BPO Automation Glossary: 25 Terms Every Agent Should Know
Broadcast, race loss, daily limit, OTP, session. The vocabulary of automated BPO acceptance, explained plainly.
Automating BPO acceptance introduces a vocabulary that is half real estate and half software. Here are the terms you will run into, explained plainly.
Order and vendor terms
BPO (Broker Price Opinion): a licensed agent's estimate of a property's value, used by lenders and servicers instead of a full appraisal.
Vendor: the company that orders BPOs from agents on behalf of lenders, servicers or investors. Examples include EStreet, Clear Capital and ProTeck.
Broadcast order: an order sent to every approved agent covering an area at once, assigned to whoever accepts first.
Direct assignment: an order sent to one specific agent, usually because of a strong track record.
Exterior / interior: drive-by versus full-access inspection. See our interior vs exterior guide.
Coverage area: the ZIP codes or counties a vendor believes you can service.
Vendor score: the vendor's internal rating of your timeliness and quality.
Turn time: the time between acceptance and submission of the report.
Revision: a report returned by a reviewer for correction.
Acceptance terms
Accept link: a personalised URL in the order email that accepts the order in one click.
Portal accept: accepting inside the vendor's website after logging in.
Race loss: the order was already taken by another agent when your accept arrived.
Pending: you accepted, but the vendor has not yet confirmed the assignment.
Confirmation email: the vendor's message proving the order is yours. Some vendors send this separately from the accept page.
Automation terms
Auto-accept: software that reads order emails and accepts qualifying orders on your behalf.
Auto-forwarding: a rule in your email account that sends a copy of incoming mail to the automation inbox.
Parser: the part of the software that reads the email and extracts the address, fee, order type and due date.
Filter: a rule that decides whether to accept: ZIP list, minimum fee, order type, daily limit.
Daily limit: the maximum number of orders the tool will accept for you per day, per vendor.
Session: a logged-in state on the vendor portal that the software keeps alive so it does not have to log in for every order.
OTP (one-time password): a verification code some portals email you at login. Good tools read and submit it automatically.
Credential verification: the tool testing your saved vendor login to confirm it works before an order arrives.
Password rotation: a vendor forcing you to change your portal password, which breaks saved credentials until updated.
Outcome: the recorded result of each accept attempt: accepted, race lost, filtered, login failed, and so on.
Keep-alive: a periodic check that keeps a portal session from expiring during the day.
Want to see these in action? Start with BPOFlow.