Since 1986 I've had more companies on my business cards than Tiger Woods has clubs.

Back when God was a lad I started with Chapel Ash Financial Services – the company that took me out of the coal mines – they were tied to Cornhill, then Citibank. After the demise of Chapel Ash I moved to Combined Life, until their demise. That was swiftly followed by Gan Financial Services, yes they died as well. Following the funeral of Gan I moved to my first mortgage broker position; I joined an estate agency chain in Yorkshire called APS (formerly Asda Property Shop). It was with APS that I worked the West Yorkshire area and got my first taste of the Sikh community, and their discerning clientele insisted I become an IFA, so I did, initially with the M&E Network and then later with the excellent Positive Solutions.

I was an IFA from the late 90s right up to September 2009 when the impending RDR regime, and the ridiculous amount of ongoing assessments and exams wound me up no end, not to mention the escalating fees and costs incurred to run my business.

I wanted the easy life.

I wanted to retire into mortgage broking, encompassing all aspects of finance from residential, through to bridging, development, and commercial mortgages; the easy life beckoned and I answered that call.

APS had many faults but on the plus side I got my grounding in mortgage advice, passed the relevant exams and built my business. Why am I telling you all this? Because over the last 25 years I must have had about a thousand clients, but not all on one system, which could prove to be a very huge asset when finally looking to move on and sell my business.

Last year I joined Citri – and have been relatively happy – but I was lacking a back office system to run alongside the Trigold residential mortgage sourcing system. I also keep desk top files for each client’s documents, and a pipeline system for my staff to run a case from inception to completion, Econveyancer online.

I use Outlook Express for all my contacts and all my emailing, including an email file for each client and a spreadsheet business register – in fact I counted about a dozen different items to run my business, it was time for a change. Fortunately whilst at an adviser forum I attended, Mortgage Keeper was introduced to me, I had heard of it briefly via the NACFB previously, but didn't take it up at the time as with Positive Solutions I had an excellent system, it was only after that time I realised what I was missing.

In the short space of one week my business has been utterly tidied up and I can run it on my own, I can sack our Gert now, she's been out of the kitchen long enough!!

At this point I'm extremely happy with the full system, it has amazing technology; it cuts out all my previous work and places my business in one online place, life has suddenly become a lot easier for me and I would recommend anyone looking to invest in a system to try this one out. So far I’ve done two of my scheduled four initial online training facilities, and the staff have been extremely helpful to boot.

Finally this week, have you seen the advert on here for Goldentree Financial Services? Well I have given them a go and they've really come up with the goods, terms offered at OMV, excellent service throughout, and a pleasure to work with, well done. Credit where credit is due.

To contact Bob Havenhand: [email protected]