CECL is coming soon and isn’t going away. However, many financial institutions have not yet solidified their CECL plans. Maybe your CECL Committee was overwhelmed with choosing a solution, attentions/resources were diverted to pandemic recovery, or maybe busy day-to-day responsibilities and running your bank or credit union unintentionally let CECL slide to the backburner.
Though it’s been a stressful topic for years, Plansmith has made the process of adopting CECL as simple as possible. In fact, almost 300 organizations have already purchased and implemented our CECL solution.
As the January 2023 deadline creeps up, CECL is now at the forefront of CECL committees’ minds, and we’re getting questions daily. Here are the three biggest misconceptions surrounding CECL and the implementation timeline.
- I can put it off until 2023.
Simply put, no you can’t. Even though the deadline is January of 2023, Regulators and Examiners expect you to have at least one year of history running parallel calculations. This means you should already have a CECL process in place. If you have not yet accomplished this, you should be setting up demos, evaluating your options, and making your final decisions as soon as possible.
- It has to be complicated.
Perhaps the trickiest aspect of CECL thus far has been the changes in requirements since CECL was first proposed. Not only did the implementation deadline date move several times, but managers were tasked with learning and interpreting FASB’s evolving guidance. However, even the Federal Reserve Bank on February 27, 2018 said that CECL should not be overly complicated: “Uncomplicated institutions do not need to use complex modeling techniques.”
When Plansmith developed our CECL solution, keeping the software easy to use was a top priority. With our WARM CECL Calculator, you’ll stay in compliance and have at least 80% of the required CECL process and reporting automated for you.
- It’s too late to get a model running.
If your bank or credit union has put CECL off, you’re not alone and it’s not too late. Although you need to get started, don’t worry – it’s still possible to implement a solid CECL strategy. While a free solution or spreadsheet may take a lot of time to get situated, an actual CECL platform may be a great option for ‘late’ adopters. Web-based CECL solutions can cut your implementation time down to weeks instead of months. With the right model, you can be up and running and producing meaningful CECL reports by mid-summer. So, even though you might be a little late to the game, there is still time for your bank or credit union to get on the right track to an effective CECL program.
If you’re still searching for an easy-to-use and affordable CECL solution, or you’re not happy with the process you originally put in place, please reach out to us. We’re happy to answer your questions, set up a demo, and do whatever we can to help your institution choose the right CECL partner.