The spreadsheet on the last Friday of the month
Each branch manager sends a spreadsheet of sales expected to exchange and complete. The director adds them up and plans the next month around the total. Then half the completions slip, a couple fall through, and the total arrives six weeks late in bits. Next month, the same spreadsheet, the same optimism.
Nobody is lying. The dates in the spreadsheet are the dates everyone hoped for when the memo went out. They just have no connection to where each sale actually is.
Why the forecast drifts
The target completion date on a sale record is usually set at the start and rarely updated. A sale waiting on searches and a sale with mortgage offer in hand and contracts approved look the same if both are marked as completing this month. Branch managers adjust the list by feel, and feel is generous when targets are tight.
There is also no record of how long sales usually take from each milestone in your own branches, which is the one piece of evidence that would keep the forecast honest.
| Forecast input | Usual source | Problem |
|---|---|---|
| Expected completion date | Typed at memo stage | Rarely updated |
| Fee amount | Agreed fee, sometimes out of date | Reductions and splits missed |
| Chance of completing | Branch manager's feel | Optimistic and inconsistent |
| Milestones reached | Progression notes | Not used in the forecast at all |
What an unreliable forecast costs
Cash planning for an estate agency depends on completions, which are lumpy at the best of times. When the forecast is wrong in the same direction every month, directors either hold back on hiring and marketing they could afford, or commit to spending based on money that arrives late. Branch comparisons are unfair because some managers forecast carefully and others do not.
It also wastes the branch managers' time at month end, rebuilding the same spreadsheet by hand.
How we build a forecast from real progress
- Data from the CRM: agreed sales, fees, fee splits and milestone dates are read from your CRM on a schedule, so nobody retypes them.
- Your own history: we look at how long your completed sales actually took from each milestone, and how often sales at each stage fell through, branch by branch.
- Stage-based timing: each open sale gets an expected completion window based on the last milestone it reached and your history, not the hopeful date at the memo.
- Fee forecast by month: expected fees are totalled by branch and month, with a range rather than a single number, and each sale's contribution can be clicked through.
- Manager overrides: branch managers can adjust a sale when they know something the data does not, with a note, and the override is shown as such.
- Accuracy tracking: each month, the forecast is compared with what actually completed, so you can see whether it is getting better.
The numbers come from your own history, so the forecast is only as good as the milestone data your team records. We show where gaps in that data are weakening it.
What month end looks like after
The spreadsheet round stops. Directors open a live view of expected fees by branch and month, and can see which sales are carrying the forecast. Branch managers spend the meeting discussing the sales that matter rather than typing figures. After a few months, you know how far to trust it, because its track record is on screen.
It also gives progression a clear business case. When one stage is consistently slow in one branch, the effect on fee timing is visible.
Signs this is your agency
- Pipeline forecasts are compiled from branch spreadsheets each month.
- Completions regularly slip from one month to the next.
- Target completion dates are set once and rarely changed.
- You cannot say how long your sales usually take from mortgage offer to completion.
- Directors plan spending around a figure nobody quite believes.