If you service escrows or notes for lienholders, your day probably looks like this: enter the payments that came in, total up what goes to each lienholder, cut the checks (one per lienholder plus one to your own company for fees), and close the day. The Disbursements page runs exactly that flow. Nothing on it moves money. It is the bookkeeping record of the checks you cut yourself.
1. Set up the split fee once per loan
Say the signed payment is $1,800 of principal and interest, and you keep $10 from each side:
- Borrower side: set the loan's borrower servicing fee to $10. The borrower is billed $1,810 (the fee rides on top of the payment).
- Lienholder side: set the investor servicing fee to $10 flat (or a percent of collected interest). Each payable then accrues net of it, so the lienholder is owed $1,790. See servicing-fee netting.
Both fees can be set right in the create-loan wizard (the Borrower Servicing Fee and Lienholder Servicing Fee sections sit side by side), edited later from Edit loan or the loan's Lienholder card, or changed in place on the Servicing tab (below). A lienholder fee saved before the loan has a Pay-To simply waits: it takes effect once a lienholder is assigned.
Result per payment: $1,810 in, $1,790 out, $20 stays with you. If the fee is paid to an outside servicing company rather than your own, add the company under Settings, then Servicers, and attribute the loan's servicing fee to it (servicing companies).
2. Watch the split on the loan's Servicing tab
Every owned asset note (and any note with a servicing fee) has a Servicing tab showing, payment by payment: what was received, the borrower side fee, the lienholder side fee, what goes to the lienholder, and what you kept, plus running totals. It also shows who the fee goes to, and once a check is cut, the run and check number that paid the lienholder.
The three summary boxes up top are editable in place for authorized roles: the borrower fee (amount and invoice label, any operational role), the lienholder fee (type and amount, Admin and up), and the fee payee (tick the servicing companies the loan's servicing fee goes to, without the detour through the Fees tab; creating a new company still lives under Settings, then Servicers). Every change is written to the loan's audit trail, and everyone except the account Owner supplies a short note.
One rule to hold on to: fee changes are prospective only. Payments already posted and payables already accrued keep their figures; the new fee applies from the next recorded payment on. Nothing is ever re-priced retroactively.
3. Record the day's payments
Record payments exactly as you always do. Each posted payment on an owned note accrues a payable to its lienholder automatically (investor payables); each collected borrower fee is captured on the payment.
4. Run the trial balance
Open Disbursements. The trial balance lists one row per lienholder: how many payments accrued and the check amount (the sum of what they are owed, fees already netted). The date filter defaults to today; back-date it if you are catching up. You will see at a glance how many checks get cut and the total going out.
5. Start the run and cut the checks
Start run snapshots the trial balance into a numbered run (REM-2026-0001 style). On the run page, type each check number as you cut the physical check, then Mark sent (Admin and up). Marking a check sent records the remittance on every payable behind it, the same record the lienholder page's Record remittance button writes, with the check number as the reference. A printable run summary works as the cover sheet for the day's checks.
6. Sweep your fees
Sweep fees records your own company's check: everything accrued and not yet swept, borrower side plus lienholder side, in one number. Sweep daily with the run, or let fees build up and sweep once a month. Both work, because a sweep always takes whatever is accrued right now and never double counts: once a fee is swept it will not appear in a later sweep.
7. Close the day
Close run locks the run. Reopening takes an Admin and a reason, the same discipline as the deposit register. Deleting an open run simply puts its payables back on the trial balance; nothing collected or owed ever changes.
Reports
The Reports page has a Disbursements & Payables section: outstanding payables by lienholder (with CSV export) and your servicing fees, accrued vs swept. Fee sweeps export to CSV from the Disbursements page.
NoteHarbor never touches the money itself. You cut the checks; this page keeps the record straight, with an audit entry for every step.