A CRM for valuers: what to track and why
A valuation firm's best clients are the solicitors, accountants and brokers who refer work. What a valuer's client record should hold, what to measure, and how to keep in touch lawfully.
By Valufield6 min read
Most customer relationship software is built for sales teams chasing leads. A valuation firm has a different shape. The person who pays is often not the person who found you, the person who found you may send ten more jobs this year or none, and the work itself comes with a purpose, a property and a deadline. A CRM for valuers needs to hold that shape, or it becomes one more place to type things nobody reads.
This guide sets out what we think a valuer's client record should hold, which numbers are worth watching, and how to stay in touch with referrers without breaking the rules on commercial email.
Why valuers need a client record at all
Panel work arrives through the lender's platform and needs little relationship management. Private and legal work is different. Family law, deceased estate, SMSF, capital gains tax and pre-purchase valuations come from people: a solicitor who trusts your reports, an accountant with a list of SMSF clients, a broker who needs a quick answer.
That work is also where the margin is. Landmark Valuations' mortgage guide puts a residential panel job at about $200 to $400, and a residential valuation the client commissions directly at about $400 to $700. A referrer who sends one private job a month is worth looking after, and most firms keep them in Outlook contacts and memory.
The profession is small and connected. Jobs and Skills Australia counts about 5,200 valuers in work, so a firm's reputation travels quickly through the solicitors and accountants who refer work. Losing track of one of them is a real cost.
What to track
People and organisations
Keep instructing parties, clients and referrers as separate records, linked to each other. A family law matter can involve a law firm, the solicitor handling it, and two parties to the property. The solicitor is the relationship you want to keep; the parties may never instruct you again.
For each referrer, record the type (family lawyer, estate lawyer, accountant, financial planner, broker, real estate agent), the firm, and the date of their last referral. That last field is the one that tells you who has gone quiet.
Each enquiry and job
For every enquiry, capture:
The purpose of the valuation, such as family law, deceased estate, SMSF, capital gains tax, stamp duty or pre-purchase. Purpose drives the fee, the report type and the terms of engagement.
The source: which referrer, which web page or which campaign sent it. Without this you cannot tell which relationships are paying for themselves.
The property address and access notes, so whoever books the inspection has them.
The fee quoted, and whether the quote was accepted. Quotes that are opened but never signed are a list of conversations worth having.
Key dates: enquiry, quote sent, quote signed, inspection, invoice, payment. Together they show your real turnaround from first contact to cash.
Consent
If you plan to email referrers with updates or reminders, record whether each person has consented, how and when. More on this below.
Notes, files and tasks
Every call, file and follow-up belongs on the record, not in someone's inbox. When a principal is away, anyone with access should be able to pick up a matter and see what was promised.
What to measure
A client record is only worth keeping if it answers questions. The ones we would ask every month:
Where did this month's new clients come from? By referrer, by referrer type and by purpose of valuation.
Which referrers have not sent work in six months? These are the relationships to call this week.
How much is quoted but not accepted? And how old are those quotes?
How long from enquiry to signed quote? A slow quote loses private work to the firm that answered first.
Who is owed money, and for how long?
None of these needs a data analyst. They need the source and purpose recorded at the start, which is why capturing them on the enquiry form matters more than any dashboard.
Keeping in touch without breaking the rules
Emailing referrers about your services is commercial electronic messaging, and the Spam Act 2003 applies. The Australian Communications and Media Authority summarises the rules as consent, identify and unsubscribe: you need consent to send, each message must say who it is from, and each must offer a working way to opt out.
In practice, record consent when a referrer gives it, send from your own firm's name, and honour unsubscribes straight away. A short note every quarter on fee changes, turnaround or a change in the market is usually welcome. A weekly newsletter usually is not.
Generic CRM or one built for the practice?
A general CRM can be made to work. Pipedrive's Australian plans run from A$19 to A$109 a seat a month billed annually, and HubSpot's Sales Hub Professional is A$155 a seat plus a A$2,160 onboarding fee. The catch is that a general CRM does not know what a fee quote, an inspection or a GST tax invoice is, so the job ends up split across the CRM, the accounting package and a spreadsheet, and the record is never complete.
The alternative is a client record that sits inside the tool you already use to quote, book and invoice, so it fills itself in as the work happens.
How Valufield handles it
Valufield keeps one record for every client and referrer, with their quotes, bookings, invoices, notes and files on it. In practice:
Website enquiry forms and booking pages create the record and note where the enquiry came from, including the purpose and property address from your own questions.
Your own fields, such as referrer type or lender, sit on every record, and you can import your existing list from a CSV file, matching the columns and checking for duplicates by email address.
Tasks, notes, files and a timeline sit on each client, so anyone in the office can pick up a matter.
A pipeline board shows your quoted work by stage and value.
Reports cover new clients and where they came from, quotes, bookings, invoices and payments, by month, staff member or your own fields, such as referrer.
Email campaigns and follow-up sequences for referrers record consent as the Spam Act expects.
It does not yet sync with your mailbox, so emails you send from Outlook do not appear on the record by themselves; a shared inbox with Gmail and Outlook is coming. If you are weighing it against the tools you have, our guide to what a valuation firm actually needs from its software is a good place to start, and the features page has the detail.
Written by the Valufield team
We build practice software for Australian property valuation firms. Every figure in our posts links to its source, and we only describe what Valufield does today.
