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CRM for Finance

CRM for Finance

For insurance, accounting and investment teams, track leads, deals and commissions in one panel. Build an organized sales process that fits with automations and roles.

Lead management
Deal pipeline
Tasks & projects

Modules ready for this industry

The modules that matter most for your industry work right out of the box.

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In short

Selling financial products is a documents-and-deadlines business, and most of what goes wrong is a missing document or a missed date. An insurance broker, a mortgage adviser, a leasing sales team or an accounting firm all run the same shape: an enquiry becomes a file, the file needs a set of documents before an offer can be made, the offer has a validity date, and the signed contract has a renewal date that comes round every year. So the setup centres on a pipeline whose stages require fields before a file can move, date-based automations that fire from renewal and expiry dates, tasks attached to every file, strict roles so an adviser sees only their own clients, and an activity log that records who opened and changed what. It is the sales and follow-up layer around your policy, loan or accounting system — not a replacement for it.

What selling financial products actually looks like

A mortgage enquiry arrives from a web form at 21:15. The adviser replies in the morning, asks for payslips, an ID and a bank statement, and waits. Two of the three arrive over the next week by WhatsApp, e-mail and a photo taken at an angle. The adviser chases the third twice, prepares an offer, sends it with a fourteen-day validity, and the client goes quiet. Six weeks later the same client signs with the broker who called on day two of the silence. Nothing in that story required skill; it required someone owning the next step every day.

The same is true in insurance, where the file is a quote with an expiry, and in leasing, where the file is an application with a credit decision pending. Speed at the start still matters — the Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 companies found that responding within an hour made a lead nearly seven times as likely to be qualified, against an average response time of 42 hours — but the peculiar leak of financial sales is in the middle, in the weeks of waiting for documents and decisions.

Source: Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads", Harvard Business Review, March 2011.

The third shape is the renewal. A policy, a lease, a fixed-rate period, an annual accounting engagement — each has a date on which the client either stays or is lost to whoever called first. A broker's book is worth exactly as much as its renewal rate, and a renewal that nobody was reminded about is the cheapest revenue a firm ever loses.

The pipeline we recommend starting from

Every stage is an event that either happened or did not, and several stages refuse to accept a file until a required field is filled. That rule is the whole method.

Starting pipeline for a broker or adviser — edit freely
StageVerifiable eventRequired on entryAutomation that usually helps
New enquiryForm, call or message received—Assign owner in turn; welcome message with the document list
QualifiedNeed, amount and timing confirmedProduct, amount, target dateTask "request documents" created on entry
Documents collectedAll required documents receivedDocuments checklist field = completeIf not complete in 5 days → reminder to client; 10 days → task to call
Offer sentQuote or offer issuedOffer amount, offer valid until3 days before validity ends → task "call before offer expires"
Decision pendingSent to insurer, lender or lessorSubmitted dateIdle 7 days → alert owner and manager
Signed / LostContract signed, or explicit refusalStart date, renewal date; lost reason on LostDeal won → income and commission booked; renewal automation armed

Insurance agencies typically add "Quote comparison" between qualified and offer; leasing teams add "Credit decision" with an outcome field; accounting firms replace "Documents collected" with "Engagement letter sent". Keep one pipeline per product line — mortgages and protection are different processes with different cycle times — within the plan's allowance of two, five or ten pipelines.

Client and file fields worth having

Custom fields for a financial sales pipeline
FieldTypeWhy
Product lineListRoutes to the right adviser; the first report dimension
Amount / sum insured / premiumNumberPipeline value before a deal exists; commission base later
Documents checklistCheckbox or listThe stage gate; the automation reads it
Offer valid untilDateDrives the "call before it expires" task
Renewal dateDateThe single most valuable field in the workspace — see below
Provider / insurer / lenderListRenewal comparison and a report of who wins your business
Referral source / introducerListWhich accountant, agent or ad sends files that close
Country / languageSystem fieldsFilled from the phone country code; useful for expatriate and cross-border clients
Lost reasonList, required on LostRate, declined, went elsewhere, no documents — the only way to learn

The lead-detail layout is configurable per role, so an adviser sees the file fields, an administrator sees the document checklist and dates, and the principal sees the commercial fields. Fields can be made required at a stage, which is how "documents collected" becomes a statement rather than an opinion.

Renewals: the date that pays the rent

A renewal date on a signed file is a date field, and automations can fire relative to a date field. That is all the machinery needed for a renewal programme that runs itself.

  1. Renewal date minus 45 daysA task is created for the file owner: "prepare renewal comparison". The task carries the file, the current provider and the premium.
  2. Renewal date minus 30 daysA message goes to the client through the channel they already used — WhatsApp, e-mail or SMS — saying the renewal is being prepared.
  3. Renewal date minus 7 daysIf the file has not moved to "renewal offered", the manager is notified. This is the step that catches the adviser who is on holiday.
  4. Renewal dateThe file either moves to "renewed" — a new won deal, commission booked — or to "lapsed" with a reason. Both outcomes are reportable.

The same pattern runs a fixed-rate expiry for mortgage clients, a lease end for leasing customers and a year-end deadline for an accounting engagement. Because the automation is relative to the field, a client whose renewal date is corrected simply gets the new schedule; nothing is rebuilt by hand.

Tasks per file, and the ones that repeat

A file in "documents collected" is really a list of tasks — request, chase, receive, verify — and the task module keeps them on the file, with an owner and a due date, visible in the adviser's list and in the manager's report. A task created by a stage automation is the same object as one created by hand, so nothing is special-cased.

Recurring tasks cover the obligations that are not tied to a single file: a monthly commission reconciliation, a quarterly review call for each managed client, a weekly pipeline review. They repeat daily, weekly, monthly or on a custom rule, and each completed period is recorded separately, so "was the quarterly review done for this client in Q2" has an answer.

For firms that treat onboarding as a project — a company account with several product lines opening at once — the projects module on the Business plan groups tasks under milestones, but most brokers never need it; the file and its tasks are enough.

Where enquiries arrive and who answers

Web forms and comparison sites arrive through the lead webhook, which any source able to send an HTTP request can use; the campaign, ad set and ad are system fields filled on arrival, so the report of "which ad produced signed files" needs no extra work. WhatsApp and Messenger arrive in the shared inbox and create the client record with the full history attached. Phone calls made from the browser softphone are logged on the record with duration and disposition.

Two settings matter. Distribution: each channel can carry a list of advisers to whom unowned enquiries are assigned in turn, so the 21:15 form has an owner before anyone reads it. Working-hours response time: the enquiry that arrived at 21:15 and was answered at 09:05 counts as five working minutes, not twelve hours, so advisers are measured on what they control and the report is honest.

Phone numbers are normalised to international format at every entry point, and the duplicate report matches records by phone ending, so the client who filled the form and then called from a landline is one file, not two files with two advisers.

An adviser's week

  1. Monday — the queue and the expiring offersNew enquiries from the weekend, already assigned; offers whose validity ends this week, surfaced by the automation as tasks.
  2. Tuesday–Thursday — documents and submissionsChase tasks worked from the list; files submitted to providers move to "decision pending" with the submitted date.
  3. Every day — the 7-day idle listFiles in "decision pending" with no movement; one call to the provider each.
  4. Friday — renewalsThe 45-day tasks for next month's renewals; comparisons prepared while there is still time to switch.
  5. Month end — commissionsThe commission report by adviser by provider, against the files that produced it.

Who sees whose clients?

Adviser / agent
Own clients and unassigned enquiries; view and edit, no delete, no export; sees premiums and amounts, not other advisers' commissions.
Administrator / case handler
Files of the whole team for documents, tasks and dates; no deal values, no finance.
Team leader
Department scope over the team; can reassign; sees the team's deals and commissions.
Principal / compliance
All scope; finance, reports, activity log, export.

Permissions are per entity and per action — view, create, edit, delete — and data scope is separate: own records, the department below you in the org chart, or everything. An adviser who leaves takes nothing; the team leader reassigns the book in one bulk action and the renewal automations continue under the new owner.

The activity log and access hygiene

Financial firms are asked, sooner or later, who looked at a client record and who changed a figure. The activity log, available from the Growth plan, records sign-ins, settings changes, assignments, exports and record changes with the user and the time, filterable and exportable to CSV. It is not a regulatory audit system, and we do not claim certification under any supervisory regime; it is the plain record a principal needs to answer the question.

Around it: two-factor login for every user, a lock after five failed sign-in attempts for three hours, each workspace in its own isolated database, hosting in the Netherlands, and a per-user display time zone so a log entry reads correctly in London and in Dubai. Export is a permission, so it can be limited to the people who should hold it. Automated daily backups of the workspace are not currently part of the service; export what you must retain on your own schedule.

Numbers a principal should watch

  • Enquiry → documents-collected rate, and the days it takes — the middle of the funnel, where financial files actually die.
  • Offer → signed rate by provider and by adviser — which providers accept, and which advisers close.
  • Offers expired without a decision — every one is a call that was not made.
  • Renewal rate by product line and by adviser — the value of the book, month by month.
  • Commission by adviser by provider — with the funnel behind it, so a high earner and a lucky one look different.
  • First-response time in working minutes — by adviser and by source.

All of these are pivot reports — a dimension by a dimension with a measure — saved once and reopened each Monday. Stage, provider, product line, source, owner and any custom field are dimensions.

What this is not

This is not a policy administration, loan origination or accounting system. It does not rate premiums, run affordability calculations, perform identity or anti-money-laundering checks, connect to lenders or insurers, or store contracts as legally retained documents. It does not carry regulatory certification of any kind. Keep the product of record in the system built for it; keep the enquiry, the file, the chase, the offer, the renewal and the commission here.

It is also not an e-signature or document-vault service. Files can be attached to records for convenience, but the signed contract and the identity documents belong in your compliance store.

When it stops working

Common problems in a financial sales team and their usual cause
SymptomMost likely causeFix
Files stuck in "documents collected" for weeksNo chase automation; the checklist is a note, not a fieldMake the checklist a required field; 5-day and 10-day chase rules
Offers expire unnoticedValidity date not recordedRequire "offer valid until" on stage entry; task 3 days before
Renewals lost to competitorsRenewal date empty on signed filesRequire it on Signed; the 45/30/7-day sequence runs from it
Same client under two advisersForm and phone call logged separatelyDuplicate report on phone endings; merge; distribution in turn
Nobody knows who changed the premiumEveryone is an administratorReal roles; activity log (Growth)
Ad report says leads, book says noneAd fields empty on webhook leadsMap campaign/adset/ad in the webhook; they are system fields
Response time looks terribleMeasured in raw hours across the nightDefine the shift calendar; the report counts working minutes

Which plan fits?

Modules a financial sales team uses and the plan they arrive in
ModuleStarterGrowthBusiness
Leads, deals, 2 / 5 / 10 pipelines, custom and required fieldsYesYesYes
Tasks and recurring tasksYesYesYes
Inbox, softphone, web forms, lead webhookYesYesYes
Income, expense, commissions per userYesYesYes
Standard reports, CSV exportYesYesYes
Automations (chase, expiry, renewal sequences)—YesYes
Full roles, departments, activity log—YesYes
Pivot report builder—YesYes
Projects, deal profitability——Yes

A sole adviser or a two-person agency runs on Starter and manages renewals with recurring tasks. A brokerage with a team, several product lines and a book worth protecting lands on Growth, for the date-based automations, the roles and the activity log more than anything else. See the pricing page, and the automations and roles pages for the two modules that carry the load.

Frequently asked questions

Is SaleInline a policy administration, loan origination or accounting system?
No. It is the sales and follow-up layer around those systems: enquiries, files, document chasing, offers, renewals, commissions, roles and reporting. Premium rating, affordability, identity checks, lender connections and legally retained contracts belong in the system of record.
How do renewal reminders work?
Renewal date is a date field on the signed file, and automations fire relative to date fields. A typical sequence creates a task 45 days before, messages the client 30 days before, alerts the manager 7 days before if nothing has moved, and records renewed or lapsed on the date. Correcting the date reschedules everything automatically.
Can a stage refuse a file until documents are collected?
Yes. Fields can be required on entry to a stage, so "documents collected" cannot be reached until the checklist field is complete, and "offer sent" cannot be reached without an offer amount and a validity date. Automations can then chase whatever is missing.
Can advisers see only their own clients?
Yes. Permissions are set per entity and per action, and data scope separately: own records, the department below the user in the org chart, or everything. Export can be limited to managers. When an adviser leaves, the team leader reassigns the book in one bulk action.
Is there an audit trail of who changed what?
From the Growth plan, the activity log records sign-ins, settings changes, assignments, exports and record changes with user and time, filterable and exportable to CSV. It is a plain operational record, not a certified regulatory audit system.
How are commissions calculated?
Per user, as a percentage or a flat amount, computed automatically when a deal is won and booked together with the income. A pivot report shows commission by adviser by provider by month, with the files behind it.
Can I run insurance, mortgages and leasing separately?
Yes. Each product line gets its own pipeline with its own stages and required fields. Starter includes two pipelines, Growth five, Business ten, Enterprise unlimited.
Which enquiries can it receive automatically?
Web forms and comparison sites through the lead webhook, which any source able to send an HTTP request can use, with campaign, ad set and ad filled as system fields; WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger through the shared inbox; and calls through the browser softphone on your own SIP line.
How is client data protected?
Each workspace has its own isolated database, hosting is in the Netherlands, two-factor login is available to every user, and sign-in locks for three hours after five failed attempts. Automated daily backups are not currently part of the service; export what you must retain on your own schedule.
Which plan does a brokerage need?
A sole adviser runs on Starter with recurring tasks for renewals. A team with several product lines and a book to protect lands on Growth for date-based automations, full roles and the activity log. Projects and deal profitability are Business features; API access and SSO are Enterprise.

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