Words From The Efficiency Experts

Teslar Software is on a mission to help community banks thrive. If your current processes are manual, outdated, and all too time-consuming, Teslar has a solution to help your team become empowered and efficient! Continuing our Power Users series, where we share real-life use cases of Teslar partnerships, Casey Gordon shares about the modules that Guaranty Bank & Trust, based in Belzoni, MS, love the most in Teslar.

No matter what solution your bank currently has or what role you serve at your bank, Teslar Software can help you and your bank become more efficient, streamlined, and empowered. In this series, we will chat with some of our Teslar Power Users to discuss how Teslar helps navigate some of the challenges banks and bankers are facing today.

At Teslar Software, we are in the business of creating highly efficient banks. We build tools designed to improve productivity and increase data accuracy throughout your entire institution. We provide community financial institutions with automated workflow and portfolio management tools to streamline and improve processes with easy access to relevant information needed to operate. Our innovative software is built on four pillars that we believe are essential to any financial institution that is eager to increase efficiency: Integration, Empowering Bankers, Streamlining Processes, and Scalability.

Consumer behavior is an important economic driving force. Although holidays are never about gift-giving or spending money, these cultural norms are still major factors for the economy. V Day is a staple day for retail industries like floral, candy, and jewelry. To get a deeper look at just how much we are spending, who is spending it, and what we are spending it on, we turned to NRF (National Retail Federation), who has surveyed consumers about Valentine’s Day plans annually for almost 20 years. 

While the economic effects of coronavirus have led to business closures, job losses, and a drop in GDP, some are taking this as an opportunity to pursue passions and take risks. That’s right, entrepreneurship is on the rise. Americans are starting businesses at the fastest rate in more than a decade. As of September 2020, applications for EIN numbers had surpassed 3.2 million for the year¹, with over 500,000 of said applications occurring from mid-Mach to the end of May alone². This number is, unironically, up 500,000 compared to the year prior¹.

During the 2019 ICBA ThinkTECH accelerator, Mark Marionneaux, president and CEO of Zachary, La.-based Bank of Zachary, visited the Venture Center and spoke with several participants, one of whom was Joe Ehrhardt, CEO and founder of Teslar Software. Bank of Zachary has since partnered with Teslar Software for exceptions management and workflow tools to streamline manual processes.

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 shook the American economy and uprooted day-to-day life for most Americans. We saw a lot of back and forth when it came to economic outlook and predictions. One factor that stayed strong was the housing market. In fact, demand increased and we saw record-breaking sales numbers in 2020. Despite increase in building materials in 2020, demand for new homes also stayed strong.

This year brought about many firsts for the banking industry, our country, and the entire world. It has been a whirlwind year in which public health and safety, the fate of small businesses, the economy, Paycheck Protection Program, and pretty much anything else COVID-related remained top of mind.

Community bankers and small business are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next stimulus bill, which will more than likely include another round of funds for the Paycheck Protection Program. At this time, there is no official ruling, and all details are based on probability and speculation, but we learned last time that this program is fast-moving and ever-changing. By our commitment to helping make PPP an easier process for community bankers and their customers, we’re back with an all new module for this new round.

Christmas Club accounts (or Holiday Club accounts) are short-term savings accounts offered by financial institutions to help consumers set aside money for holiday expenditures. These accounts take a designated amount from each paycheck throughout the year and set it aside in the holiday account. This amount could be as small as 5 or 10 dollars per paycheck.