Product Review: Brokermint Offers Complete Back Office Management to Small and Mid-Sized Firms

There's a new player on the back office management scene, and its name is Brokermint. We first started hearing buzz about this product almost a year ago in a handful of real estate groups that we frequent online.

The software has grown up a lot since then--in April, they added electronic signature capabilities and, in November, integration with QuickBooks--making it a serious contender to replace existing systems as the back office platform of choice.

Now that Brokermint has "come of age," so to speak, let's take a look at what it has to offer brokerages.

Full Insight Into Your Business

Brokermint bills itself as an "all-in-one" back office platform. And with the recent addition of eSignatures and accounting software integration, this is more true than ever. The solution handles everything from commission management, transaction management, reports, and more--all with the goal of increasing your firm's operational efficiency.

Of course, to increase efficiency, a program must be easy to use. We've seen a lot of legacy back office solutions at RE Technology and, while powerful, too many feature interfaces that are clunky and confusing.

This is not the case with Brokermint. The interface is streamlined and modern looking, and easy to figure out. We're particularly fond of the main page, which prominently displays your company's sales pipeline. Right from the get-go, brokers can see the sales value of their active, pending, and closed listings for the current month, as well as an overview of previous months.

Users can click any section of the funnel to see the transactions involved; in the image above, for example, clicking the top section shows all active transactions. Click "Pending" and you'll see all pending transactions. You can access transactions directly from the pipeline screen, or you can navigate to the Transaction section.

Transaction Management

Transactions are simple to manage in Brokermint, and the platform even makes use of visual cues like red text to make it simple to see which transactions need attention:

For agents or administrators using your system, adding a new transaction is easy. The platform can sync with any MLS in the U.S. or Canada to automatically import listings into the system and eliminate double data entry. (You can add transactions manually, as well.)

From there, users can assign task checklists to a transaction and start uploading documents. Brokermint has a buyer's checklist and a listing checklist built in to the system. Brokers or admins can modify these checklists to suit their company's unique needs, or create their own. The system has user permission capabilities to grant specific individuals the ability to create or modify checklists, and prevent unauthorized users from deleting checklist items.

Checklists are straightforward and set forth an easy to follow timeline that keeps agents on track. Overdue items are highlighted in red, and completed tasks are crossed out. Users can even upload required documents right from a checklist; each task that requires a document sports a convenient "Upload" button. Users can view documents from this screen, and even delete or edit them without having to navigate to another section of the program.

In April, Brokermint took another step toward becoming a complete "contract to close" back office system when they added eSignature capabilities. The eSign feature is provided by HelloSign and is fully integrated into Brokermint's platform, which means that a separate account with a third party is not necessary.

The new eSignature feature lets brokers and administrators upload their own forms and save them as templates which agents can then use to execute documents. Templates are able to pre-populate with transaction information so that agents and staff can avoid duplicate data entry. Esignatures are also compatible with mobile devices and feature a full audit trail.

Other Brokermint transaction management features include:

• Task reminders and notifications via email
• PDF split and merge functionality
• Ability to add documents to a transaction via email
• Secure, cloud-based document storage
• Time-stamped log that records all activity related to a transaction

Additionally, Brokermint solves compliance woes by letting brokers review and approve transactions before they're finalized.

Commission Management and Reports

Say farewell to the spreadsheets and calculators; Brokermint is fully equipped to handle and automate all your commission management needs. Brokers can set up commission templates to automate commission tracking and payment processing. The system lets brokers choose a default commission structure for each agent, and set-up secondary ones, as well. Changing the commission structure for a transaction from default to alternative can be be done in a few clicks.

Additionally, Brokermint can handle sliding scale commission structures with a 100 percent cap, pre-split and post-split deductions including outside referrals, and more.

Here's a rundown of the commission component's capabilities:

• Create tier based structures based on year to date office net or gross sales volume
• List other charges and fees, so you can keep track of all possible expenses
• Modify commissions on the fly, even after you have assigned them to a transaction
• Generate commission disbursement forms and individual commission statements
• Deposit tracking
• Review the commission structure of any agent
• Review reports and year-to-date sales volume

Brokermint also offers robust reporting capabilities, with reports on cash flow projection, agent efficiency, and beyond. Brokers can also create their own custom reports to suit their needs.

Integration with Your Existing Tools

As we said earlier, Brokermint is a modern solution, and this is apparent in how well it plays with third party applications. For example, it syncs with the following CRMs:

• Salesforce
• Contactually
• Propertybase
• LionDesk
• Follow up Boss
• Cumulus

Brokermint can also integrate with calendaring software. So if, say, you wanted due dates from your transaction checklist to be reflected in your agent's Google Calendar, Brokermint can sync with Google to do just that. It will also sync with Google Drive and Dropbox so you can store transaction documents in the cloud system of your choice.

However, we're most impressed with Brokermint's integration with accounting solutions like Quickbooks, Xero, and Waveapp. This sends transaction and commission data to your accounting system, automating tasks like creating invoices, generating checks, and more--all without having to manually re-enter financial data.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, Brokermint aims to automate as many tasks as possible to save your brokerage time and money. It's also highly customizable, and can be adapted to fit your business and existing workflows.

If you're interested in giving it a try, Brokermint offers a free trial that requires no credit card. You can sign up on their website at the link below.

Next Steps

• Visit Brokermint's website for more information
• Explore more options for Back Office and Transaction Management solutions