M
MANDATE

Guides & how-to

Step-by-step walkthroughs for getting the most out of Mandate — from your first assessment to exporting a polished credit paper.

Getting started

Create your account, choose a plan, and find your way around the dashboard.

  1. Click “Get started” and choose a plan — Per Report (pay £50 per assessment) or Monthly Pro (unlimited assessments).
  2. Enter your first name, last name, organisation name, email and a password, then verify the 6-digit code sent to your email.
  3. You’ll be taken to checkout to set up payment, after which you land on your Dashboard.
  4. Use the left sidebar to move between Dashboard, New Assessment, Lender Criteria, Deal Pipeline and Account.

Tips

  • Before your first assessment, add at least one lender to Lender Criteria — assessments need a lender panel to match against.
  • On the Per Report plan you pay £50 per assessment, charged before you can view the results for that report.

Setting up your lender criteria

Define the lenders you place deals with and the thresholds Mandate matches each deal against.

  1. Open “Lender Criteria” from the sidebar.
  2. Add each lender you work with, setting their minimum DSCR (EBITDA and CFADS), maximum leverage, maximum LTV and the funding types they offer.
  3. Mark lenders active or inactive — only active lenders are matched against new deals.
  4. These criteria power the lender-matching matrix shown on every assessment’s results page.

Tips

  • Keep thresholds realistic — they drive the RAG (red/amber/green) pass-or-fail status on results.

Running a credit assessment

The four-step workflow from company details to a completed assessment.

  1. Step 1 — Company: search Companies House or enter the company name and number manually. Where filed accounts are available you can pull them in automatically.
  2. Step 2 — Financials: upload accounts for AI extraction, or enter P&L and balance-sheet figures by hand. Every figure is editable and traceable.
  3. Step 3 — Deal structure: add the proposed facility (amount, rate, tenor, type), any existing debt, security assets, and EBITDA / CFADS adjustments.
  4. Step 4 — Results: review DSCR, leverage, LTV, the cash-flow model and credit-officer notes, then add your narrative.
  5. When you’re happy, click “Mark Complete”. This unlocks PDF export and the group structure chart, and moves the deal to “complete” in your pipeline.

Tips

  • You can move backwards through the steps at any time; your inputs are saved as you go.
  • Use “Save & Exit” to park a draft and return to it later from the Deal Pipeline.

Uploading & extracting accounts

Let Mandate read figures straight from a PDF set of accounts.

  1. In Step 2 of an assessment, use the document upload area to add a PDF of the company’s accounts.
  2. Mandate extracts the P&L and balance-sheet lines into the input table.
  3. Review every extracted figure against the source — extraction is a head start, not a substitute for checking.
  4. Adjust any values directly in the table; calculated rows (e.g. Gross Profit, EBITDA) update automatically.

Tips

  • Clear, text-based PDFs extract far better than scanned images.

Group assessments & consolidation

Assess a group of companies as a single consolidated entity.

  1. In Step 2, enable “Group Assessment” and build the group structure — add a Topco and its subsidiaries.
  2. Enter or upload accounts for each entity; Mandate consolidates them automatically (summing P&L and balance sheets across the group).
  3. Add Intercompany Eliminations to remove internal balances so the group isn’t double-counted. Eliminations are split into separate Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet inputs, and each can be scoped to a specific year.
  4. The results page shows the consolidated figures, and the consolidated cash-flow model includes a clear line showing the CFADS impact of your group eliminations.

Tips

  • Eliminations on balance-sheet lines only affect cash flow through the year-on-year movement — scope them to the relevant year for an accurate result.
  • The CFADS Check on the consolidated model reconciles the underlying cash movement and is shown pre-eliminations by design.

Modelling the deal structure

Set up facilities, security and adjustments that drive the debt metrics.

  1. Add one or more proposed facilities with their amount, rate, tenor and funding type.
  2. Record any existing debt the borrower already services so total debt service is accurate.
  3. Under Secured Facility, add each pledged asset and its value — Mandate totals them and calculates LTV against the proposed funding.
  4. Use EBITDA and CFADS adjustments (global or per-year) to normalise for one-off items.

Tips

  • DSCR shows as “N/A” when a deal has no debt service — that’s expected, not an error.

Reviewing results & exporting a credit paper

Interpret the metrics, capture your narrative, and produce a lender-ready PDF.

  1. Review the Financial Summary, Debt Metrics (DSCR, leverage, LTV), cash-flow model and NWC breakdown.
  2. Check the lender-matching matrix to see which of your active lenders the deal passes.
  3. Read the credit-officer notes (red flags, concerns, questions, positives) and add your own narrative and commentary.
  4. Click “Mark Complete”, then use “Export PDF” to generate a professional credit paper for your lender or credit committee.

Tips

  • PDF export and the group structure chart only become available once the assessment is marked complete.

Managing your pipeline & account

Track deals and manage your subscription.

  1. The Deal Pipeline lists every assessment with its facility, amount, DSCR, leverage and status — click “Open” to resume any deal.
  2. Use the Account page to update your profile and organisation details.
  3. Manage or cancel your subscription from the Account page via the billing portal.
  4. Sign out from the bottom of the sidebar; you’ll be returned to the login screen.

Still need a hand?

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