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How to book loans with custom form questions in Lendsqr
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Standard loan applications capture the basics: BVN, income, and account details. Depending on your product and borrower segment, you may need information beyond what a default form captures. Your loan type, borrower segment, or internal underwriting criteria may require data unique to your context.
Lendsqr’s custom form builder lets you define exactly what additional information your loan officers collect when manually booking a loan. You define the questions, mark which fields are mandatory, and attach the form to a specific loan product. When an agent books a loan manually, the custom fields appear in the form, and the agent must complete them before proceeding.
This guide covers why lenders use custom questions, common data types they collect, and how to configure the feature.
Why lenders collect specific customer borrower data
A default loan application form tells you who the borrower is. A well-designed custom form tells you whether they qualify for your specific product. Here are some examples:
Employment verification for salary loans: A salary advance lender may require the borrower’s employer name, staff ID, and HR contact number for verification.
Business details for SME loans: Business lenders need data that a personal onboarding form does not capture: business name, registration number, address, monthly revenue, and sector.
Collateral information for secured loans. If your product requires a pledged asset, the custom form is where your agent records collateral details. This includes asset type, estimated value, vehicle registration number, or land title reference.
Product-specific eligibility checks: For cooperative or group loan products, agents may need to confirm product-specific conditions. Custom questions can make these checks a required step.
What the custom form looks like in practice
A custom form is built in JSON format and attached to the Custom Form Builder attribute on a loan product. Each form can have multiple pages, and each page can have multiple sections. Within each section, you define the individual fields: short text, number, phone, dropdown select, and so on.
Below is an example showing two pages of a form, each with different field types:
{"meta": {"name":"<org name>","description":"This is a customized loan application flow for <org name>","version":"1.0","url":"https://www.example.com","status":"active"},"pages": [{"name":"Page 1","title":"Page 1 Details","description":"Sample description","actions": [{"type":"continue","label":"Continue"},{"type":"cancel","label":"Cancel","message":"Are you sure you want to cancel this loan request?"} ],"sections": [{"name":"Section 1","description":"Section 1 description","fields": [{"id":"short_text_field","name":"Short Text field","type":"short_text","label":"Short Text field","description":"Short Text field Description","validation":{"required":true,"minimum_length":1,"maximum_length":256}},{"id":"select_field","name":"Select Field","type":"select","label":"Select Field","description":"Select Field Description","validation":{"required":true,"multi_select":false},"options": [{"label":"Option A","value":"Option A"},{"label":"Option B","value":"Option B"},{"label":"Option C","value":"Option C"} ]} ]} ]},{"name":"Page 2","title":"Page 2 details","description":"Sample description","actions": [{"type":"submit","label":"Submit"},{"type":"cancel","label":"Cancel","message":"If you cancel this, all the information you have provided will be discarded. Are you sure you want to do this?"} ],"sections": [{"name":"Section 1 in Page 2","description":"Sample Description","fields": [{"id":"phone","name":"Phone","type":"phone","label":"Phone","description":"Details","validation":{"required":true}},{"id":"number","name":"number","type":"number","label":"text number field","description":"description","validation":{"required":true,"minimum":10,"maximum":9999999999}} ]} ]} ]}
Replace the placeholder field labels and descriptions with the actual questions relevant to your loan product. Agents must complete each field marked "required": true before submitting the form.
How to configure custom form questions on a loan product
Lendsqr moved custom-question configuration from a raw JSON attribute editor into a searchable product settings panel. You still write the questions in JSON, but you now paste that JSON into a dedicated Loan Request Form Builder screen reached from the product settings search box, instead of editing a “Custom Form Builder” attribute directly on the product.
Log in to the admin console and navigate to “Loan Products” under “Product Management” in the side navigation.
Open the loan product you want to attach custom questions to (or create a new one), then switch to the “Product settings” tab.
Type “form” into the “Search product settings” box to filter down to the form-related settings.
Find the “Loan Request Form Builder” row and click “Add a form” (this replaces the old “Custom Form Builder” attribute). Paste your custom questions in JSON format into the Designer and save your changes.
The same Loan Request Form Builder can also be managed as a reusable, named object from the “Forms” hub under Product Management, where it has its own Designer, Preview, and JSON tabs, and can be attached to more than one product.
Still in “Product settings“, search for “channel” and find the “Channels Availability” setting. Add or remove channels directly in the chip selector, for example adding “Offline” so agents can book manually, and your change saves immediately, no separate save step.
Step-by-step guide on booking a loan with custom form questions
Booking a loan manually is now a multi-step wizard rather than a single form. The exact number of steps can vary by product (for example, an extra “Bank account” or “Repayment method” step appears for some products), but the flow below covers every step you will see.
Click the “Create” button in the top navigation, then select “Book a loan” from the “LOAN MANAGEMENT” section of the dropdown.
On the “Customer” step, click “Find or add a customer“, then search for the borrower by Email, Phone, or BVN using the dropdown next to the search box.
Select the matching customer from the search results to continue.
On the “Loan offer” step, switch to the “Use a loan product” tab and select the previously configured product from the “Loan Product” dropdown. Enter the amount and tenor, then click “Next: Application form.”
On the “Application form” step, the standard personal and employment fields appear first. If the selected product has a Loan Request Form Builder form attached, your custom questions appear further down this same page, and the agent must complete every field marked required before continuing.
Continue through the remaining steps (which may include Bank account or Repayment method, depending on the product), review the summary on the “Review” step, and submit. The “Complete” step confirms the loan was booked and lets you open the new loan record.
Note: this walkthrough was verified against a test product that did not have a Loan Request Form Builder form attached, so the custom-question fields on the Application form step could not be captured directly in these screenshots. Attach a form via the steps above and the custom fields will appear on this step exactly as configured in the Designer.
As a result of this feature, agents can avoid errors during loan setup and ensure every application meets the lender’s criteria. Furthermore, this speeds up the review process because complete information allows for quicker decision-making.
In addition, the update improves accuracy, reduces delays, and enhances the overall customer experience. Ultimately, these enhancements make the loan booking process smoother, faster, and more reliable for both agents and customers.
Supporting your underwriting process with custom form data
After booking, the custom form data attaches to the loan record, and your review team can see it immediately. A loan officer can see employer details, business information, or collateral data without chasing the booking agent for it.
This closes a common gap in agent-assisted lending. Field-collected data often disappears into emails or calls rather than reaching the loan record. A well-designed custom form makes agent-collected data part of your formal loan record from booking.
