From 48 hours to 4 hours: How workflow automation is redefining title operations in wholesale finance

A lot of wholesale lenders quietly live with the same math: 2–3 full-time employees, 6,000+ hours a year, all swallowed by title intake, vaulting, release, and the constant “where’s my title?” calls from dealers. Titles aren’t broken in the dramatic sense. They work because people grind. That’s exactly why they’re such a big opportunity.​

When you compress a title release cycle from 48 hours to 4, you don’t just “go faster.” You change who does the work, what gets their attention, and how scalable your book actually is. The path from two days to same‑day often looks less like a big transformation project and more like a series of targeted workflow decisions.​

The 48‑hour problem

In a typical floor plan shop, a single title release might touch a dozen steps and half a dozen systems. Rough sketch:​

• Dealer request hits an inbox.
• Ops team checks the LMS.
• Someone finds the physical title in a vault or filing cabinet.
• Another person packages and ships via FedEx.
• Tracking lives in a separate portal.
• Finally, someone updates status fields and closes the loop with the dealer.

Each handoff waits on a human. Each status change lives in a different place. None of it is technically “broken,” but all of it is slow.

From conversations in the market and internal campaign work, a common picture emerges:

• 15–20 minutes of manual work per title across scanning, matching, and filing.
• 8–10 inbound dealer calls per day, per team, just asking about title status.
• 40% of operations time consumed by titles alone.

You can ship titles quickly on a good day. You cannot reliably scale that process 30–40% year over year without hiring linearly.

What changes when you automate the workflow

When one regional bank layered an automated title management workflow on top of its existing LMS, two shifts stood out:​

• Title release turnaround dropped from 48 hours to 4.
• The same three FTEs handled 40% more volume without burning out.

No new LMS. No rip‑and‑replace. Just a different way of orchestrating the work.​

Under the hood, that “different way” looks like this:

• Single intake surface
  Title batches get created inside a dedicated module rather than via scattered email threads. Staff scan or upload titles with a batch cover sheet and separator pages, and the system automatically sets up records for each incoming document.​
• Digitization and data extraction
  Optical character recognition (OCR) pulls key data off each title image and matches it to existing asset records. This step used to be dozens of keystrokes and copy‑paste actions per title; now it’s a verification click.
• Automated pairing with the LMS
  Instead of dual entry or Excel bridges, the title platform talks directly to the loan system via APIs. When a title is matched, status fields sync both ways.
• Integrated vaulting and shipping
  Titles are barcoded, assigned to folders, and tracked in a digital vault. Shipping labels generate within the same screen through a FedEx integration, with tracking automatically captured against the title record.
• Proactive notifications
  Dealers get automated texts or emails when titles are received, shipped, or released, which takes a big bite out of status‑check calls.

Once those pieces are in place, “48 hours” stops being an inevitability and becomes a choice. You can still sit on a release if policy requires it. You’re no longer doing it because paper is stuck on someone’s desk.

From 75 seconds to 26 seconds per title

At First Business Bank, Vero ran a five‑day time study on title processing before and after implementing a dedicated title management system. The bank wanted a clean view of where the time actually went, not just a gut feel.​

The numbers:

• Baseline processing time: about 75 seconds per title across intake, filing, and association.​
• Post‑implementation processing time: 26 seconds per title on average, with median time dropping by 69%.​
• The biggest chunk of time remained in association (about 10 seconds per title), which immediately surfaced as the next automation opportunity.​

Rather than focusing purely on averages, the study broke the workflow into preparation, scan, verification, matching, association, and filing. A few telling details:​

• Verification recorded zero time in 12 of 16 groups because OCR matching was accurate enough that staff rarely needed to intervene.​
• Preparation had high variability, 3–24 seconds per title, which led to recommendations on standardizing how batches are set up.​
• Even as batch sizes changed, per‑title time stayed far below the pre‑automation baseline, which matters when you scale volume.​

Projected over five years, with title volumes growing 15% annually, the bank could absorb a 75% increase in volume with the same three‑person team while still saving almost a full FTE’s worth of hours each year. That’s the headcount math operations leaders care about.​

A 4‑hour release window in practice

So what actually has to change to move from 48 hours to 4?

1. Standardize intake and batching

Instead of ad‑hoc mailroom routines, title intake becomes its own workflow:

• Mail arrives and is opened into clearly labeled batches.
• Staff scan batch cover sheets and titles with QR or barcodes that tie each image to a batch in the system.​
• The system creates records automatically, so operators aren’t retyping VINs or dealer names.

This eliminates early bottlenecks and makes work more “pull‑based,” so team members can grab the next batch off the queue.

2. Replace manual matching with machine‑first matching

OCR doesn’t have to be perfect to be a win. It just has to move the default from “type everything” to “verify what the system thinks.”

In practice:

• The platform reads VINs, title numbers, and other key fields from images.
• It looks up corresponding assets in your existing LMS.
• Staff see a list of OCR matches and either confirm or correct.

In First Business Bank’s study, verification mostly vanished as a time bucket once OCR and matching were in place, which freed operators to focus on exceptions.​

3. Tie vaulting and shipping into the same record

A big chunk of the 48‑hour lag often lives in the physical world: somebody walks to a vault, digs for a folder, then walks back and forth between a printer, a shipping desk, and a tracking portal.

Automated title workflows compress that by:​

• Assigning titles to vault locations via barcode scan.
• Generating FedEx labels from inside the title record.
• Automatically writing tracking numbers and delivery status back to the system.

Now shipping and status updates are just phases of the same workflow, not side quests.

4. Let the system talk to dealers for you

Dealers mostly care about three states: “do you have my title,” “did you release it,” and “where is it now.” When those states are visible in a portal or pushed out via text and email, call volume shrinks dramatically.

One bank saw dealer calls about title status drop by 70% after implementing automated workflows, which freed staff to work cycles instead of answering phones. That time goes straight back into processing.​

Why this matters for ops, risk, and growth

Different stakeholders feel the impact in different ways.

StakeholderOld realityWith automated title workflowOperations leader2–3 FTEs buried in scanning, filing, and status calls.Same team handling 40% more volume and fewer interruptions.Risk leadLimited visibility into missing titles and release timing.Real‑time dashboard on title status, exceptions, and trends.​Credit/underwritingManual checks on title status during line reviews.Synced data between LMS and title module for faster reviews.ITConstant maintenance on brittle integrations and one‑off tools.API‑first module that layers on top of the existing LMS.Field / dealer teamChoppy dealer experience and constant “where’s my title?” escalations.Portals and notifications that handle routine questions automatically.

The through‑line: workflow automation in title operations is less about flashy features and more about getting humans out of the steps that don’t require judgment. Scan, match, file, ship, update — software can do most of that.

Once it does, a 4‑hour release window stops sounding ambitious and starts looking like the new baseline.

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