Retention is the profit engine, so we measure it first
Brokerage growth arithmetic is short: next year's revenue is this year's book, times what you keep, plus what you write. Because a renewal costs a fraction of what a new account costs to win, a point of retention is usually worth more than a point of new business, yet most owners can quote their new-business number and only guess at their retention rate. We build the monthly scorecard out of the broker management system so both are facts: retention by producer and by carrier, revenue per account, commission-rate mix, and how much of the book renews in each quarter.
That last number matters more than it looks. A book concentrated in two renewal months is a cash flow shape, a staffing plan and a concentration risk all at once, and it is invisible in an annual P&L.
Producer compensation is a design problem
Producer pay is the largest controllable line in a brokerage, and most comp plans were inherited rather than designed. The design questions are always the same; the right answers depend on your book:
| Design choice | The question it has to answer |
|---|---|
| New-business split | Rich enough to make hunting worthwhile, without paying twice for accounts the brand would have won anyway |
| Renewal split | Who actually services the account at renewal, the producer or a CSR the house already pays |
| Draw and validation | How long a new producer is carried before earned splits must cover the draw, and what happens if they never do |
| House accounts | Which accounts pay no split at all, agreed in writing before the first dispute |
| Exit terms | Whether a departing producer is bought out of their splits, and what the non-solicitation is worth |
We model each plan against the actual book before anyone signs, because a split that looks generous on one account profile is ruinous on another. The monthly draw-versus-earned reconciliation then lives in the accounting engagement; the CFO work is deciding what the plan should be.
Contingent commissions are a windfall, not a budget line
Contingent profit commissions are real money and unreliable money at once: they ride on the loss ratio and volume of your whole book with each carrier, they arrive on the insurer's timetable, and one bad storm season can take a carrier's cheque to zero through no fault of your service. The discipline we install is blunt. Fixed costs must clear on base commission income alone, and in an exempt business those fixed costs include E&O premiums, RIBO fees and BMS licences carried at their full price, 13% HST included. Contingents, when declared, are capital: acquisition fund, debt paydown or shareholder return, chosen deliberately each year.
A brokerage that needs its contingents to make payroll has a solvency problem wearing a bonus's clothing.
Working capital, with the trust fenced off
Brokerage bank balances flatter to deceive, because the largest account on the list is not yours. Our cash planning starts by fencing the trust: forecasts run on the operating account only, with earned-commission transfers, producer draws, carrier payables and the corporate instalment calendar as the moving parts. From there, a rolling forecast exposes the thin months a renewal-concentrated book creates, and the owner's draw and any acquisition debt service are set against the base-commission floor rather than the best quarter.
Where clients finance premiums, we track the financing receivable on its own line, so funded premium is never mistaken for earnings.
Growing the book: hire, buy, or deepen
Every brokerage growth plan is one of three moves, and the CFO work is knowing which one your numbers support this year. Hiring a producer is a multi-year cash commitment, a draw carried well before validation, priced against the book that producer can realistically build. Buying a book is faster and financeable, because lenders will lend against recurring commission income; the file has to prove retention history, carrier contract assignability and the vendor's non-solicitation, and Walla's years in banking and corporate finance mean our Business Financing Advisory shapes that file to answer a credit committee's actual questions. Deepening the existing book, cross-selling a second line into monoline accounts, is the cheapest move of the three and the least managed, which is exactly why it goes on the scorecard.
The Fractional CFO engagement holds all of this in one monthly cadence for brokerage owners in Mississauga and across the GTA: scorecard, cash forecast, comp-plan exceptions, and a standing view of what the book is worth and what would make it worth more. Where a lender wants CPA-prepared statements behind an acquisition, our Compilation Engagements slot into the same file. Scope is quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call.
