Getting Started Guide

Table of Contents 

Introduction. 2

Company Information. 3

Email Address. 3

Welcome Email To Users. 4

Manage Appraisal Types. 5

Manage Order Edit Notifications. 6

Manage Email Notifications. 6

Manage Past Due Notifications. 7

Manage Accounts Payable (A/P) NET Terms. 7

Appraiser Registration Terms. 8

Company Setup. 8

User Setup. 9

Checklist. 10

Introduction

We would like to thank you for becoming an Appraisal Host client. This guide is meant to be a step by step guide that you can use to initially setup your system. This is not a comprehensive tutorial of the system features and functionality. On many screens in the system you will see a blue question mark in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Clicking this will bring up the help information for the screen you are on.

If you have any questions related to setting up your new site, please visit our website at http://www.appraisalhost.com and click on Support. From there you should open up a support ticket and provide us with as much detail as possible and we will promptly resolve your issue.

Company Information

You will first need to start by entering in your company information. You will find this by clicking on the Config menu. The
data entered here will display on various areas of the system as well as the invoices that are created from the system.

Email Address

Your system will automatically send emails to users for all system related activities. In order for this to happen you need to define the email address you would like to show as the FROM email. When system users receive email, this will be the email address that shows up in the FROM field. To configure this, go to the Config menu, then click on Email Configuration.

In addition to setting up the FROM email address, you can also define:

1. BCC Email: This is an email address to send all system related mail to. This is typically used to log all system related emails in the event that you wish to do this. We highly recommend that you dedicate a separate email address for this and not enter an email address that is used on a daily basis as the volume of email will be quite large.

2. Restrict appraiser to email lender directly: By default our system allows the appraiser to communicate with the lender/client via messaging through the system. All messages are logged for audit/historical purposes, but if you wish to disable this function, you can do so by selecting “YES” to restrict this ability.

3. Restrict lender to email appraiser directly: By default our system allows the lender/client to communicate with the appraiser via messaging through the system. All messages are logged for audit/historical purposes, but if you wish to disable this function, you can do so by selecting “YES” to restrict this ability.

Welcome Email To Users

At this point, if you’d like to, you can send welcome emails (outside of the system) to users you would like to have register with your site. As this typically takes a few days for users to register, it will give you time to configure the remaining items in this guide.

Manage Appraisal Types

To setup your appraisal types, click on Config, then Manage Appraisal Types. You will see the following screen.

This list of appraisal types is completely customizable and is here to help you get started. You can modify or delete these as needed. This is where you will also setup your global rates for both what you charge your clients (Default Charge) and what you pay your appraisers (Default Compensation). Later, you can define specific pricing for a client or appraiser but you first need to setup your global pricing for when you do not have specific exception pricing for a client or appraiser.

If you click on the blue ? in the upper right of the screen, the help screen will walk you through how to setup the appraisal types and pricing.

Manage Order Edit Notifications

Order Edit Notifications are a function that allows you to monitor any field on the order screens for changes and have the system automatically send out a notification. To configure Order Edit Notifications, click on Config, then Manage Order Edit Notifications. You will see the following screen. Clicking on the blue ? in the upper right will bring up the help for this
topic and walk you through how to configure Order Edit Notifications.

Manage Email Notifications

The system has over 30 different types of emails that are automatically sent out based on system events/activities. You have complete control over the subject line and body of these emails. We’ve provided some standard email notifications for you so you don’t need to create these from scratch. To review and or modify email notification you will click on Config, then Manage Email Notifications. Clicking on the blue ? in the upper right will bring up the help for this topic and walk you through how to configure Email Notifications.

Manage Past Due Notifications

Past Due Notifications are used to have the system continually monitor all orders in your system based on your defined past due criteria. When an order meets the criteria you’ve specified, it will put it on the past due section of the managers and appraisers dashboard and you can have the system send an email notification as well. To configure past due notifications you will click on Config, Manage Past Due Notifications. Clicking on the blue ? in the upper right will walk you through how to setup past due notifications.

Manage Accounts Payable (A/P) NET Terms

NET terms are the number of days after a report is completed by an appraiser before you will pay the appraiser for the report. You define this by specifying a number of days in the NET terms box. After an appraiser completes a report, the
system will wait the number of days defined in this box before showing the order on the A/P screen.

Appraiser Registration Terms

On the Appraiser Registration page you can display what your registration terms/requirements are for appraisers that wish to register with you and be on your panel. This is done by going into Config, Appraiser Registration and entering in
any registration terms/requirements you have.

Company Setup

All users in the system must be attached to an existing company before they can login. You will create companies by going to the Companies tab and clicking on Add A New Company. To get detailed instructions on how to setup new companies click on the blue ? in the upper right corner of the companies screen for the help page.

User Setup

Users are entered into the system in one of two ways, either through self-registration or by creating them manually. To manually create a user, go to the Users tab and click on Add a New User. Click on the blue ? in the upper right corner for the help screen on how to create and activate users.

Checklist

We are providing you with this checklist that you can print out and check off items as you work through the setup of your system.