A clearer mandate register: five habits for your agency

A mandate register is most useful when your team can trust what it says. These five habits can help an agency keep its working records organised, whether it is moving from spreadsheets or improving an existing process.

1. Agree on one way to record a property

Use consistent suburb names, property categories and address formats. Keep the asking price separate from any commission information. A shared naming convention makes searching easier and reduces the chance that the same property appears more than once.

2. Make responsibility visible

Record the lead agent and any co-agent. Agree who updates the record when the owner changes an instruction, a document arrives or the property's status changes. A shared register works best when ownership of each update is clear.

3. Review dates as part of a routine

Keep listing and expiry dates together with the supporting instruction. Set aside time each week to review upcoming expiries and incomplete records. Where an instruction is unclear, confirm it with the appropriate person rather than guessing.

4. Keep supporting documents with the record

Use descriptive filenames and retain the documents that explain the current position. Limit access to people who need it. Avoid placing private owner information in public marketing materials or public article examples.

5. Separate working records from history

Keep closed records available for reference without letting them crowd the working list. Use a consistent closing process and record the actual status; a property that has become inactive is not automatically sold or let.

Putting the habits into practice

Mandates brings working and historical property records, agent assignments and supporting documents into an agency workspace. Start with a small set of records, agree your team's conventions, and review them together before importing the rest.