Ready to onboard? If you’re already an ISN user, all you need to do is reach out to a member of the Guardian team to turn the FlexFund feature on! Give us a call at 1-800-608-7363, email us at [email protected], or fill out the form at the top of this page.
If you are not an ISN user, we recommend reaching out to a member of their team to provide you with all of the amazing features that ISN offers to help run your inspection business. Once you are an ISN member, the FlexFund feature can be turned on for you. ISN Contact: (855) 431-0336
Our standard rates are 1.7% for debit transactions, 2.69% for traditional credit cards, 3.29% for corporate cards, and some high-tier rewards cards. Each transaction has a $0.30 transaction fee. All of these fees can be passed on to your client by adding a “convenience fee” or “transaction fee” to your invoice in ISN.
Guardian has NO monthly fees, NO annual fees, and NO PCI compliance fees, and we guarantee to beat your current rate! We offer custom pricing based on volume, and we also provide ACH and surcharging pricing.
The cost of a FlexFund transaction is $50 (on transactions totaling $0-$1,999) -OR- 10% of the transaction total (on transactions equal to or greater than $2,000).
Consumer finance laws do not allow businesses to charge their customers a fee for deferring payment. Charging a fee to pay over time makes you a lender and requires a license to do so. Therefore, in order to offer FlexFund legally, your business needs to offer FlexFund for free on every inspection and then build the FlexFund fee into the cost of all of your inspections.
Once the inspection is completed, Guardian sends home inspectors the funds the following business day. Inspectors should see the funds reflected in their account within 1-2 business days.
You now have the ability to set minimum and maximum transaction limits that will determine when FlexFund is presented to your clients on your online scheduler and order form. Steps for adjusting these limits can be found here.
ELIGIBLE INSPECTION TYPES: Most standard residential inspection types with a closing associated with them (i.e. condo inspections, multi-unit inspections, etc) are eligible for FlexFund:
- Standard residential inspections
- Condominium inspections
- Commercial inspections
- Whole house inspection
- Manufactured home engineering certifications
- New construction
NOT ELIGIBLE INSPECTION TYPES: Service-only inspections that don’t have a closing associated with them (i.e. a stand alone mold, radon or pest inspection that are not associated with a home inspection). Other types of inspections that would not be eligible are:
- Pre-listing inspections
- Pre-sale inspections
- Phase inspections
- One year or “anniversary” inspections
To deactivate FlexFund and restore all your ISN system settings to their original configuration, you must first submit this form, after which a Guardian representative will contact you to complete the process.
When your customer completes the FlexFund agreement, they will be providing credit card information and agreeing to let Guardian bill their credit card if we have not received funds from the closing within five days after the closing date. A charge of $0.01 will be placed on their credit card to confirm validity. We will always work with customers who have had their closing pushed back for any reason. However, if we do not hear from a customer and have not received payment from the title/ escrow/ attorney within five days of the original closing date, we will process their credit card for the total amount of the inspection.
Yes! Contact our team at [email protected] or visit our ACH Page for more info!
Yes, we do; however, ISN does not currently integrate with card swiping devices. They are building out their native app, and once that is complete, we will be able to offer an integrated solution for card swiping. Without the integration, a card swipe has minimal benefits. We would love to chat with you regarding the pros and cons of using a card swiper. Give us a call at 1-800-608-7363 opt 1.
When the customer chooses FlexFund, we ask them to provide credit card information as a backup payment source if the home sale does not close. In that process, we will ask pertinent questions regarding billing addresses and security codes. Guardian takes on all liability around payments so that if there is a problem with the credit card, it will be Guardians responsibility to collect payment from the customer.
We will need the title company or attorney name, contact name of escrow officer or attorney, address, email address, and phone number. ISN will store title company data similar to a client/agent so that you will not need to search for the info every time.
There is a option on the FlexFund agreement where you can enter in your closing company information or, if you don’t have it, you can check the box that says you don’t have it and we will reach out to your real estate agent to get that information.
If we become aware that the title company listed initially is no longer handling the closing, we will reach out to the customer, letting them know that we need the new title company information before the original closing date or we will be charging the credit card on file five days after the original closing date.
Yes! We know that in these situations, this will be much more convenient for the home inspector. Guardian Financial will contact the attorney for the relevant title company information.
Yes. This FlexFund product is offered exclusively to Guardian Financial and ISN inspectors. Competitors in your area that do not use ISN or Guardian Financial will not have this risk-free product available. The report lock feature will continue to operate in your ISN the same way it does when you accept credit card transactions.
Once we have received the FlexFund agreement signed by the customer, which will include the credit card authorization, the inspection will be marked as authorized, and the report would be released. Similar to an authorized credit card transaction. If we did not receive the title company information, we would reach out to the customer to gather that information.
Each transaction will have color-coded icons indicating the transaction’s status in the same way that a credit card processing transaction flows through ISN. You will also receive a FlexFund batch report similar to the current credit card processing batch report. This report will correlate to the deposits made to your bank account.
Yes! At the initial launch of the product, there will be a limited number of preloaded email templates. As the product matures, we will be adding additional email templates and SMS events.
Guardian handles all aspects of collecting payment from the title company or customer if the transaction does not make it to title. In all situations, we are representing ourselves as Guardian and not the home inspector. The agreement/ invoice that ISN generates is sent to the designated title company for payment. If Guardian is made aware of a canceled transaction or goes past 60 days from the time of inspection, Guardian will bill the credit card that the customer provided when signing the agreement. At the same time, we bill the credit card; we will attempt to reach the customer to let them know we have billed their credit card. We recognize the importance of treating the home inspector’s client fairly and with respect. We anticipate that most transactions that do not make it to title will be paid with the credit card on file and that only a small percentage should have to be collected through an actual collections process.
No. Currently, all FlexFund transactions will be required to fund within 60 days of the time of inspection. That being said, we will work with individual customers who have their closing pushed back and need additional time.
This will be Guardians’ responsibility to monitor and collect correct credit card information. The system will recognize whether valid credit card information has been entered.
We’ll handle it directly with the bank. There is nothing that you will need to do. Guardian Financial is taking on all of the risks.
No. Currently, FlexFund will only work with standard home inspections. In the future, we hope to add functionality for additional types of inspections that require more extended closing time frames.
FlexFUnd is currently unavailable in Canada, but we are working towards making it available very soon!
No. Your data and your client’s data are secure via our CardPointe gateway.