Disbursing a loan

Disbursement is the step where the money is paid out to the client and the loan becomes active. It is always a deliberate action by a member of staff; the system never disburses a loan by itself, even when approvals are switched off.

When a loan can be disbursed

The Disburse Loan button appears only on applications with the status BM Approved, that is, after the Branch Manager review (or straight after submission, for organisations that do not use approvals). Disbursement is normally done by a Branch Manager or an Admin, following your organisation's own procedures for handing over cash.

To disburse a loan

1. Go to Small Loans > Applications. Set the Status filter to BM Approved to find loans that are ready.
2. Open the application.
3. Check the client, amount, term and interest rate under Loan Details.
4. Select Disburse Loan.

You will see "Loan disbursed successfully" and the application status changes to Disbursed. The new loan appears under Small Loans > Loans with the status Active. Its reference is the application reference with -L added, for example SL-2026-0001-L.

What happens at disbursement

• The loan is created with today as its disbursement date. The maturity date is the disbursement date plus the term in days.
• The repayment schedule starts. The first daily instalment falls due the day after disbursement, and there is one instalment for every day of the term. See Reading a loan and its repayment schedule.
• The field officer is recorded on the loan, taken from the client's officer or, if the client has none, the group's officer.
• An enrollment fee may be charged, if your organisation has set a Small Loans enrollment fee. It is charged every time a loan is disbursed. It is not deducted from the amount paid out; it is recorded as a fee the client owes or, depending on your organisation's settings, taken from the client's savings. See Arrears, penalties and fees.

The full requested amount is the amount disbursed.

Checks made at disbursement

Some eligibility rules are checked again at this point, because things may have changed since the application was submitted. If a check fails, nothing is disbursed and a message explains why:

Check	Message
The application is not fully approved.	"Application must be fully approved before disbursement"
The client's savings have dropped below the required percentage of the loan (for example after a withdrawal).	"Compulsory savings no longer met: balance ..., required ... (...% of principal)"
The client owes a fee that blocks lending, where your organisation applies this rule at disbursement or earlier.	"This client owes ... in unpaid fees. Record the payment before continuing with the loan."

Whether the savings and fee checks apply depends on your organisation's settings.

tip

The application page does not link to the new loan. To find it, go to Small Loans > Loans, or open the client's page and look at their loans.