The process of buying and selling real estate involves piles of paper constantly changing hands – an enormous burden for administrative staff at the brokerage and all other parties involved. Buyers, sellers and their agents pass the Agreement of Purchase and Sale back and forth multiple times before finally reaching said agreement; lawyers must review all documents and add to the pile with title documents; lenders must have access to the appropriate pieces to finally approve and provide financing; insurance brokers require particular information to deliver an accurate quote; and all parties must have access to the documents in the event of an issue at the eleventh hour. Much of this back-and-forth preparation of deals and exchanging of documents happens at the administrative level. Faxing such a large volume of documents back and forth can lead to version ambiguity and lost pages. Again, faxing those documents and finding those lost pages is the responsibility of the administrative personnel, and ultimately results in major productivity loss for these valuable employees.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems are designed to manage unstructured data, such as documents and images, and make them easily accessible to the right people. An ECM system can help brokerages, their administrative personnel, their agents and all other parties involved in a real estate deal to more efficiently work with the mounds of documents inherent to the business. A secure repository for Agreements of Purchase and Sale, title documents, mortgage documents or agreements between agent and buyer or seller would make these documents available to those parties who need them, when they need them. Changes could be made to the documents by authorized parties who then update the repository with the latest version. That version could be viewed again electronically by agents, mortgage brokers, lawyers and other key parties with no need for fax or unnecessary administrative workload.
The DOXIM ECM content management solution can help real estate brokerages to better manage their document-centric processes. DOXIM CAPTURE enables the capture of paper versions of documents and facilitates easy and highly efficient indexing of these documents. The electronic copies can be stored in the DOXIM ECM repository and securely viewed by agents, clients, lawyers and other authorized parties. Because the documents in the DOXIM ECM repository are in various formats such as PDF, they are easy to print for those who require a paper copy.
DOXIM ECM offers thin client, web-based access to its repository. This means that lawyers and clients need not install software in order to access the pages or documents they need. Furthermore, brokerages and their technical teams are not tasked with managing yet another client software application on various office machines, streamlining licensing and support. For agents who often have to be out of the office to do their work, it is easy to view and access documents as an authorized user without having to return to the office.
Digital capture of documents with DOXIM CAPTURE means that if a client loses a paper copy of a document that is required by a lawyer or a mortgage broker, it is easy for either the client or the professional that needs the document to access it through a secure website or via a link from your existing web application and portals. If issues arise at closing where opposing parties are arguing separate versions of a document, agents or lawyers can access the most recent version electronically to help settle disputes. If, after closing, any conditions are in question, all related parties have access to official documentation laying out the entire agreement.
Real estate brokerages that use DOXIM ECM can attract talented agents and retain productive administrative staff by enabling them to make the most of their time, reducing the time spent on administrative activities and freeing up more time for agents to sell. When agents sell more, they are more satisfied with their work and their brokerages are more profitable. Brokerages using DOXIM ECM can help to improve on the multi-party processes that are primarily paper-based, ultimately enabling the agent to better serve the buyer and/or seller and enabling administrative staff to work on more valuable internal tasks. As many people own more than one home in a lifetime, a good experience will lead to repeat business. DOXIM ECM can help real estate brokerages to attract the best agents, who are able to serve their clients better, while also reaping the benefits of increased efficiencies thanks to web-based access to information that is easier to find.
Click here to link to the Electronic Document Storage article.
