The honest verdict
SharePoint and email are free with your Microsoft license, familiar to everyone, and genuinely workable at low deal volume. What they cannot do is hold deal state: which version governs, what is outstanding, who has access, and what happened when. Those questions get answered by people instead of the system, and that labor is the real cost. Prodeal exists to make the deal itself hold that state.
What each one is built for
The folders-and-inbox stack works until deal volume makes 'ask a person' the bottleneck for every status, version, and access question.
Prodeal keeps documents, status, ownership, deadlines, and the audit record on the deal, visible to every party entitled to see them.
Side by side
| Dimension |  Prodeal |  SharePoint + email |
|---|---|---|
| Which version governs | Explicit status on every item, one current version | Filename conventions and memory |
| What's outstanding | Live checklist with a status on every item, visible to every party | A spreadsheet someone maintains by hand |
| Who has access | Room and party-scoped permissions with guest expiration and approval | Every forward creates an unrecallable copy |
| Audit trail | Time-stamped record of every file, status, and access change; exportable | Reconstructed from inboxes after the fact |
| Borrower experience | One room, one list of what's still needed | A forty-message thread to decode |
| Cost | A line item you can point to | Free software, paid for in coordination labor |
Choose SharePoint + email when
- A handful of simple deals a year
- Single-party work with no outside participants
- Documents that never need an audit trail
Choose Prodeal when
- Concurrent closings with outside parties
- Anywhere 'can you resend that?' is a daily email
- Teams that answer to examiners, investors, or servicers
Questions lenders ask
- Can you run a loan closing on SharePoint and email?
- At low deal volume, yes. SharePoint and email are already licensed and familiar. What they cannot do is hold a live request list with owners and statuses, so the process runs on filename conventions and a hand-kept spreadsheet beside the files.
- What is the difference between SharePoint and Prodeal?
- SharePoint is a document library; Prodeal is a closing workflow. The library stores files. Prodeal tracks what is outstanding, who owns it, and when it is due, and keeps an exportable record of every action.
- Is Prodeal a data room?
- Prodeal includes a secure data room, but the product is the lending workflow around it: checklists with owners and dates, party-scoped access, and a time-stamped, exportable record of every action.
Sources
Keep reading