Workflow — SAR Drafting & Filing

SAR drafts ready for the in-house investigator.

Escalated alerts, transaction history, customer profile, prior SAR history → narrative drafted, red flags identified, related parties linked. FinCEN-ready filing through your in-house investigators on E-Filing. Replaces offshore SAR-prep BPO labor at a fraction of the per-SAR cost while keeping the regulator-required determinations in-house.

Take the AI Assessment Get a Per-SAR ROI Model

$200–$600

Per SAR fully loaded at the AML investigator desk

$35–$60

Per hour, US-based AML investigator (loaded)

60–85%

Drafting time off the investigator after AI cutover

What This Replaces

The Investigator Drafting SAR Narratives Past 8pm

The work the AML investigator does on every SAR — and the cost of leaving it there.

The labor

SAR drafting today happens in-house at the bank or credit union — US-based AML investigators are a regulator-required role at $35–$60 per hour fully loaded — supplemented by offshore prep teams at Genpact, WNS, Cognizant BPS, Accenture Operations, and EXL who assemble case evidence and draft initial narratives. Per-SAR cost runs $200–$600 fully loaded counting investigator review and offshore prep.

The cycle time

Standard SAR drafting takes 4–10 hours of investigator time per SAR plus offshore prep cycles, with longer cycles when the case spans multi-jurisdiction transactions, when prior SAR history requires reconciliation, or when the narrative needs to satisfy specific FinCEN typology guidance. The bank carries the regulatory exposure for every SAR that doesn't meet the BSA 30-day continuing-activity filing requirement.

The Workflow

Input · Analysis · Output

What goes into SAR drafting, what we do to it, and what shows up in the case-management system.

Input

Escalated case + transaction context

Escalated alert from L1/L2 disposition
Transaction history across products and accounts
Customer profile, KYC file, and risk rating
Prior SAR history and continuing-activity status
Linked-party data (joint accounts, related entities, beneficial owners)
Customer correspondence, branch notes, and call recordings
External enrichment data (LexisNexis, World-Check)

Analysis

Construct, link, justify

Narrative construction in FinCEN-recommended structure
Red-flag identification with FinCEN typology references
Linked-party and related-account graph
Continuing-activity vs initial-SAR determination
Suspicious-amount calculation across periods
FinCEN typology and predicate-offense tagging
Confidence score per finding; investigator review queue

Output

Draft into the case system

NICE Actimize Case Manager (Actimize Connect API)
Pega Case Management (DCO and REST APIs)
Quantexa (REST API)
Internal SAR repository updates
FinCEN E-Filing-ready package
Continuing-activity SAR queue for 90-day reviews
Case-level audit trail per element

Side by Side

SAR Drafting Today vs. With Last Rev

The numbers that matter: cycle time, per-SAR cost, accuracy, and exam posture.

Dimension	AML Investigator + Offshore Prep	Last Rev SAR Drafting
Cycle time, escalation to investigator-ready draft	4–10 hours of investigator + offshore prep	15–60 minutes per SAR draft
Per-SAR fully-loaded unit cost	$200–$600	Per-SAR draft, benchmarked at 25–45% of fully-loaded cost
Continuing-activity tracking	Manual calendaring, missed-deadline incidents	90-day review queue with prior-SAR linkage
Linked-party and related-account graph	Manual cross-reference, depth limited by time	Auto-linked across accounts, beneficial owners, related entities
FinCEN typology coverage	Investigator memory, calibration drift	Full typology library applied with reference citations
Audit log per element	Investigator notes, no narrative-element lineage	Source data + red-flag basis + model version + confidence per element
Renegotiation leverage at next BPO renewal	None — you're locked in on prep contract	60–85% of prep work off the offshore line

How It Works

From Escalated Case to Investigator-Ready Draft

Five steps. Every one logged. Every one reversible if your confidence threshold isn't met.

Submission Lands

Escalated case from L1/L2 disposition or AML investigator desk — with transaction history, customer profile, prior SAR history, linked parties, and external enrichment data assembled into the same review.

Extraction & Classification

Narrative construction in FinCEN-recommended structure. Red flags identified with FinCEN typology references. Linked-party and related-account graph built. Continuing-activity vs initial-SAR determination. Suspicious-amount calculation across periods.

Validation Against SAR Bar

Findings validated against the bank's SAR-drafting playbook and FinCEN typology guidance. Anything below your confidence threshold per element is routed to the investigator review queue — final SAR-filing determination remains with the bank's in-house investigator.

Push to Case Management

Draft SAR into NICE Actimize Case Manager, Pega Case Management, Quantexa, or your internal SAR repository via the documented integration. FinCEN E-Filing-ready package. Continuing-activity SAR queue updated for 90-day review.

Audit Log Persisted

Every red-flag identification, typology tag, and linked-party finding logged with the source data, FinCEN reference, model version, and confidence score. BSA and FinCEN examiner-ready and yours.

Compliance & Defensibility

Built to Meet the Quality Bar SAR Operations Already Run On

BSA SAR-filing requirements

BSA 30-day initial-filing and 90-day continuing-activity timing tracked through the case-management workflow. FinCEN-required SAR fields populated against the source case data with the basis cited per element.

FinCEN typology library

FinCEN-issued typology guidance (advisories, alerts, FIN-2014-A007 series) tracked. Red-flag identification cites the applicable typology so investigators can defend the SAR call against examiner inquiry.

No determination authority

We don't make the SAR-filing determination — that's a regulator-required human decision by your in-house AML investigator. We assemble the case evidence, draft the narrative, and identify red flags so the investigator makes the call on a richer file than offshore prep produces today.

PII and case-data residency

SAR cases contain customer PII, NPI, transaction data, and pre-determination work product. Deployable in your VPC or our SOC 2 environment. Encryption in transit and at rest; retention policies tied to your BSA recordkeeping rules.

Common Questions

What Banks & Credit Unions Ask About SAR Drafting

Those are the case-management systems where SAR cases live and where investigators draft narratives today. The competitor on this page is the offshore SAR-prep BPO labor that supports your investigators — typically Genpact, WNS, Cognizant BPS, Accenture Operations, EXL — plus the investigator drafting time itself. We integrate directly into your existing case-management system and deliver investigator-ready SAR drafts that keep the regulator-required final determination with your US-based investigator.

We don't replace the AML investigator. SAR-filing is a regulator-required role and decision — we draft the narrative, assemble the case evidence, and identify the red flags so the investigator makes the call on a richer file. Final filing happens through the in-house investigator on FinCEN's E-Filing system. The investigator is in the review-and-approve loop on every draft.

Our pilot success threshold is structured-evidence-extraction and narrative-quality at parity with or above your incumbent prep BPO, measured on the same shadow-data sample of historical cases. Anything below your defined confidence threshold per element is routed to the investigator review queue.

FinCEN typologies (advisories, alerts, FIN-2014-A007 series) are tracked. Red-flag identification cites the applicable typology so investigators can defend the SAR call against examiner inquiry. Continuing-activity SARs are tracked through a 90-day review queue with prior-SAR linkage so the BSA timing requirements are met without manual calendaring.

Yes — through the documented integration surface each platform supports. NICE Actimize via the Actimize Connect API; Pega via DCO and REST; Quantexa via REST; internal SAR repositories via SFTP, REST, or message-queue depending on your team's preferred ingestion path. Your IT and compliance teams review and approve service accounts. We do not require platform-side custom development.

SAR-drafting pilots typically run 6–8 weeks: 1–2 weeks of integration and playbook mapping with the AML team, 4 weeks of shadow-mode running on real cases with no system-of-record drafts, 1–2 weeks of supervised cutover on a constrained scope (one typology, one product line). Production rollout is staged after the pilot meets your accuracy and second-line-of-defense sign-off.

We benchmark against your current per-SAR fully-loaded cost — typically $200–$600 counting investigator and prep time. Our target is 25–45% of that per-SAR cost at higher accuracy and faster cycle time. Pricing structures around volume tiers and outcome SLAs, not hourly billable rates.

Every red-flag identification, typology tag, linked-party finding, and narrative element is logged with the source data, FinCEN reference, model version, and confidence score. When OCC, FRB, FDIC, NCUA, or FinCEN examiners request the basis for a SAR, the audit log produces the chain of custody on demand.

Two Ways to Start

Take the AI assessment for a structured read on SAR-drafting feasibility. Or talk to us if you already know your investigator desk is the bottleneck on continuing-activity filings.

Self-serve · 8 minutes

Take the AI Assessment

A short structured assessment that maps your monthly SAR volume, your case-management system, and your current investigator and BPO arrangement to AI feasibility and ROI.

Talk to a specialist

Get a Per-SAR ROI Model

Send us your monthly SAR volume, your case-management system, and your current investigator and BPO arrangement. We'll come back with a per-SAR unit-cost comparison and a 6–8 week pilot plan in 5 business days.

Other Workflows

More Financial Services Workflows We Replace

The same approach, applied to the other document-heavy labor lines on your financial-crimes and operations budget.

Sanctions & PEP Adjudication

L1/L2 alert review on 100K–1M alerts per month — name-similarity false positives parsed with audit-ready dispositions.

KYC Document Review

CIP, CDD, EDD review — into Fenergo, Pega, NICE Actimize, Quantexa, or your CLM platform.

Beneficial Ownership Remediation

FinCEN CTA, BOI reports, and global UBO rules — ownership chain reconstruction across layered entities.

Trade Finance Document Review

LCs, BLs, invoices, certificates of origin — UCP 600 compliance check and discrepancy-letter drafting.