Brokers: Reduce Risk With an Automated Transaction Review Process

Last fall, Form Simplicity added Broker Transaction Management as a standard feature at no additional cost to customers.

The reason this is significant is that perhaps no task is more mundane – yet more important – than the compliance issues that brokerage management faces. Broker Transaction Management creates a single place for real estate broker-owners to manage, review, approve, track, and store every agent’s transaction activity from beginning to end.

It was also the motivation behind deploying these features without any additional costs to Form Simplicity customers because this need is universal: Every brokerage must deal with compliance issues every day. Real estate transaction management software shouldn’t be something you must pay for separately; it should be a standard feature within every transaction management system.

Risk management

Reducing risk through compliance plays a key role in real estate management. These new broker tools reduce risk through a customizable, automated, paperless review process that helps safeguard brokerage transactions to remain compliant.

First, brokers can collaborate with their agents throughout the transaction review process to ensure accuracy across a streamlined workflow. Second, these tools also offer office transparency: brokers track email and text correspondence for every transaction. This not only gives brokers visibility into each agent’s transaction activity, it also allows brokers to evaluate, comment on, and approve all forms digitally submitted by their agents.

Automating a paper trail

Creating a well-documented paper trail is vital, particularly in today’s litigious society. Automating the creation of this paper trail can be a godsend to a broker who is juggling multiple priorities every day. So it was vital in developing these new broker tools that Form Simplicity would integrate features that not only provided the information a broker needs but also were easy to use. These tools needed to be intuitive to use, essentially eliminating the need for training.

That’s why design became a key element in delivering details at a glance. For example, the broker tools provide a detailed history of each checklist review, as well as a fully customizable, color-coded, checklist system. This allows a broker to quickly see agent activity by transaction type. The color-coded “Status” field makes it easy for a broker to rapidly prioritize what they need to do next (see chart below) and allows them to immediately review any item with just one click.

Moreover, the Broker Review feature allows agents to submit their completed contracts electronically to their broker for final approval. During the digital review process, when brokers or agents add comments, each party is automatically alerted, which expedites the process online. When the broker marks the submission as complete or incomplete, Form Simplicity automatically notifies the agent of the change in status.

The paper trail is readily accessible as the review process logs all comments and activities made throughout the office workflow.

Tricia Stamper is the Director of Technology Products at Florida Realtors^®