Payday loan software is a pretty vague subject. Just like anything that’s vague or hard to explain, I’ll break it down into something we can all relate to.
Before I get started, I promise not to use any of the following techical terms in this article: SQL, open source, Apache, Linux, Windows, disk space, bandwidth, redundancy, Oracle, Vista, XP or any other name or word that tries to make you feel insignicant or dumb.
I’m going to compare payday loan software to cooking. We’ll call the web based product the grill and the PC based product the microwave. A microwave is great for what it does, which is heating up anything from pizza to shoes. If you want to cook something, you’re going to need a grill. The microwave is pretty simple. You pick a time and press the button. If you’re going to buy a grill, you’re going to need someone to cook the food, but more on that later.
Last time I checked there aren’t too many restaurants that cook everything in a microwave. Let’s imagine a nice piece of meet after 7 minutes in a microwave. I think you get the point.
The PC based payday loan software you buy and put on your computer is a microwave. It does the job, but its’ inflexible and has limitations. The web based system is more like a big, stainless steel grill. You can control the temperature and cook many different things at one time. The grill is a little more work, but the results make it worth while.
What’s remarkable is that companies, like ours, offer payday loan software through the Internet. I guess this makes us the cook. We make sure everything is done correctly. Unlike the cook you hire, we don’t get sick and we will never quit or leave because we got a better paying job because we’re a company and not a person.
Now, if you buy the system, you have to do the cooking or you have to hire a cook. This is fine for very large companies that can afford IT people. This employee can make life difficult, but more on this another day. Depending on how many IT people you have to hire, it could cost anywhere from $75-300k in additional payroll a year.
Ironically, our customers can do pretty much anything Advance America and Check n Go can do, in terms of loan products and scalability.
I don’t think the store managers, in the big operations, get much of what they want out of the software. These corporate systems aren’t very user friendly because they’re designed to just work. If they make a change, it’s because they have to and not because it will make the end user’s life easier.
The problem with software for many years, everyone just bought the microwave because the alternative was too expensive or difficult to maintain or too risky due to insufficient information. You can’t buy an expensive piece of software without hiring people to maintain it for you. This is the benefit of using the software as a service. You don’t have to hire IT people. People cost a lot more than software.
Since companies like ours have popped up, you don’t have to buy the microwave anymore. You can buy the grill and pay for it as long as it’s make sense to do so. Since our product is a service, you don’t have to buy a system or hire a programmer to have a scalable system. This means you get to use the same, if not better technology than the big players use without having to spend the money.
Even if you buy something and spend $2k or $200k, you’re paying for it. When you use a system that you don’t have to buy and just pay to use; your customers pay for it. I like when my customers pay for something. I hate reaching into my own pocket.
Now you don’t have to do the cooking. You can let people like us handle it for you or you can buy the microwave.
The PDL Industry changes so much, which makes it even harder and riskier to own a piece of software. Just ask anyone is Illinois, New Mexico or Texas. The state government passed laws that made most of the software obsolete. Something this inflexible makes it hard to do business.
I’ve seen this where owners are more worried about their software systems and employees than they are the customer. I guess what I’m saying is don’t worry about software, worry about your customers. We’ll worry about the software for you.
Let’s make a deal. I won’t ask you if tapes are better than cds, if you don’t promise to ask me if PC based is better than web based.
So, if you have a question or just want some practical advice, shoot me an email at nick.sparagis@introxl.com.
