A statement, a spreadsheet and a nagging doubt
Each month the brokerage receives proc fee statements, directly from lenders or through its network or mortgage club. The office manager opens the statement and the CRM's list of completions, and starts ticking. Most match. A few completed cases do not appear. One payment is for a case the office cannot identify. Another looks lower than expected.
Chasing each one takes emails and calls. Some are resolved. Some drift. Nobody is quite sure whether last year's missing payments were ever received.
Self-employed brokers working under the firm want to know their splits are right, too. When the figures come from a spreadsheet only the office manager understands, questions about a missing payment turn into long email threads.
Why proc fees are hard to reconcile
Payments come in batches, under the lender's or network's reference, and often with the client's surname only. Completions in the CRM are only as accurate as the case handler's updates. Timing differs too: a case completes this month, and the fee arrives next month or the one after.
- Statements from many lenders, networks or clubs, each in its own format.
- References that do not match the CRM case reference.
- Completion dates in the CRM that are late or missing.
- Fees paid in a different month from completion.
- Broker splits calculated separately in another spreadsheet.
The people who could follow up are busy with live cases. Unpaid fees on completed cases are always less urgent than today's client, so they wait, and the older they get the harder they are to recover.
What goes unnoticed
| Mismatch | What it can mean |
|---|---|
| Completed case with no fee | Income owed and not received |
| Fee lower than expected | Wrong rate applied, or a query to raise |
| Fee for an unknown case | CRM not updated, or a misallocated payment |
| Clawback or reversal | Needs recording and possibly a broker adjustment |
For a brokerage, proc fees are a large part of income. Small leaks across many cases add up over a year, and the ones found months later are the hardest to recover.
The reconciliation we build
- Statements are collected from each source through email, download or data file.
- A parser for each format extracts the client name, lender, case reference, amount and date.
- Each line is matched to a completed case in your CRM, using names, lenders and references, with a person confirming new or uncertain matches once.
- Expected fees are calculated from rates your team maintains, and compared with what was paid.
- Completed cases with no payment after your chosen period go on an exception list, along with underpayments and unmatched lines.
- Broker splits and payouts can be calculated from the reconciled figures, and totals posted to Xero, QuickBooks or your accounts package.
Clawbacks are handled in the same place. When a lender or network reverses a fee, for example after an early redemption, the reversal is matched to the original case and flagged, so any adjustment to a broker's split is made deliberately rather than discovered at the end of the year.
What month end looks like
The office manager opens a short exception list rather than ticking through every statement line. Each exception shows what was expected and what arrived. Follow-ups are tracked until they close. Brokers can see their own completed cases and fees. And the owner knows, month by month, what has been earned and what is still owed.
It also exposes the upstream problem. When a completed case has no fee because the CRM was never updated with the completion, the exception list points straight at it, and the case handling process improves as a side effect.
Does this apply to your brokerage?
- Proc fee statements are ticked against the CRM by hand.
- You are not sure every completed case has been paid.
- Payments arrive that you cannot link to a case.
- Broker splits live in a separate spreadsheet.
- Following up missing fees depends on someone finding time.