If you've searched for software for your personal search business, you've probably noticed that most of what comes up isn't actually for you.
It's for solicitors. It's for recruiters. It's for generic case management that someone's adapted. Or it's for the big search ordering platforms — InfoTrack, SearchFlow, Elan, TM Group — which are genuinely excellent tools, just for a completely different customer.
This guide is for the firms that do the actual search work. The ones whose back office is currently held together by a shared inbox, a spreadsheet, and one or two people who know how everything works.
Why the solicitor platforms don't help you
Let's be clear about what InfoTrack, SearchFlow, Elan, and TM Group do — because they're worth understanding, even though they're not your tools.
These platforms help solicitors manage the search-ordering side of conveyancing. They make it easy to place orders, track results, manage documents, and stay on top of the transaction. They're good at it.
The moment a search order leaves a solicitor's system and arrives in your inbox, those platforms have done their job. Whatever happens next is your problem.
That's not a criticism. They're designed for their customer. You just happen to not be that customer.
What your software actually needs to do
The work you do after an order arrives is not served by any of those platforms. Here's what you actually need:
Parse the order correctly
Orders come in from multiple solicitors in multiple formats. Your software should be able to read a structured spreadsheet, a free-text email, or a portal export and pull out the relevant data without someone having to type it in.
If your team is manually transcribing order details from emails, that's time and error risk on every single search.
Match the address to a UPRN
The address the solicitor sends is rarely clean. Your software needs to resolve it to a confirmed UPRN — and handle the 10% of addresses that don't auto-match without that becoming a crisis every time.
Know how every council in England and Wales works
This is the thing generic software cannot do and that matters most for your operation.
There are over 300 local authorities in England and Wales. Each one has its own submission contact, fee structure, format requirements, and quirks. Some need the admin ward included; most don't. Some require a prior appointment; others don't. Some have moved to the HM Land Registry national register for LLC1; others haven't yet.
Software that doesn't know this — that requires you to configure it yourself, or rely on your team's memory — is not solving the problem. It's just moving it.
Generate the boundary plan from live HMLR data
Click a parcel on the map. The registered boundary comes from HM Land Registry's INSPIRE data. It outputs in the right format for the right provider. It goes with the request.
That should take seconds. In a manual workflow it often takes much longer — and uses a different format from what the provider needs, which you only discover when they come back to you.
Place providers from the same screen
Martello. Landmark. From inside the order. Without logging into a separate portal and re-entering data you already have.
This sounds minor. At scale it is not.
Track responses, flag what's late
Not relying on someone to notice that an email hasn't arrived. A system that knows when a response is expected, tracks whether it's come in, and flags approaching deadlines before the solicitor calls to ask.
Build the report from data in the system
When council and provider responses come back, the report should be populated from the data already captured. The processor reviews and approves. They don't type the answers from an email into a Word document.
Run AML and identity checks from inside the order
Biometric ID. PEP and sanctions screening. Bank verification. SRA lawyer check. From the order screen. Not a separate tool with a separate login.
Generate the invoice at completion
When the report goes out, the invoice goes with it. Not when someone has a minute. Not at the end of the week. Automatically, from the order data, at the point of completion.
The honest comparison
| What you need | Generic CRM / case tool | Solicitor platforms | Valio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Council knowledge, all E&W | Needs manual setup | Not applicable | Pre-configured |
| UPRN matching | Via API, if set up | Not applicable | Built in |
| INSPIRE boundary mapping | No | No | Live, built in |
| Landmark / Martello placement | No | Sometimes | Integrated |
| Order-to-invoice workflow | Partial, with configuration | Not applicable | Connected, end to end |
| AML / identity checks | Via third party | Sometimes | Biometric, PEP & sanctions, bank & SRA — built in |
| Time to get started | Weeks to months | Not applicable | Same day |
What "same day" actually means
Most Valio customers are live the same day. Not "live in a demo environment pending configuration." Actually live — processing real searches, with real councils, on a system that already knows how each one works.
That's possible because every council in England and Wales is already configured in the platform. You're not setting anything up. You're starting.
"I spent twenty years watching firms get sold software that solved the easy problem and left them with the hard one. The easy problem is managing documents. The hard problem is knowing that Rossendale needs the admin ward, that a particular council's email address changed last month, and that the LLC1 for a migrated council is free and instant if you route it correctly. That's what the back office of a search company actually is. That's what Valio is built around."
— Valerie Bennett, Personal Search Veteran · June 2026
What to do next
If you're running on spreadsheets and a shared inbox right now, the question isn't whether software would help. It clearly would. The question is how much longer to wait before the volume makes the manual approach genuinely painful.
Most firms that switch to Valio describe the same thing: the first week feels slower because everything is new, and by the second week they can't imagine going back.
Start a 7-day trial → · See how Valio works → · Talk to Val → · For search firms →