LEAF Commercial Capital announced it was selected as the winner of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association’s 2012 Operations & Technology Excellence Award. The award is presented annually to companies that clearly demonstrate innovation and best practices in using technology to deliver operational solutions to the equipment leasing and finance industry.

The award to LEAF was based on the state-of-the-art redesign of its originations portal and cost-per-usage product. The redesign allows LEAF’s customers, the equipment vendor, to originate and close leasing transactions in an expedited manner by moving their end users through the sales cycle faster, without delays.

The new solution includes online and mobile enabled capabilities to streamline credit applications and documentation turnaround by allowing the user to easily custom price, submit, track transactions, and close leasing transactions in real-time from virtually any location for transactions including different types of equipment and software blended together. The LEAF cost per usage program, 360° CPU, was completely automated to retrieve meter-read data directly from an equipment vendor’s in-house system. This turnkey process saves time and eliminates the source of most billing errors.

According to Miles Herman, the chief operating officer of LEAF, the award reinforces the company’s commitment to continuous improvement, which is a cornerstone of the LEAF brand. “We offer end-to-end, lifecycle services to our vendors and major account programs that we support,” said Mr. Herman. “LEAF focuses its resources on responding to the real world needs of its partners by providing them with technological advancements that fit into the way they do business and ultimately increase their sales. For LEAF, continuous improvement isn’t a slogan. It’s part of our culture and we live it every day.”

“It takes the combined effort of many dedicated LEAF employees to understand what our customers need and then to develop those advanced solutions,” Herman continued. “Last year, we met with a group of our customers to better understand their leasing issues and common sources of frustration. More specifically, we concentrated on their usage of leasing tools and technology, particularly the lease origination portals and cost per usage products within the industry. Our goal was to provide them with new and improved ways to originate and close their leasing transactions more efficiently around the way they do business. We wanted to minimize their backend errors and labor costs as well, ultimately saving them time and money.”