) and vaulting capabilities to the company’s current loan origination system (LOS), placing Madison among the paperless technology pioneers in leasing.

What is surprising about a company like Madison Capital who has been around for more than 30 years — long enough to have seen it all — is the company’s continued pursuit of improvement. Staying ahead of the game is part of what makes Allan Levine, Madison’s COO, get up in the morning.

But staying ahead is just one of several reasons for this decision, and in this interview with key Madison personnel, we discuss those reasons as well as the process, benefits and internal changes that occur as a result of going paperless.

Madison Capital chose the eOriginal eLeasing on-demand solution, which includes electronic signature and electronic vaulting capabilities. eOriginal’s solution utilizes the DocuSign electronic signature software, which allows the application of “sign here” tabs on PDF documents. Once electronically signed, the signature is digitally bound to the document and the document is deposited and maintained in the eOriginal electronic vault. It is through the use of the vault that these contracts remain legally admissible, enforceable, negotiable and in compliance with all legislation such as UETA, ESIGN and UCC Revised Article 9-105 for electronic chattel.

Print requests or views of the Electronic Original® are always watermarked and date/time stamped so as to be clear they are copies, as required by law. The eOriginal vault also allows transfer of ownership for the sale and securitization of these electronic contracts. The vault also provides the ability to generate Certified Print® for creating evidence packages and the exporting of electronically signed originals to legally enforceable paper. For any electronically signed financial asset, an electronic vault is required to manage access, permissions and control — all documented with audit trails — in order to maintain the enforceability and negotiability of the documents deposited.

Madison Capital’s Levine and Nancy Pistorio, executive vice president, discuss the company’s journey to a paperless way of doing business in the following Q&A.

Why did Madison Capital decide to go paperless, and why now?

Allan Levine: The leasing and finance industry is a process-driven business where profits are increased with efficiency. With that in mind, we firmly believe, at some point in time, most organizations will go paperless. Madison Capital is a company that has consistently implemented state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology, which allows for us to be that much ahead of the competition.

We believed this technology was coming. It was just a question of “when?” We looked at going paperless eight, maybe nine years ago. It was in its infancy then, and we could not get reliable answers to the questions we asked. Back then, there was no “on demand” model — you had to buy or build an expensive software system. For leasing, we felt the return on investment was just not there.

When we looked at it again this year, things had definitely changed. Here it is, nine years later and this technology has been successfully launched in the mortgage and automotive finance business, medical industries, and many others.

Nancy Pistorio: The auto lenders use eOriginal, and they sell their eContracts on the secondary market, too. So, they’ve already proven the entire process is viable and legal. Also, our funding source accepts e-contracts, so we are quite comfortable with going forward.

AL: The eOriginal eLeasing solution is very cost-effective because we pay as we go. Also, we didn’t need to make any big IT changes because it’s all “on demand.” That is one of the reasons we felt the time is now. In our opinion, waiting around for the end product is not necessarily the right thing to do. Growing with a vendor of eOriginal’s caliber and substantial experience is the right thing to do.

How did you do it, and what were some of the challenges?

AL: Perhaps the biggest challenge was just getting everybody thinking paperless. But, it’s no different than going to e-mail. In the beginning everything used to get overnighted, You had to send it out then they would send it back, then you had to read everything to make sure nothing was changed. Next, we were e-mailing PDF files, which made reliability a bit better. In short, this is a new document delivery system.

I remember I had the first handheld calculator that added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. It was fairly large, cost $400 and held a charge for about an hour.

Most loved it, but many had the same complaint. They said, “This will never make it,” because “there is no paper trail.” Since then, I think a few handheld calculators have been sold without paper. So, you will be paperless — now or later.

NP: We did an initial pilot launch, which allowed us to control the transition better. We hand-picked the deals and worked with customers we knew were a bit more tech savvy, but I really think anyone can do it. We learned what we needed to change internally, and once we mapped our internal business process to the new paperless process, the training time in getting everyone else up and running was really fast. To date, we have completed about 30 e-leases. Our customers, brokers and vendors love the ease of use and convenience. Our staff appreciates the new streamlined approach, which increases their productivity, reduces complexity of the deal, and minimizes the frustration of errors and omissions of data and signatures. In a nutshell, the paperless process has improved customer satisfaction and increased our ability to control quality.

AL: We’ve completed numerous projects in the past. I will 
tell you the smooth transition (excepting a few small glitches) has been five times better and faster than most of the other changes, upgrades or new software systems. Most residual issues are not major and are quickly remedied. Once we were comfortable with the process, things were smooth.

How did your business (customers and vendors) respond?

NP: They love it. They are all looking for a faster way to get a deal off the street, get it funded and done, and this is definitely one way to do that.

Last month, a broker we do a lot of business with spent the entire day driving documents to our office so he could get paid on the last day of the month. Now, he does the same thing literally in a few minutes from his desktop, or from anywhere there is an Internet connection, because all he has to do is log on and sign the documents electronically. We get instant notification when everyone has signed, the broker gets paid immediately, the client gets its equipment and Madison gets the deal done quickly. And we’re all definitely happier about that.

In another deal, we had an equipment transaction where one signer was in Nevada and one was in California. It was very convenient to just send e-mails to each one, letting them know their documents were ready to be signed. They were able to log on and sign everything in a few minutes. The client opted to make an initial payment by phone so there was nothing to mail. The entire deal was finalized in a day instead of a week.

What have been the benefits for Madison?

AL: I think at the end of the day, our entire process 
has ultimately become much more efficient, smoother and 
better organized.

We don’t have any questions about where to find documentation. There’s nothing missing and nothing hanging out there we can’t track or find, because it’s all in the electronic vault. We don’t have to ship anything or retrieve originals from storage, and we don’t have a ton of paper being filed. Overall, it’s improved our processing time between 20% and 30%.

As one of the signers on the contracts, it’s easy for me as well. I just go to my computer, open them up, click on the signature and boom, I’m done. I can sign one or a lot at one time. It’s very easy, quick, and no one has to track me down to sign.

NP: In our business, because we are one financing source among many other options, competition dictates we be faster, easier to work with and more responsive. Being paperless enables us to be all those things for the client, which encourages them to say, “I need to look at Madison Capital as an alternative form of financing for the convenience factor and because I get better service.” So it’s definitely been a competitive advantage for us.

What should companies that might be considering going paperless know about this process?

AL: If I were a company thinking about going paperless, I would not be concerned about the transition to a paperless process. I do not think this is one that requires a lot of guesswork as to what is going to go wrong. It is not nearly as difficult and laborious as switching computer systems or installing new software programs.

And I think now the marketplace is ready for this. For us we did it at the right time. The good news is we got in early and we did it without rushing to get everything up and running on a deadline. We’re going a little slower than we have to, and for us this is a great solution.

Companies like ours that are technology driven try to stay ahead of the curve. But, you have many companies that are just a little slower to react. Either they don’t want to spend the money or they haven’t put the time in to understand the technology and they operate under the “if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it” policy. It is another corporate decision that will be made when your company is ready.

NP: A suggestion for other companies taking this step is to first implement with a small internal group of people and a few select customers in order to memorialize the process changes and “iron out” any hiccups. This raises the comfort level and increases the acceptance of the rest of the staff once they know it’s been tested and works well.

AL: It’s like I’ve always said, do it now or do it later, but you’ll do it.


Madison Capital, LLC was preceded by two companies: Baltimore’s Harbor Equipment Leasing, established in 1983, provided equipment lease financing throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, and Fox-Valley Leasing, established more than 30 years ago, provided vehicle leasing services. Both companies expanded throughout the U.S. and Canada, and in 1997, formed Madison Capital, LLC, a direct funding source for equipment transactions up to $10MM. For more information, call 800-733-5529 or visit www.madisoncapital.com.

eOriginal, Inc.’s advanced e-signature and vaulting solutions enable companies to eliminate paper while legally protecting their assets. eOriginal, Inc. has partnered with DocuSign, Inc., offering their combined technology and processes to create legally binding e-signatures and electronic finance documents that are tamper-evident, auditable and legally enforceable. eOriginal solutions are compliant with ESIGN, UETA and UCC Revised Article 9-105. Although an outsourced solution, the eOriginal eLease system can be custom branded. For details call 410-895-7699 or visit www.eoriginal.com.

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