How long should I keep client records?

Consult an attorney about your specific record retention obligations. As a general practice, maintaining records for at least three to five years after a client relationship ends is common, but your specific obligations may differ based on applicable law.

What is the most important thing to track for CROA compliance?

Completed-service documentation — evidence that services were performed before billing — is the most critical compliance record. This is what you need to defend any billing dispute or regulatory inquiry.

Do I need special software to track all of this?

You can track some of this manually, but as your client volume grows, manual tracking becomes unreliable. Purpose-built credit repair software like FixMy.Money automates much of this tracking and maintains the immutable audit logs required for compliance.

What Credit Repair Agencies Should Track

Why Tracking Matters

Credit repair agencies that track the right information operate more efficiently, maintain better compliance, and make better business decisions. Agencies that do not track systematically face compliance risk, billing disputes, and operational chaos as they grow.

Tracking serves four distinct purposes:
Compliance — Demonstrating that you followed required procedures
Billing — Documenting completed services to justify charges
Operations — Managing client work efficiently
Business growth — Understanding what is working and what is not

Client Records to Maintain

For each client, maintain:

Identity and contact information:

- Full legal name

- Contact information (phone, email, address)

- Date of birth (for credit report verification)

- Social Security number (stored securely, access controlled)

Onboarding documentation:

- Date of initial consultation

- CROA disclosure delivery date and method

- Signed service agreement

- Cancellation period start and end dates

- Client activation date

Credit report history:

- All credit reports obtained, with dates

- Initial scores from all three bureaus

- Current scores from all three bureaus

- Score history over time

Communication history:

- All messages sent and received

- Dates and content of all communications

- Method of communication (email, phone, portal)

Compliance Documentation

Compliance documentation is the foundation of a defensible credit repair operation:

CROA compliance records:

- Disclosure delivery confirmation for every client

- Signed contracts for every client

- Cancellation period documentation for every client

- Completed-service documentation for every billing period

Dispute compliance records:

- Basis for each dispute (why the item is believed to be inaccurate)

- Evidence supporting each dispute

- Bureau responses to each dispute

- Outcome of each dispute

Billing compliance records:

- Services performed during each billing period

- Date services were performed (must be before billing date)

- Invoice date and amount

- Payment received date

All compliance documentation should be maintained in an immutable audit log with timestamps and user attribution.

Dispute Tracking

For each dispute, track:

Dispute details:

- Client name and ID

- Bureau (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion)

- Account name and number (masked)

- Dispute reason

- Round number

- Letter sent date

- Response deadline

- Response received date

- Response content

- Outcome (removed, updated, verified, no change)

Aggregate dispute metrics:

- Total disputes per client

- Disputes by bureau

- Disputes by round

- Resolution rate

- Average time to resolution

This data helps you understand which dispute strategies are most effective and identify patterns in bureau responses.

Billing Records

Billing records are both a business necessity and a compliance requirement:

Per-client billing records:

- Services performed each billing period (with dates)

- Invoice number, date, and amount

- Payment received date and method

- Outstanding balance

- Payment history

Aggregate billing metrics:

- Monthly recurring revenue

- Revenue per client

- Average client lifetime value

- Churn rate

- Outstanding receivables

Billing compliance documentation:

- Evidence that services were performed before billing

- Audit log entries supporting each invoice

- Client acknowledgment of charges (where applicable)

Business Metrics

Beyond compliance and operations, track these business metrics to understand and grow your agency:

Client acquisition:

- New clients per month

- Lead source (how clients found you)

- Conversion rate (leads to clients)

- Cost per acquisition

Client retention:

- Average client duration

- Churn rate

- Reasons for cancellation

Service delivery:

- Average disputes per client

- Average resolution rate

- Average score improvement (note: this is descriptive, not a guarantee)

- Average time to completion

Revenue:

- Monthly recurring revenue

- Revenue growth rate

- Revenue per client

- Revenue by service type

Team productivity:

- Clients per staff member

- Letters generated per week

- Response time to client inquiries

Building a Tracking System

The most important thing about a tracking system is that it is used consistently. A perfect system that is not followed is worse than a simple system that is.

Principles for a good tracking system:

Centralize everything — Use one platform for all client records, not multiple disconnected tools.
Make it easy to record — If recording information is burdensome, it will not happen consistently.
Automate where possible — Let software automatically record routine events (letter sent, response received) rather than relying on manual entry.
Review regularly — Set aside time each week to review your tracking data and act on what you find.
Protect sensitive data — Client data, especially SSNs and financial information, must be stored securely with appropriate access controls.

FixMy.Money is designed to be the central tracking system for credit repair agencies — combining client management, dispute tracking, compliance documentation, billing records, and business analytics in a single platform.