We don't use it and have never thought we had a need to. Interesting to see other's thoughts on it.

John, you are absolutely right!  Filing is boring to agents.  They are sales people and they love to be where the action is.  There are people out there, however, that find filing to be the highlight of their day.  These are the compliant, support types that can keep your office and agents compliant and safe.  There are endless benefits to using an online transaction management system and if implemented properly it can save your agents an enormous amount of time.  I formed my company on the very premise of what you are writing about and I think that all transaction management system software providers are missing the boat.  The fact is, that most agents will never be excited about and will never use an online transaction management system themselves, but having an assistant or an outsourced transaction team that is highly trained on an online system can save you thousands of dollars, your agents hours of time, and increase your overall production and customer satisfaction tenfold.

Hi Beth,

Thanks for your note.   I have a transaction coordinator that I trained on SettlementRoom, and she loves it.  We've been using it for a few months, and we're just beginning to invite clients in as well.  The trick as I see it now is to get everyone using it more systematically, which is really a policy issue at this point.  Systems are easy.  Being a manager is being a manager. :)    

I would like to share my comments after reading your posts.  I work for SettlementRoom and I am also a licensed realtor with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.  In addition, I am on the Technology Committee for my local association of realtors. 

Prior to my position with CBRB and SettlementRoom, I operated my own Virtual Assistant business and I worked for many broker owners and agents, handling their online transactions.  Many of my clients made it an office policy that their agents use transaction management while providing a transaction coordinator for them. 

While I agree totally that filing can be a boring task, I must also point out that online transaction management is anything but filing.  It is staying on top of the transaction and ensuring that critical dates do not fall through the cracks, that the legally mandated documents are posted and available, and most of all that your client, and everyone else involved in the transaction, has full awareness of the status of the transaction at any given time up to the closing of the property. I currently have a pending sale; my seller moved across country before it went under contract so this is a great example of how beneficial online transaction management is, and what a powerful tool it can be, for tech savvy realtors.  My client can log in anytime and view documents, feedback, messages from her attorney, task status and actually "watch" the status of the sale of her home 24/7.  The amount of time I would have spent faxing and making phone calls has been reduced substantially so I'm able to handle more work and know that my business is running at optimum organization.

I guess you could compare transaction management with accounting software. If you are big enough, you have someone who does that for you, and if you are not, then you do it yourself.  Either way, everyone needs and benefits from it, directly or indirectly, and no one would work without it anymore.  That is where transaction management will be soon.

I have used settlement room.  And liked it. 

I switched to gurunet.  It's OK.  It does some things better than settlement room and some things worse.  

BUT,  if you run a decentralized business like I do, an online transaction management system is important.  The big issue is keeping up with it.