Mortgage CRM Implementation Plan: First 30 Days

A mortgage CRM implementation plan for a small brokerage needs five things: one named owner, a short list of what the system replaces, a fixed order for switching things on, a rule that every new case goes into the system from the first week, and three measures to check at day 30. Everything else is detail. This guide sets out that plan week by week, with who does what and when each stage is done.

The risk with a new CRM is that nobody uses it properly. In the H1 Mortgage Lender Benchmark Study, as reported by The Intermediary, CRM was the weakest category of broker technology, and the article describes CRM systems as often demanding on users and less intuitive and flexible than other tools. It does not state the sample size, so read it as a direction rather than a measurement. The fix is mostly about ownership and order, not about turning on more features.

The 30-day plan at a glance

When	Goal	Who	Done when
Before day 1	Owner, scope, three measures, export and contract checks	Owner	The decisions are written down on one page
Week 1	Firm set up, team invited, one real case run end to end	Owner plus each adviser	Everyone has logged in and one live case has a fact-find, a document request and a client invite
Week 2	Forms, document requests and the client portal for new enquiries	Advisers and administrator	Every new enquiry gets a case and a portal invite
Week 3	All new cases go through the system, old tools are read-only for new work	Everyone	A 10-minute daily check runs without prompting
Week 4	Review the three measures, fix what slowed people down, choose what to switch on next	Owner	Measures compared with baseline and next steps agreed

Before day 1: four decisions

1. Name one owner

One person, not a committee. They decide the cut-over date, answer "where do I put this?" and check that people are using the system. In a one-adviser firm that is you. If you are an appointed representative, check first what your network requires you to record and where, because that sets the boundary of what the new system can replace.

2. List what the system replaces

Write down every place a case currently lives: a spreadsheet, shared folders, an inbox, paper fact-finds, a notes app. For each one, decide whether it stops, becomes read-only or stays. Tools that do a different job, such as lender portals or your accounting software, usually stay. If you are still deciding between systems, what to look for in a mortgage CRM covers the choice. If you are leaving spreadsheets, the migration checklist covers the data.

3. Choose three measures and baseline them

Count them by hand for one normal week before you start, so day 30 has something to compare against. These are estimates, not benchmarks, so use your own numbers.

Measure	How to count it
Live cases with a complete record	Of your open cases, how many have the fact-find, ID and recommendation all in one place
Documents outstanding for more than a week	Count across all open cases
Client status requests	Calls, texts and emails asking where a case is, over one week

4. Check the exit, the contract and the staff

These three checks are short and easy to skip.

• Exit. Ask what you can export, in what format, and what happens to your data if you leave. Switching without losing case history covers what you have to retain and for how long.
• Contract. If the vendor processes your clients' personal data on your behalf, UK GDPR requires a written contract. The ICO lists the minimum terms: processing only on your documented instructions, a duty of confidence, appropriate security, rules on sub-processors, help with data subjects' rights, assistance to you, deleting or returning data at the end, and audits and inspections. Check the vendor's terms cover each one before client data goes in.
• Cloud guidance. The FCA's guidance on outsourcing to the cloud and other third-party IT services (FG16/5, last updated March 2026) remains relevant to firms it authorises other than those covered by the EBA's outsourcing guidelines, which apply to credit institutions, investment firms and payment and e-money institutions. The same page flags new rules on notifying the FCA of material third-party arrangements from 18 March 2027. Whether a CRM counts as outsourcing for your firm, and whether the new rules reach you, are questions for your compliance contact or network.

Staff competence matters too. SYSC 5.1.1R requires a firm to employ personnel with the skills, knowledge and expertise necessary for their responsibilities. Training people on the system they record advice in is one way to show you have met that for this part of the job, so build it into the plan instead of leaving people to find their own way.

Week 1: set up, invite, run one real case

The aim is a firm profile that works and a team that has logged in. A finished configuration can wait.

• Set up the firm. Firm name, branding and regulatory details. Do it once, properly, because clients see your branding in the portal.
• Give each person the least access they need. Decide who can edit any case, who edits only their own, and who is read-only for oversight. Do this before inviting, not after.
• Invite the team and watch who logs in. Anyone who has not signed in by Friday is your first adoption signal. Ask why that day, not at day 30.
• Run one real, live case end to end. The owner and one adviser take a genuine client from enquiry to a fact-find, a document request and a client invite. Use a real case. A test case only teaches you the screens.
• Do not import anything yet.

Week 2: forms, document requests and the client portal

Week two is the busiest, because forms and document requests are what advisers and clients touch every day.

• Pick one fact-find per case type and use it unchanged for two weeks. Editing forms before anyone has used them is a common way to lose a week. Use the evidence from week three to decide what to change.
• Set up your standard document requests. ID, proof of address, payslips, bank statements, and whatever else you ask for every time. Chasing is the task a system can take off your hands first. How to collect mortgage documents covers the process.
• Invite every new client to the portal from now on. Existing clients stay on email until their case next needs something.
• Switch automated emails on a few at a time. Each one is a message a client will receive in your name, so read each before you enable it.
• Decide how AI features are used. Anything drafted or extracted by software should be reviewed by an adviser before it goes on a file. AI for mortgage brokers sets out a safe way to work. In practice that means the system drafts, flags and organises, and the adviser decides.

Week 3: every new case goes through the system

This is the cut-over week. The rule: a new enquiry gets a case on the day it arrives, and the old spreadsheet or folder is read-only for anything new.

• Run a 10-minute daily check. Open cases with no activity in three days, documents outstanding, and who owns each case. The owner runs it for the first week, then rotates it.
• Move live cases when they next need action. If you touch a case in the old system, move it. Do not set aside a weekend to copy everything across.
• Keep a list of workarounds. Every time someone does something outside the system, write down what and why. That list is your week-four agenda.

SYSC 9.1.1R requires a firm to arrange for orderly records of its business and internal organisation. While two systems are running, make sure that for any one case, the record sits in one place and you know which.

Week 4: review, fix, decide what is next

• Recount your three measures and compare them with the baseline. If a measure has not moved, look at what people do instead of the system for that task.
• Ask every user the same two questions. What did you still do outside the system? What slowed you down?
• Fix the three biggest friction points from the workaround list before adding anything new.
• Choose what to switch on next. Workflow stage changes, more automated emails, bringing live back-book cases across, anything else you deferred.
• Decide what happens to the old system. Archive, keep read-only or close, with the retention question answered first.

Who does what in a small firm

Firm shape	Rollout owner	Loads and chases documents	Reviews advice and the weekly check
Sole adviser	You	You, or part-time admin support	You, weekly
Adviser plus administrator	The principal adviser	Administrator	The adviser signs off advice, administrator runs the daily check
Three advisers plus administrator	The principal, with one adviser as day-to-day champion	Administrator	Principal does the weekly review, and each adviser owns their own cases

Why rollouts stall

These are judgements from how implementations tend to go, not survey results.

• Nobody owns it, so everyone assumes someone else is checking.
• There is no cut-over date. Two systems run for months and the older one wins.
• The team loads everything first and spends the month on data instead of cases.
• Forms and stages get redesigned before anyone has run a case.
• Nobody looks daily, so gaps only show when a client chases.
• Features go live without a review step. One bad draft sent to a client costs more trust than the time it saved.

How this plan looks in Cleera

Cleera is a case management platform for UK mortgage and protection advisers, and this is how the steps above map onto it. Some features depend on your plan, so check the pricing page for what each includes.

Plan step	In Cleera
Firm setup	A setup wizard on first sign-in. For the Account Owner it has five steps (welcome, firm, profile, team, first case) and says it takes about three minutes. It can be skipped. Advisers and Administrators get a shorter three-step version.
Track progress	A getting-started checklist in the sidebar ticks itself from what you have done. For the Account Owner it covers firm setup, profile, regulatory details, inviting the team, creating a first case and sending a first client invite.
Roles	Account Owner, Adviser, Administrator and Compliance. Advisers edit the cases assigned to them. Administrators work on any case. Compliance is read-only. Firm-wide money figures in Insights are visible to the Account Owner only. Each invited person uses a seat, so check seat allowances on the pricing page.
Invite the team	Admin, then Team, then Invite Member. The invite is an email with a set-up link, and you can resend, change a role or suspend someone later.
Stages	Six default stages for mortgage cases: Initial, Fact Find, Research, Recommendation, Application and Completion. Protection cases use slightly different names for some of them. You can rename, reorder and add stages and give each a client-facing label.
Fact-find import	Upload a PDF or a photo or scan of a paper fact-find, up to 25 MB, on Solo Pro and above. It produces a draft with unmatched fields and conflicts shown, and nothing is saved until an adviser commits it.
Client portal and documents	Invite a client when you create the case. Clients upload PDF, JPG or PNG files up to 10 MB, and staff accept or reject each with a reason. Reminder emails go out for items that are overdue or due within two days.
Automated emails	Organisation setup, then Automation, lets you switch each automated email on or off.
Help	In-app Help and Documentation for signed-in users, including a quick setup checklist for owners.

To see the system working through a case from first enquiry to renewal, visit the mortgage CRM page or look at the full feature list.

Sources

• The Intermediary: Broker technology continues to evolve but not all are adopted or trusted (29 July 2026)
• FCA Handbook, SYSC 5.1: Employees, agents and other relevant persons
• FCA Handbook, SYSC 9.1: General rules on record-keeping
• FCA, FG16/5: Guidance for firms outsourcing to the cloud and other third party IT services
• ICO: What needs to be included in the contract?