How the Cascade Team Stays Organized and Audit-Ready with Paperless Pipeline
Founded in 2006 by Cary Porter, The Cascade Team is a full-service real estate brokerage with offices spanning across Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Indiana and Colorado.
Over the last 15 years, The Cascade Team has grown to 100+ agents and is dedicated to helping every agent reach their full potential.
From having signs installed to building their websites and transaction coordination, one of The Cascade Team’s core beliefs is to give their agents as much support as possible.
This allows the team’s agents to focus on what matters most: providing the absolute best service and experience for their clients.
The Cascade Team believes so strongly in the success of their agents that they don’t make any money unless the agents themselves do.
The Cascade Team needed a user-friendly, flexible and efficient system to:
- Make transaction coordination as easy as possible
- Give agents greater visibility over daily processes and tasks
- Easily integrate with their current processes and software
The Challenge
The Cascade Team understands that they need to have efficient back-office systems in place to support their agents and day-to-day operations.
In 2017, they had just made the switch from SureClose to Dotloop for their transaction management software.
SureClose was an outdated and cumbersome system, and the team was both intrigued and excited by Dotloop’s single, streamlined platform.
The Cascade Team’s Director of Brand and Marketing, Janet Jolly-Porter, soon noticed some of Dotloop’s functionality issues.
Not only did this make managing transactions difficult, but it also restricted The Cascade Team’s process.
One of the biggest challenges to overcome within Dotloop was the requirement to use MLS forms to track deadlines.
“When you have multiple MLSs and changes in forms, that’s going to be very, very arduous.”
Janet Jolly-Porter, Director of Brand and Marketing, The Cascade Team
This also meant that agents would need to replace Transaction Desk with Dotloop for their forms, as well as learn an entirely new system and process.
The Cascade Team’s primary goal was to make transaction coordination as easy as possible for their agents. They quickly realized that Dotloop was not going to help them achieve that.
“It was so bulky and so restrictive. That’s when I knew it wasn’t going to work for us. It wasn’t solving any of our problems and their solutions were one-dimensional.”
Janet Jolly-Porter, Director of Brand and Marketing, The Cascade Team
When DeAnna Crysler joined The Cascade Team as the Transaction and Office Manager, it wasn’t long before she also became frustrated with Dotloop.
DeAnna found it extremely challenging to access the basic—yet critical—transaction information that she needed to refer to on a daily basis.
Dotloop doesn’t allow users to search for transactions by close date. This meant that DeAnna had to create and manage a separate spreadsheet for closings each week.
This was a time-consuming process and also made it easier for important tasks and documents to fall through the cracks.
Janet and DeAnna knew that there had to be a better way.
Together with Victor Lozada, Managing Broker, they signed up for a personal demo of Paperless Pipeline after hearing about the success that their sister company was having with the software.
“During the first meeting with Paperless Pipeline, we knew this was what we wanted.”
Janet Jolly-Porter, Director of Brand and Marketing, The Cascade Team
The Solution
Shortly after the demo, DeAnna got started with a 14-day free trial of Paperless Pipeline.
She took advantage of a complimentary setup call and learned exactly how to customize their account to support the team’s unique workflows.
DeAnna was thrilled to discover that Paperless Pipeline allowed her to access important transaction information through powerful search and filter options.
She also had complete oversight over the closing dates for all transactions, tasks and documents that needed to be completed, as well as which agent was working on each deal.
Between having this information at her fingertips and being able to set up custom permissions for each user on her team, DeAnna knew that these features would be essential for the success of their transaction department.
“Anybody can jump in at any time and know exactly what’s going on. If I’m on vacation or out sick, my back-up can get in there and I don’t have to worry about a thing!”
DeAnna Crysler, Transaction and Office Manager, The Cascade Team
Another major benefit was being able to create their own custom checklists that were not dependent on MLS forms.
With Paperless Pipeline’s intuitive auto-application of checklists, DeAnna and her team save hours of time while knowing that nothing is falling through the cracks.
“Having the tasks, due dates and everything automatically calculated based on the information entered made so much sense and it was exactly what we needed. It definitely saves me time! I’m not needing to search around and create another spreadsheet.”
DeAnna Crysler, Transaction and Office Manager, The Cascade Team
The best part of all? Realizing that nothing would need to change with their agents’ current process.
The Cascade Team’s agents could continue to use Transaction Desk and never be forced to learn or log into a separate system.
Making the Switch
At the end of the 14-day trial period, DeAnna and Janet felt confident that Paperless Pipeline was the perfect fit for The Cascade Team.
“The flexibility was there, the adaptability was there, and the customer support was spot-on.”
Janet Jolly-Porter, Director of Brand and Marketing, The Cascade Team
They were pleased to find out that Paperless Pipeline was considerably less expensive than Dotloop.
DeAnna and Janet also loved that they had the ability to upgrade or downgrade their plan based on their sales volume.
Between Paperless Pipeline’s user-friendly interface, a personable customer care team to assist with free setup, training and onboarding, and a robust Learning Center filled with helpful videos and tutorials, DeAnna and Janet were armed with everything they needed to make the switch.
“I was shocked about how well that transition went from Dotloop to Paperless Pipeline. I felt like we had all the support we needed.”
DeAnna Crysler, Transaction and Office Manager, The Cascade Team
Added Benefits
In 2021, The Cascade Team had an audit through the Department of Licensing.
The audit took place remotely and DeAnna was able to download their transactions right from Paperless Pipeline to turn over to the auditor.
“It was really convenient being able to quickly download all of the files, the paperwork, the notes … The process was super simple!”
DeAnna Crysler, Transaction and Office Manager, The Cascade Team
Better yet, the results of their audit came back perfect—something that had never happened before.
Thanks to Paperless Pipeline’s efficient and user-friendly transaction management system, The Cascade Team is able to seamlessly manage their day-to-day operations and simplify the process for their agents—all while staying compliant and audit-ready.
Success Story Provided By:
Janet Jolly-Porter, Director of Brand and Marketing/ Hiring Manager
DeAnna Crysler, Transaction and Office Manager
1-888-925-0407
Key Takeaways:
- All-in-one isn’t always the simpler option
While all-in-one systems sound great in theory, they require the replacement of familiar tools and will ultimately force your agents to learn new workflows.
This added time and effort will likely result in more stress and problems down the line.
Instead, consider a purpose-built transaction management software like Paperless Pipeline that is designed to work harmoniously alongside your existing tools.
- Customization is key
We understand that no two real estate companies are the same, and neither are your workflows.
With Paperless Pipeline, you can design the right processes and create checklist workflows specific to your company.
Workflows are then automatically applied to your transactions based on location, property type, status and side.
- Try before you buy
A free trial will allow you to see exactly what the software looks like, how it functions, and how you will interact with it.
That way you won’t have to rely solely on the word of a salesperson, or a list of features found somewhere online.
Find out first-hand if Paperless Pipeline is the right fit for your real estate business by starting a free 14-day trial here.