Lock Sheets

What a brief is

A lock sheet is a single source of truth for one loan handoff: everything your production partner and processor need before submit, captured once. It exists to kill the round of questions that otherwise lands two days after the file moves, when the answers are in your head and nowhere else.

Create one

1. 1

   Open Lock Sheets from the top bar and click New brief.

2. 2

   Work through the ten steps in order. The stepper across the top shows where you are and lets you jump between them.

   

3. 3

   The header reads Unsaved or Saved, so you always know whether your work is committed.

The ten steps

1. 4

   Loan Snapshot — loan type (Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, Jumbo, Non-QM), investor, occupancy, and the terms.

2. 5

   VA / FHA — the program-specific items that get missed on files whose originator does not run them often.

3. 6

   Employment & Income — per borrower, including income type (W-2 Salary, Self-Employed, 1099, Pension/Retirement, Military, Other) and how it was verified (Argyle, FinCity, Plaid, manual statements).

4. 7

   Assets — accounts, balances, and the statement period covering them.

5. 8

   Liabilities — what is on credit, and what is being paid off or excluded, with the reason.

6. 9

   Subject Property — address, type, and the property facts that drive conditions.

7. 10

   Advisor Notes — the context that is not a field. This is where the file gets its story.

8. 11

   Checklist — what you have already confirmed, so the next person does not recheck it.

9. 12

   Contacts — everyone on the transaction and how to reach them.

10. 13

    Review & Export — read it end to end, then export the brief for your team.

    

Finding a brief later

1. 14

   The list shows every brief, most recently updated first.

2. 15

   Search by borrower name or brief title.

3. 16

   Click any row to reopen. A brief stays editable — updating it as the file moves is the point, not a workaround.