How to Use the Corporate Income Mortgage Worksheet

The Corporate Income Mortgage Worksheet organizes the numbers a mortgage professional commonly needs before applying a lender-specific self-employed income policy. It is deliberately not branded as a universal qualifying-income calculator because no such universal formula exists.

The accountant can use it to identify the historical accounting figures and ownership. The mortgage professional can then adjust the scenario only where the chosen lender expressly permits it.

For each completed fiscal year, the worksheet records financial-statement NIAT, borrower ownership percentage, dividends already counted in the personal mortgage income, any lender-permitted adjustment amount confirmed for the scenario, and owner salary shown separately as context. It does not automatically merge salary into the corporate NIAT calculation.

That structure makes the anti-double-counting control visible. If personal dividends are already used in the mortgage application, the worksheet shows a residual corporate earnings review base rather than simply adding the two numbers together.

The worksheet calculates ownership-adjusted NIAT, adds only the adjustment amount the user explicitly enters, and subtracts dividends the user says are already counted personally. It then averages the two review bases and shows the year-over-year trend. These are analytical figures for discussion, not lender-approved income.

It does not decide whether an expense is an eligible add-back, whether the lender will use the average or lower year, whether a dividend came from current or prior retained earnings, whether corporate income is distributable, or whether business liquidity is adequate. Those remain lender/accountant judgment questions.

The best time to complete the worksheet is after the accounting package has been assembled but before the broker submits a corporate-income calculation. If the residual number looks implausible, if the trend is sharply declining, or if dividends exceed current NIAT, the broker knows to obtain an explanation before presenting the file.

The worksheet also creates a consistent language for discussion with the accountant. Instead of asking 'what income can we use?', the broker can ask whether the historical inputs and distribution figures have been captured correctly.

The final lender worksheet should identify which policy adjustments were applied and why. It should never be presented as if it came from the accountant unless the accountant actually prepared or approved it within an appropriate engagement.

This separation preserves a clean audit trail: financial statements and tax filings remain the source evidence; HopeWell's worksheet is the normalization layer; the lender's decision remains the credit outcome.