RATA announces the release of the Year-End Geocode Redo file: Please apply before submitting

Thank you as always for using the RATA Comply software and Geocoding services to help with your HMDA and/or CRA submissions. As part of our efforts to ensure that you have the highest quality and most current geocode results for submission, we re-geocode every address that was submitted to try and improve the precision codes, then return any improved results in the Year-End (YE) geocode update file. This file should be applied to your Comply system at your earliest convenience to assure that these improved results are a part of your submission.

The YE update file will only affect records submitted before January 26, 2023. If you have submitted more geocoding after that date, those records will have already been geocoded using the latest geocode data and will not have to be updated. Single-application geocodes are also re-geocoded as part of this process. Any addresses that you ZOOMed throughout the year will not be overwritten by this file.

The YE file name will be B####2YE.rz, where the #### represents your RATA Geocode ID. There are two means of applying these improved results to Comply, depending upon whether or not you have the ability to utilize the auto-update feature.

With Auto-Update:

If you have the auto-apply for auto updates enabled, the file will be applied automatically and you won't need to take any action. You can check to see if your file was applied by going to the Auto-Update Status, clicking the drop-down that says Active, then selecting Applied. The latest files that were applied should be at the top of the list. If you need to sort, that can be done by clicking on a header (click twice to sort descending).

If you don't have the auto-apply feature enabled, go into the Auto-Update status window and check the box to the left of the file, then click the Update button at the bottom of the screen. You may receive two YE files in Auto-Update with the same name. One will have a status of Unprocessed and the other will have a status of Download Completed; apply the file that is downloaded. For the file that is Unprocessed, right click on it and select Mark Update(s) as Completed.

Without Auto-Update:

Log on to the RATA Support Website (https://support.rataassociates.com) then click GeoPlus > Download Files on the left-hand side of the screen. Download and save the file. In Comply, go to the Home ribbon and click the Import Geocodes button then browse to the file.

Note: Alternately we can email the file to you upon written email request. Although the file is securely encrypted and should not pose any security concerns, any request to email the file becomes the sole responsibility of the user in the event of any data breach.

Once your End of Year File has been applied, you will want to look at your overall geocode precision levels and ZOOM any applicable records. To use the ZOOM geocoder, simply highlight your reporting entity and press F6 to view the dashboard, or right-click your entity and select Properties then go to the Status tab. There are links for High Priority ZOOM and Low Priority ZOOM. The high priority records are assured to have a correct address and are therefore easier to locate so we recommend they be attempted first. In general, there will likely be at least one geocoder listed in ZOOM that nails the tract exactly. Once you have determined which geocoder is correct, using the map and satellite views as your guide, simply press Select on that geocoder row. Once those have been completed, you may opt to move on to the low priority records. Since these records are not assured to have proper addresses, you may need to do some additional research to properly locate them on the map.

Our HMDA and CRA Year End Processing Guides, available in the Resources section of the Comply Start Page, have more information on this ZOOM process. We highly recommend that you read over these documents before submitting. End of year ZOOMing has become a critical part of trying to meet the tightening precision requirements from the FFIEC and the CFPB.

By using the steps above and those found in the Geocoding Best Practices guide, you can get your HMDA and/or CRA submission to the highest geocoding precision levels possible!