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Head-to-head

Aloan vs Baker Hill for SBA underwriting: the AI-native commercial LOS against the LOS that submits to E-Tran

Baker Hill is the choice for a bank that wants the SBA analysis and the SBA forms in one origination platform, with spreads, cash flow and the memo generated in NextGen and the E-Tran round trip documented. Aloan is the choice for a lender that keeps its origination system and wants deeper published SBA analysis beside it: package classification, spreading of related entities with K-1 tracing, guarantor mapping and a source-traceable memo for 7(a), 504 and Express, with no E-Tran, no forms and no published SBA reference.

One prepares the SBA file and hands it to your system of record. The other is a system of record that also generates the spreads and the memo. They overlap on exactly one thing.

At a glance

Aloan

Founded
2025
Deployment
Cloud, As the commercial LOS, or alongside an existing one
Pricing
Custom quote; usage-based, a monthly minimum plus a per-document overage, sized to document volume (published basis, no figures)
Best for
Lenders whose SBA bottleneck is analyst time on spreading, affiliate tracing and the memo, and who intend to keep their current LOS
Full Aloan profile →

Baker Hill

Deployment
Cloud
Pricing
Quote only
Best for
Banks and credit unions that want a conventional business loan converted to an SBA loan inside the same origination workflow
Full Baker Hill profile →

Feature by feature

Feature Aloan Baker Hill Edge
Programs named 7(a), 504, Express with program limits 7(a), PLP, Express, CapLine Tie
Spreading Borrower and related entities spread consistently Financial spreads generated in NextGen Tie
Affiliates and K-1s K-1 tracing across affiliates; guarantor and entity structure mapped Not described on the SBA sheet Aloan
Credit memo Assembled with traceability back to source documents Generated in NextGen from data entered once Aloan
Eligibility The lender keeps eligibility and the decision; SOP interpretation stays with the lender Decision rules capture policy exceptions and flag potential SBA transactions Baker Hill
SBA forms and E-Tran None Forms 1919 and 1920; E-Tran submission with loan number returned Baker Hill
System of record Runs as the commercial LOS or alongside one; on an SBA file it sits beside the system that submits to E-Tran Yes Baker Hill
Named lenders Buckeye State Bank, Alliance Catholic Credit Union and West Central Bank on aloan.ai; none presented as SBA None on the SBA sheet; 400+ clients per CCG Catalyst Baker Hill
Adoption path Added beside the current LOS An origination platform migration, or an existing Baker Hill customer's module Aloan

Choose Aloan if…

  • Your origination system is fine and the delay is in affiliate analysis, guarantor roll-up and writing the memo
  • Your SBA files are acquisitions and multi-entity borrowers rather than small-dollar Express
  • You need every figure in the memo traceable to a document for the examiner
  • You will run a paid pilot on your own files and write the acceptance criteria first

Choose Baker Hill if…

  • You want the analysis, the forms and the E-Tran submission in one system of record
  • Most SBA loans begin as conventional requests in the same workflow
  • A vendor with hundreds of installed institutions matters more than depth on affiliates
  • You are already a Baker Hill customer

Our take

The overlap between these two is the credit memo, and the difference is everything around it. Baker Hill is a system of record: it takes the application, spreads, applies decision rules, generates the memo, populates Forms 1919 and 1920 and submits to E-Tran, storing the loan number it gets back. What its SBA sheet does not describe is the SBA-specific analysis, meaning affiliation across entities, K-1 tracing and guarantor mapping into one global cash flow, and that is precisely what Aloan's SBA page describes and nothing else. Aloan cannot submit anything to SBA. It names three customers on its own site, none as an SBA reference. Baker Hill has hundreds of institutions and no named SBA customer on its sheet. A bank that already has an origination system is choosing whether to add the analysis; a bank that does not is choosing the system that will submit to E-Tran, and Aloan is not a candidate for that. The one scenario where they meet is a Baker Hill bank whose analysts still lose days to acquisition files, and that bank should ask both vendors to demonstrate the hand-off between them on a real file before believing either sales team.

Frequently asked questions

Can Aloan replace Baker Hill?

Not for the SBA submission. Aloan does not submit to E-Tran, generate SBA forms or service loans; it prepares the file for the system that does, such as Baker Hill.

Does Baker Hill trace K-1s across affiliates?

Its SBA sheet does not describe SBA-specific affiliate or K-1 analysis. Its spreading module elsewhere describes global cash flow; ask to see an acquisition file with several affiliates run through it.

Ledgers carrying both

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