An Updated Dashboard Experience in Risk Manager

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Strunk recently released an enhanced dashboard experience within Risk Manager, designed to give you clearer, more actionable insight into your organization’s risk posture and compliance activity. This dashboard brings together critical data points into a single view, helping your team monitor, prioritize, and act with confidence.

Expanded Visibility Across Risk Areas
Building on existing insights for enterprise risk assessments and policy management, the updated dashboard now includes summary level visibility across three additional focus areas:

  • Cyber Risk Assessment
  • Vendor Management
  • Issues Tracking

These additions provide a more comprehensive snapshot of your organization’s current risk environment.

Key Insights at a Glance

The new dashboard surfaces meaningful indicators to support faster, more informed decision making. Users can now quickly view:

  • Latest cyber risk assessment results to understand your current cybersecurity posture
  • Vendor risk level distribution to identify concentrations of higher risk relationships
  • Overdue vendor management items by category to keep critical tasks on track
  • Open issues by priority to focus on what matters most
  • Issues coming due by timeframe to stay ahead of upcoming deadlines
These at-a-glance visuals are designed to reduce complexity and bring clarity to day-to-day risk management activities.

Designed for Better Oversight and Efficiency
Whether you’re preparing for an exam, reporting to leadership, or managing ongoing compliance responsibilities, the enhanced dashboard helps your team stay aligned and proactive. By consolidating key metrics into a centralized view, it enables:

  • Stronger oversight and transparency
  • More efficient workflow management
  • Improved prioritization of tasks and resources
Available Now
The enhanced dashboard is now available to all Risk Manager users. We encourage you to explore the new experience and take advantage of the added visibility it provides. For questions or assistance, please contact Strunk Support.

Why Vendor Risk Assessment Surveys Matter

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Strong vendor oversight begins with asking the right questions. Vendor risk assessment surveys are a critical component of an effective third-party risk management program, helping financial institutions evaluate vendors’ operations, financial stability, cybersecurity, compliance, and business continuity. To simplify this process, Strunk’s Vendor Manager solution is designed to improve how surveys are created, shared, tracked, and scored.
Through the platform, standardized surveys can be sent directly to vendors based on their specific risk levels. You can easily track which surveys are outstanding and which are complete, providing transparency without manual tracking or long email threads. Additionally, Vendor Manager enables institutions to score residual risk at the question level based on vendor responses. This allows teams to assess a vendor’s controls and quickly identify areas that may require further review or additional safeguards.
A more recent feature is a set of available onboarding questions designed to help institutions quickly gather key information when establishing a new vendor relationship. These questions provide a practical starting point for evaluating vendor risk and ensuring consistent data collection during the onboarding process.
Another powerful enhancement is the ability to customize survey questions. Every institution’s vendor management program is different, and this capability allows organizations to tailor their surveys to their operational needs. Whether adding new questions or modifying existing ones, teams can ensure their surveys collect the most relevant information.
Vendor Manager provides significant value for financial institutions wanting to execute a structured vendor management program with confidence. If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Strunk at info@strunkaccess.com for more details.

How Vendor Manager Helps You Streamline Vendor Management and Boost Efficiency

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Financial institutions often face the challenge of managing vendors with limited staff and resources. Strunk’s latest enhancements in Vendor Manager are designed to address these pain points, making thorough compliance and document tracking easier and more efficient than ever. Here’s a summary of the latest available features:

  • A new document status color-coding system provides a quick, visual way to assess the status of each vendor document, meaning less time spent searching for what needs attention.
  • An enhanced request and update workflow allows users to update multiple documents at once and manually send document update requests with a single click. Automated email reminders keep vendors on track, while the option to disable them or send manual requests gives you flexibility. The system auto-populates request dates, helping you stay organized without extra effort.
  • View an auto-generated list of suggested due diligence documents for each vendor, tailored to their assessed risk level. A convenient strike-through appears on the checklist as documents are added, providing an instant visual of completion. All due diligence documents, regardless of where or when they were added, will appear on the Due Diligence Materials tab for a centralized view.
  • The Overdue Items Report is another valuable addition. With this targeted visibility, users can quickly see which vendors require attention and ensure that overdue items are resolved. The report details specific actions needed for each vendor, sortable by risk level, allowing you to prioritize efforts and focus on what is most critical.

These updates make Strunk’s Vendor Manager an even more powerful tool, helping institutions save time, reduce manual work, and keep vendor documentation processes running smoothly. The intuitive interface and automation free up staff to focus on what matters most – building relationships and supporting your community.

If you have any questions about using the new features in Vendor Manager, please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com for more details.

 

The Hassle-Free Way to Bank Vendor Management and Regulatory Compliance

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The average bank in the United States does business with nearly 100 vendors ranging from core processors to companies who mow the lawn or shovel the snow. Building relationships with vendors is key to running a successful institution. But, managing the vendor due diligence process can be a hassle and time consuming but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Like a lot of bank processes vendor management is sometimes outsourced to third parties and the fees associated with can be hefty. At the other end of the spectrum some financial institutions build their own excel spreadsheet and the process is handled in-house.

Strunk’s inexpensive Vendor Manager Solution provides two key elements to managing vendors:

1) provides a repository for all information relating to each vendor and

2) allows the bank to do regulatory required risk assessments on a consistent basis.

The tool keeps critical information such as financial statements, insurance documentation, contracts and service level agreements and provides a tickler system to notify bank personnel when updated documents are needed.

The risk assessor tool helps a bank determine what level of risk the vendor exposes the bank to: critical, high, moderate or low. In the case where the vendor is a critical or high risk, more documentation is required from the vendor to do a full assessment per regulatory requirements. The solution helps you assess the risk in an easy to use manner.

Contact Strunk at 800.728.3116 or email at info@strunkaccess.com to learn how our comprehensive but inexpensive Vendor Manager tool can help your bank.

Why do Banks Outsource Vendor Management?

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Managing the vendors that a bank does business with can sometimes seem like it is a hassle and many times that task is outsourced to a third party. Why waste the money? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Regulators have moved the needle to ensure banks understand the risks of each vendor they do business with. On average a bank has 90+ vendors with generally only 4-6 of them considered “critical” or “high” risk based on risk assessments. Many times if a vendor has access to personal identifiable information the bank automatically considers it a critical risk vendor.

Having a repository for information pertaining to each vendor is of course something all banks need to have. Documents such as contracts, service level agreements, insurance certificates, business continuity plans and updated financial information are necessary as well. Having a tickler system to notify the bank that a document is about to become outdated is important too.

Doing risk assessments on an annual basis for critical and high risk vendors is a best practice and required by the regulators. A process to standardize the assessments is also a good way to manage vendors.

Strunk’s Vendor Manager solution has a repository for pertinent information; has a tickler system to notify bank personnel of needed updated documents; and it has a comprehensive risk assessment tool that allows the bank to manage the vendor management process affordably.

Contact Strunk at 800.728.3116 or email at info@strunklp.com to learn how our Vendor Management solution can help your bank.

How can Strunk’s Vendor Manager software support your organization’s Third-Party Risk Management process?

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Several key elements must be considered in the Third-Party Risk Management process for financial institutions. Banking regulators issued a joint statement highlighting the risks faced by financial institutions when partnering with third parties for bank deposit products and services, along with examples of effective risk management practices to help mitigate these risks.

Strunk’s Vendor Manager software aids in minimizing risks by providing a framework to collect vital data and processes. Third-party risk management is an ongoing process that begins with due diligence prior to signing a contract and continues with regular monitoring throughout the partnership. Strunk’s Vendor Manager software facilitates comprehensive risk assessments and evaluates vendor controls for your financial institution. Furthermore, it offers a storage solution for due diligence documents related to potential third parties before you engage with them. Strunk’s vendor risk assessments are standardized evaluations designed to meet regulatory standards and align with your financial institution’s risk appetite. This assessment categorizes and ranks each vendor based on their potential risk.

After negotiating a contract, Strunk’s software offers a secure location to store your contract and highlight any discrepancies, ensuring it thoroughly outlines the responsibilities and obligations of both the financial institution and the vendor. Furthermore, it enables you to monitor key dates and generate insightful reports for the financial institution’s leadership and management.

Ongoing evaluation tracks the vendor’s performance and risks during the entire relationship lifecycle. Strunk’s Vendor Manager software features a customizable monitoring section, acting as an efficient tool for assessing, overseeing, and controlling third-party risks.

Financial institutions need software to maintain detailed records associated with risk and to produce reports on third-party risk management activities for stakeholders. Strunk’s Vendor Manager software can assist you in meeting all your Third-Party Risk Management program goals. Click here to learn more or contact Strunk at info@strunkaccess.com.

How to track responsibility for each vendor

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Financial institutions are increasingly outsourcing various business functions. Given the growing regulatory and compliance landscape, maintaining an efficient vendor management program is essential for any financial institution engaged in outsourcing risk. Having numerous vendors in your operations can complicate your vendor management program, especially if your financial institution is unclear about who is responsible for each vendor. In a vendor management program, the individual accountable for each vendor is often referred to as a ‘Vendor Owner.’ This person works within your financial institution to manage the daily relationship with the vendor, encompassing communication, contract oversight, performance monitoring, risk assessment, and resolution of issues. Essentially, they take ownership of the vendor relationship to ensure it meets the company’s needs.

The vendor owner is often a representative from the business unit that predominantly uses the vendor’s services. This person has extensive knowledge of the necessary product or service and is well-equipped to manage performance effectively. While this isn’t universally true, most financial institutions typically identify their vendor owners this way. In Strunk’s Vendor Manager software, your financial team can designate a vendor owner for each vendor, as well as assign responsibility for other activities such as contract management, risk assessment, and performance monitoring. An effective vendor management program must assign responsibilities and track them efficiently, which Strunk’s Vendor Manager software facilitates. It also provides reporting features to ensure tasks are completed on time and not overdue. Your financial institution can also categorize vendors in Strunk’s Vendor Manager software by defining vendor types, ensuring that each business unit understands which vendors they are responsible for. You can establish your own naming system in this customizable field. Identifying the business unit of your vendors and determining the vendor owner for each will enhance the organization and efficiency of your vendor management program.

 

The importance of ongoing monitoring of vendor relationships

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A crucial aspect of the Third-Party Relationship Life Cycle that is often overlooked is ongoing monitoring. Regularly monitoring vendors is vital for managing external risks and making sure that third parties adhere to compliance and performance standards throughout the duration of the relationship. The frequency of monitoring your vendor management program depends on various factors, such as the type of business relationship, vendor risk rating, vendor performance, and regulatory obligations.

To effectively monitor your vendors, begin with a risk assessment to evaluate the inherent risks they pose when introduced to your operations. This assessment will pinpoint areas that need careful oversight and establish how often you should conduct reviews, depending on the vendor’s associated risk levels. Next, define your monitoring criteria according to the vendor’s risk level. Establish thresholds and alert mechanisms within your monitoring system to identify any deviations from these criteria, enabling you to respond quickly to potential issues.

When establishing a monitoring process, choosing the appropriate third-party monitoring solution is crucial for supporting continuous oversight. Strunk’s Vendor
Manager software enables you to tailor your ongoing monitoring categories according to risk levels, automating the entire process. This improves efficiency and minimizes missed opportunities. Strunk’s software also helps track deviations and gives feedback on the vendor’s performance.

Ongoing monitoring is crucial for managing vendor risks, ensuring that vendors fulfill their contractual obligations, and adhering to regulatory standards. An effective vendor monitoring process enhances your overall vendor management program. Additionally, it serves as one of your most valuable tools to address minor issues before they escalate into major ones. Click here for more information.

Tracking Vendor Due Diligence Material

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How does your financial institution manage the tracking of vendors’ due diligence materials? Is there a centralized repository for these documents, or are they merely stored in folders on your computer? It’s important to note that Strunk’s Vendor Manager software offers a hosted solution designed to help financial institutions consolidate vendor due diligence materials into a single, central location.

Vendor due diligence materials include essential information about a vendor’s corporate history, financial status, legal structure, compliance record, operational capabilities, and potential risks of the partnership. A centralized repository for these materials removes the need to consult multiple sources, ensuring the information remains accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible.

Key benefits of having a centralized repository:

  • Enhancing data accuracy and consistency: By keeping all due diligence documents in one location, the risk of conflicting or outdated information is reduced, ensuring that everyone utilizes the most reliable details for each vendor. This approach allows departments involved in vendor selection to share information effortlessly and collaborate on materials, ensuring everything stays current.
  • Streamlined review process: With all due diligence materials in one accessible location, reviewing vendor information is more straightforward, saving time and effort. This arrangement also simplifies the provision of necessary documentation during audits for your vendor management program.

Strunk’s Vendor Manager software establishes a centralized repository for your financial institution’s due diligence materials, granting swift access to all pertinent vendor information and significantly speeding up the decision-making process. Check out our site to learn more: https://strunkaccess.com/compliance-software/#vendors.

Working with a vendor like Strunk is the key to establishing a successful vendor management program

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Increasingly, financial institutions are outsourcing to benefit from reduced costs, enhanced flexibility, and improved efficiency while optimizing their resources and expertise. When a financial institution opts to outsource a task, its board of directors must ensure effective oversight and implement adequate controls. To create a robust vendor management program, the board should take into account the following activities.

Initially, the board of directors must define clear goals and objectives for their vendor management program. This includes determining the organization’s specific needs and requirements, assessing potential vendors, negotiating contracts, and overseeing vendor performance. Once established, the financial institution can formulate policies and procedures for the vendor management program. It’s crucial to devise a thorough plan that encompasses the entire vendor management process, from vendor selection to contract termination. Strunk’s Policy Manager software serves as a structured, centralized source of truth for your financial institution’s vendor management policies. Additionally, Policy Manager can document all procedures related to vendor management, encompassing links to policies, assigned responsibilities, automated change logging, and multiple file attachments.

After outlining the goals and objectives for a financial institution’s vendor management program, it is beneficial to employ vendor management software to enhance operations. Strunk’s vendor management software simplifies the automation of vendor management processes. This tool helps you organize your reviews and offers insights into the products and services provided by vendors. Furthermore, it acts as a contract repository and issues reminders for contract renewals. Our software also aids in conducting gap analyses of vendor contracts to identify any discrepancies.

Next, it’s crucial to carry out risk assessments to determine the risks associated with each vendor. Strunk’s vendor manager software will help you proactively manage vendor risk through assessments and tiering. This approach allows your financial institution to prioritize higher-risk vendors, enabling more frequent and thorough monitoring of these vendors. Once your financial institution identifies the risks linked to a vendor, it is crucial to be aware of the controls the vendor has implemented to manage those risks. Strunk’s vendor survey facilitates this process and helps you comprehend the vendor’s potential residual risks.

In a vendor management program, conducting due diligence on each vendor is crucial. You should evaluate aspects such as their financial stability, reputation, understanding of banking regulations, and overall performance. Strunk Vendor Management can streamline this process through our monitoring system and document retention for due diligence.

If it’s vital for your financial institution to collaborate with a skilled vendor who delivers dependable service and comprehends regulatory requirements for your automated vendor management process, reaching out to Strunk is key. We are here to offer consulting and the necessary tools to establish a successful vendor management program.

An independent certified public accountant has examined Strunk’s operations and found them to be in compliance with the AICPA’s Trust Service Principles. It was determined that Strunk meets the Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy criteria for SOC 2 established by the AICPA.