Backpacking & Loan Attestations

They say summer doesn’t start in Seattle until July 5th, always the day after you really wish it were sunny and hot. Unfortunately for us, that saying held true on our trip a couple of weekends ago to Mirror Lake and Tinkham Pass, nestled in the Snoqualmie National Forest right next to the local ski resort. The forecast called for rain and temps dipping to 40 degrees overnight (brrrr). By Sunday? Blue skies and 80 degrees. Classic Pacific Northwest unpredictability. So we packed the rain gear, down jackets, those funny pants that convert to shorts, extra socks, and headed out for the weekend. 

That trip reminded me a lot of the work we’re doing at CovenantIQ, building a more reliable and flexible way for lenders and borrowers to navigate financial reporting. You might be wondering, “How did I come up with this analogy?” Hang with me, I promise it will make sense!

The Journey Has Lots of Challenges

Just like a hike in the mountains with ever-changing conditions, loan monitoring has a clear goal but the route to get there is full of variability. For lenders and borrowers alike, every quarter is a journey toward confirming covenant compliance. But getting there often means bushwhacking through spreadsheets, scrambling to fill in templates, and emailing last-minute clarifications. 

As we have been building our platform, we have received a lot of feedback. Here are a few samples from interviews to help set the stage.

From our interviews with borrowers:

“We spend a lot of time pulling together all the data the lender requires. If we had to do it more than quarterly, we’d have to think about staffing.”

“We typically spend a lot of time filling in templates. We often forget some metric or custom data point and inevitably have a lot of back and forth over days.”

From lenders:

“Once we get the financials, we spend a lot of time spreading the data and computing metrics. That’s all before we even get to analyzing. We end up robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

“It’s typical we have questions and need clarification—and that tacks on more time and forces us to redo manual work. Emailing templates always invites version issues.”

And then there's EBITDA. Adjustments take time, aren’t always well documented, and rarely repeat cleanly month to month. As one team put it:

“It always takes a long time. It feels like a black box—and we don’t have an easy way to validate it. We always have to go back to old emails, spreadsheets, and often the original loan document.”

All of this adds up to a process that’s time-consuming, error-prone, and stressful—especially when deadlines loom and expectations are high. However, on the bright side it is a process! Now if we only had a trail map…

Scouting the Scramble: Introducing Our Attestation Workflow

If you’re planning a hike to a place you’ve never been, you don’t just wing it. You check trip reports, trail maps, and recent conditions on sites like WTA.org or AllTrails. That research helps you pick the right trail, know what to pack, and avoid surprises. Our attestation workflow serves the same purpose for financial reporting. It gives borrowers a well marked trail to follow and built around the lender’s specific rules. No guessing. No staring at a rock pile and wondering where to go.

Just Add Water: Precomputed Metrics That Work

If you’ve ever been backpacking, you know the joy of a good dehydrated meal at the end of the day (that is a slight amount of sarcasm for those who haven’t tried them). Beef stroganoff or marinara pasta is my go-to. Why? Because the hard work was done ahead of time. They have tinkered with the recipes, gotten the spices just right, and given you precise yet simple instructions. All you have to do is boil water and steep.

That’s what we’ve done with metrics like DSCR and Adjusted EBITDA. We precompute them, apply all the lender-specific rules, and document every adjustment so all the borrower has to do is review and publish. No need to recalculate or track down what changed since last time.

Camp Where It’s Flat: Structure Without Rigidity

In the backcountry, the best (and often legal) campsites are the ones that have already been established. The ground is flat, the brush is cleared, and the impact on the environment is minimal. Trying to pitch your tent out of bounds means sleeping on roots or rocks, or getting a nasty note from the warden.

That’s our philosophy for EBITDA and covenant compliance. Instead of free-forming every month, we guide borrowers to stay within the terms defined in the loan agreement. Our system supports linking those adjustments back to your actuals, sticking to the established terrain. The result? A smoother experience for everyone involved.

Bringing Clarity to the Trail

With our attestation workflow, borrowers can:

• Review their financials directly in-platform, automatically pulled from their accounting system
• Apply lender-approved adjustments and include the rationale via your general ledger
• See last month’s submission and pick up right where they left off
• Formally publish and attest with a single click

Lenders receive:

• Structured, consistent financials every period
• Transparent metric calculations, including EBITDA and DSCR
• Full visibility into adjustments and explanations
• Fewer manual steps, fewer errors, and less time spent asking follow-up questions

Plan for Rain & Enjoy the Sun when it comes

Just like early summer in Seattle, loan monitoring always comes with uncertainty. But that doesn’t mean you should be caught off guard. Our attestation workflow helps both lenders and borrowers stay ahead—so the monthly hike feels less like an expedition, and more like a well-marked trail with clear signs and a cozy campsite waiting at the end.