Are you already certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)? Or are you applying for certification as a CDFI? If so you’ll likely need to submit the Abbreviated TLR report to the CDFI Fund this year.
What is the Abbreviated TLR?
The Abbreviated Transaction Level Report (Abbreviated TLR) is a summary of the loan origination and purchase activity for your financial institution for the past year. You will need it to apply as a new CDFI, or to recertify as a CDFI with the CDFI Fund. It’s similar to the full length Transaction Level Report (TLR), but includes some data points newly added by the CDFI Fund, while excluding others that are required only for the full length TLR report. According to the CDFI Fund itself, the main purpose of the Abbreviated TLR is to evaluate the extent to which a certified CDFI (or CDFI applicant) serves approved Target Market(s). Click here for the CDFI’s published Guidance.
If you already subscribe to CDFI Module, DLM will use the information you’re already entered into the previously provided CDFI fields. But we have also added several new data fields that are required for building the Abbreviated TLR. These include fields for Climate Centered Purpose, and Other Targeted Populations (OTPs), for example Persons with Disabilities.
Who needs to complete the Abbreviated TLR?
All current and prospective CDFI organizations will likely need to complete the Abbreviated TLR in 2024. This year the CDFI fund is asking all current CDFIs to go through a recertification process. This is designed to evaluate whether the organization is serving the populations most in need of additional financial services, and that it is accountable to those same populations. The Abbreviated TLR is an essential part of this application and recertification process.
What is included in the Abbreviated TLR?
The Abbreviated TLR is designed to help you demonstrate that you primarily serve one or more approved Target Markets. When you subscribe to DownHome Loan Manager’s CDFI module, you can add information about the Target Market(s) you are serving for each loan that you are tracking in DLM. You will be able to select from a pull-down list of key Target Markets, or you may select Other OTP and enter the details of your special target market. This information is integrated with other loan-level demographics required for each version of the TLR report.
DownHome Loan Manager makes CDFI TLR reporting easier:
When you produce a TLR report, you will be prompted to select whether you wish to produce a full length TLR or the Abbreviated TLR. Based on your choice, DLM will produce a report in XML format that precisely matches the specifications issued by the CDFI Fund for the selected TLR variant. When it builds the report, DLM will validate each loan record against the list of requirements provided by the CDFI fund, helping to ensure that your reporting stays in compliance.
Once the TLR report is created, you will be able to log into the CDFI Fund’s AMIS reporting system and upload the XML file. All of these steps are documented in DLM’s Help Center.
From time to time, the CDFI Fund updates its reporting requirements, as exemplified by the new Abbreviated TLR and recent revisions to the full TLR report. As always, we will stay on top of these changing requirements as new specifications are released by the CDFI Fund – and incorporate all of these requirements in the software module.
Here’s what Heidi E from the CARes Project says about the CDFI Module:
I just completed our CDFI-TLR certification and wanted to send a note of thanks for the terrific system you have in place that assists us in our CDFI reporting. I generated the CDFI-TLR report on DownHome Solutions, uploaded my xml report on the CDFI website and certified an error free TLR document in about 5 minutes (it took that long because I was double checking to make sure I was doing everything right on the CDFI page!). I really appreciate you all making what could have been a really complicated reporting process so easy!!
Need to learn more about the Abbreviated TLR and other changes made to the CDFI Certification Application? See the CDFI Fund’s certification page: https://www.cdfifund.gov/programs-training/certification/cdfi
Ready to move forward with the CDFI Module in DLM?