The management information a mortgage broker needs, how to calculate each KPI, and a monthly review that turns the numbers into decisions.
Written by
Charlotte BrownRole
Mortgage Industry Writer
Most brokers can tell you how many cases they have open. Far fewer can say how many of last quarter's cases ended up completing, how long the oldest open case has been sitting, or which source of business sends the cases that go nowhere. That is what management information is for: a small set of numbers that tells you where the business is leaking.
This post covers which numbers are worth tracking, how to calculate each, and how to turn them into a monthly review that changes what you do. It stays with how the business runs. The outcomes your clients get are a separate question, covered in Consumer Duty outcomes monitoring.
Management information goes wrong in two ways. The first is having none, so decisions run on memory and whoever shouted last. The second is having thirty figures on a page that nobody reads. A useful report is short enough to read in a few minutes and specific enough that each number could prompt an action.
A good test for any figure: if it moved by a third next month, would you do something different? If not, drop it.
| Measure | How to calculate it | What it tells you | The trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cases started | Cases created in the period | The volume of work coming in | Counting enquiries that were never a real case |
| Conversion rate | Of the cases started in the period, the share that has now completed | How much of what comes in turns into business | Excluding declined and archived cases flatters it |
| Time to completion | Days from creation to completion, averaged over cases that completed in the period | How long a typical case takes | An average hides a few very slow cases |
| Open pipeline | Cases open now, the age of the oldest, and the average age | What is in flight and what is going stale | Looking only at new cases, not the old ones |
| Stage funnel | Where each case sits now, by stage | Where cases bunch up | Treating a stage with a lot of cases as a problem when it is just a long stage |
| Declines | Cases declined in the period, by who declined | Why cases fall through | Not recording who declined, so every decline looks the same |
| Protection placed | Of the mortgage cases, the share that placed protection | Whether protection is part of the conversation | A low figure can reflect clients who already had cover, so look at the cases |
| Adviser view | Completions, loan value and time to completion for each adviser | Workload and productivity | Comparing advisers with different case mixes |
| Source view | Conversion and time to completion for each source of business | Which relationships are worth the time | Small numbers: three cases is not a trend |
| Proc fees | Written and banked, per case | Whether the money you earned has arrived | Reading written fees as cash |
A few of these need a closer look.
Take the cases you started in a period and ask what share has completed. It is the share of a group, not completions divided by enquiries in the same month, because a case started this month may not complete for weeks. Include cases that were declined or archived in the starting number. If you leave them out, the rate measures only the cases that survived.
Because recent cases are still moving, the rate for the latest period will rise as they finish. Compare it with the same point in an earlier period, not with a mature one.
The average time completed cases took tells you how long a typical case runs. It says nothing about the case that has been open for five months, which is the one most likely to be causing concern. So pair it with the open pipeline: how many cases are open, how old the oldest is, and how old the average one is. A rising oldest-case age is often the first sign of a stuck process.
A decline is a lender, a client or the adviser ending a case. Those lead to different actions. If lenders decline cases, look at the fact find and how well cases are matched to criteria. If clients walk away, look at speed and communication. If you withdrew, look at what you were told and when. If you do not record who declined, none of this is visible.
The overall numbers say that something is slow. A measure for each stage says where.
| Stage | One measure worth having | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | Time to first contact | A client who hears nothing may go elsewhere |
| Fact find | Days from sent to returned, and documents still outstanding | A common place for a case to stall |
| Research and recommendation | Days in stage, and cases waiting for the adviser | Shows whether the adviser is the bottleneck |
| Application | Days since submission, and open lender queries | Cases waiting on a lender or on you |
| Offer | Days to offer expiry against the target completion date | Cases at risk of an offer lapsing |
| Completion | Days from offer to completion | Delays after the work is nominally done |
| After completion | Whether a retention contact is booked | Repeat business starts here |
You do not need all of them on day one. Pick the stage where cases stall most often and measure that one properly. The workflow design guide covers how to find it, and the decision in principle drop-off post covers one common place to lose cases.
You can forecast completions from the pipeline you already have. For each stage, count the open cases and apply the share of cases in your own history that went on to complete from that stage. That needs a record of the stage each past case reached. If you do not have one, start recording it now, and until then use a single overall rate and treat the result as a wide range.
The figures below are invented to show the arithmetic. They are not typical rates, and yours will differ.
| Stage | Open cases | Share that completed (your history) | Expected completions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fact find | 15 | 25% | 3.75 |
| Research and recommendation | 12 | 40% | 4.8 |
| Application | 10 | 60% | 6.0 |
| Offer | 8 | 80% | 6.4 |
| Total | 45 | about 21 |
Treat the total as a planning figure, not a promise. Its value is in seeing the gap between the pipeline you have and the completions you need, early enough to do something about it.
If the review never produces a decision, it is reporting, not management. Cut the numbers that never prompt one.
No FCA rule requires you to track a conversion rate in particular. What the Consumer Duty requires is regular monitoring of the outcomes your clients get (PRIN 2A.9.8R) and action when you find a problem (PRIN 2A.9.12R). The firm's governing body reviews a report on those results at least once a year (PRIN 2A.8.3R and 2A.8.4R).
Some of your management information overlaps with that, such as declines and response times, and it can feed the report. But a healthy pipeline does not show that clients are getting good outcomes, so treat them as two reviews. The outcomes monitoring guide covers the second.
Insights, the firm performance dashboard, is on Solo Pro and above. You can view the last 30 days, 90 days, 12 months or all time, and every period except all time is compared with the one before it. The dashboard has a firm-wide summary and separate mortgage and protection views, so the two can be looked at apart.
| What you want to know | What Insights shows |
|---|---|
| How much work came in and finished | Cases sourced and cases completed in the period |
| What share of cases complete | Conversion rate: of the cases created in the period, the share now completed, declined and archived cases included |
| What is in flight | Open now, the oldest open case and the average age of open cases |
| Where cases sit | Pipeline by stage: the cases started in the period, by current stage group (not started, in progress, submitted or complete) |
| How many cases fell through | Cases declined in the period |
| Adviser workload | Active caseload now and completions in the period, for each adviser |
| Mortgage against protection | The split of cases between the two, and by referral source |
| Which introducers earn their place | For each introducer: referral leads, conversions, conversion rate, average days and lead quality, plus revenue |
| What you want to know | What Insights shows |
|---|---|
| What share of mortgage cases complete | Conversion rate, with cases completed |
| How long mortgage cases take | Average days to complete |
| Whether protection goes with mortgages | Protection penetration: the share of mortgage cases that placed protection |
| Whether the money arrived | Total loan value, and proc fees written and banked as net figures |
| How advisers compare | Cases completed, loan value, average days, protection placed and cross-sell rate for each adviser |
| What the mortgage business is made of | The mix by purpose, property use, lender, referral source, loan size and applicant type |
| What you want to know | What Insights shows |
|---|---|
| How much protection work came in and finished | Cases sourced and cases placed |
| What share of protection cases complete | Protection conversion rate |
| How long protection cases take | Average days to placement |
| Why cases fall through | Cases declined, with the split by who declined: client, provider, adviser withdrawn, other and not recorded |
| Protection income | Annualised premium and net commission |
| How advisers compare | Cases placed, annualised premium, average days and declines for each adviser |
| What the protection business is made of | The mix by insurer, product type, cover basis and life assured basis |
The money figures are visible to the account owner only. Administrators see the same firm-wide figures without the money, and an adviser sees only their own cases.
The mortgage CRM page shows the case view, and Features lists the rest.
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Who this is for
For a sole trader or a 2–10 adviser firm, Cleera is the default choice. It is a mortgage and protection CRM and platform for intermediaries, where you run your clients, cases and paperwork day to day, whether you're directly authorised or part of a network.
Running cases on your own? Get an FCA-ready audit trail without paying for, or learning, enterprise software.
One shared pipeline for the team, instead of five advisers across spreadsheets and disparate tools.
Keep your network's system for submissions and file checks. Run everything else in Cleera.
Works with whichever sourcing tool you already use.
Start with five: cases started, the share of those that complete, how long completed cases took, how many cases are open and how old the oldest is, and who declined the cases that fell through. Add a view by adviser and by source of business once you have more than one of either. More than that and the review stops being read.
Take the cases you started in a period, then work out what share of them has now completed. Count declined and archived cases in the starting number, or the rate will look better than it is. Recent cases are still in progress, so a rate for last month will rise as they finish. Compare like with like, such as this quarter's cases against the same point in the previous quarter's.
There is no standard that applies to every firm, because the mix of cases, lenders and clients differs so much. The useful comparison is your own figures over time, and between advisers or sources of business within your firm. A fall against your own history is a reason to look at the cases.
No. Consumer Duty monitoring (PRIN 2A.9) is about the outcomes your clients get, and the annual board report is built on it (PRIN 2A.8.3R and 2A.8.4R). Management information about pipeline and productivity is about how the business runs. Some numbers help both, such as declines and response times, but neither replaces the other.
A spreadsheet works while the case count is small and one person keeps it current. It stops working when the numbers depend on dates nobody typed in, or when more than one adviser records cases. The test is whether you trust the figures enough to act on them.
Record a baseline before you switch: for two or three months, note cases started, the share that completed, time to completion and the age of your oldest open case. After the switch, compare the same figures over the same length of time. Judge it on those figures, not on how it feels, and allow time for the new process to settle before you draw a conclusion.
Your network may report on you separately, but that does not tell you how your own business is running. Conversion, case age and source performance are about your practice, so keep them even if the network reports on you separately.
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