Introductions nobody wrote down
A buyer mentions they have not got a mortgage sorted. The negotiator suggests your partner broker and passes on the number. A vendor asks who you recommend for conveyancing and gets a name. Weeks later the sale completes. Did the broker get the case? Was a referral fee due? Did the client receive the disclosure your process requires? The spreadsheet that was supposed to track this was last updated in the spring.
Once a quarter, a partner sends a statement. Nobody can check it, so it is accepted.
Why referrals are hard to track
Referrals are made in conversation, by many people, at unpredictable points in a sale. Recording them is an extra task with no immediate benefit to the negotiator, so it often does not happen. When it does, the record sits separately from the sale, so when the sale completes or falls through, the referral record is not updated.
Referral arrangements also come with rules about telling clients, and your business's own policy on that must be followed every time. A verbal introduction makes that hard to show.
Partners do not always help. A broker may take on a case that started with your introduction but record the lead as coming from elsewhere, simply because the client mentioned a different source. Without your own record of the date and the client, there is nothing to compare against, and the conversation becomes one side's word against the other's.
| Referral step | Usual record |
|---|---|
| Introduction made | Verbal, maybe a note |
| Client consent and disclosure | Assumed, rarely filed |
| Partner takes on the case | Unknown until the partner says |
| Sale completes | Not linked to the referral |
| Fee paid | Partner statement, unchecked |
What goes missing
Referral income is real income for many agencies, and it is easy to lose quietly. Without a record of each introduction, you cannot check partner statements, and you cannot see which negotiators or branches make referrals. The disclosure side matters too: your business needs to be able to show it followed its own rules, and your compliance lead decides what those are.
How we track referrals
- Quick referral entry: a phone or CRM action lets the negotiator record a referral in a few taps, choosing the partner and service.
- Consent and disclosure: the client receives the disclosure wording your business has approved and gives consent through a link, which is timestamped and stored.
- Partner hand-off: the partner receives the introduction with the client's details, sent securely, and confirms whether they have taken the case.
- Linking to the sale: each referral is linked to the sale record, so its status updates when the sale exchanges, completes or falls through.
- Statement reconciliation: when a partner sends a statement or payment, it is matched against your referral list, and mismatches are listed for someone to raise.
- Reporting: referrals made, converted and paid by branch, negotiator and partner.
The disclosure wording, fee arrangements and consent approach are set by your business and its advisers. We build the process that makes them happen every time.
Life afterwards
Negotiators record referrals in seconds, clients get the right information in writing, and partners receive cleaner introductions. When a partner statement arrives, your finance person can check it against a list instead of trusting it. Directors can see which partnerships are actually working.
It also makes partner reviews more grounded. If one conveyancer takes on most of your introductions but their sales progress slowly, or one broker rarely converts the cases you send, that shows up in the figures. You can have a factual conversation with each partner about how the arrangement is going, instead of relying on anecdotes from the branch.
Are partner payments slipping away?
- Referrals are made verbally and rarely recorded.
- You cannot check partner referral statements.
- Disclosure to clients is not consistently recorded.
- You do not know which branches or negotiators make referrals.