Preparing your agency for a future sale can feel overwhelming. The single most important step is connecting your book of business data to get a clear valuation, but this step often feels like the biggest hurdle. Agency owners tell us they fear it’s too much work, getting bogged down in the administrative quicksand of manual reports and messy spreadsheets.
At Milly Books, we believe data integration should be effortless. Our platform is built on a flexible onboarding strategy to ensure every agency can connect its data, but one pathway represents the gold standard for efficiency: Automated Sync.
This is our set it and forget it solution. It’s a direct, automated data pipeline that, after one simple setup, keeps your valuation and M&A profile current for you. This article explains what Automated Sync is, how it works, and why it’s the future of M&A.
What is Automated Sync?
Automated Sync is the most seamless and effortless data onboarding method on the Milly Books platform. It is a direct API (Application Programming Interface) integration that creates a persistent, secure connection between your Agency Management System (AMS) and your private My Book command center.
This method represents the zenith of efficiency, transforming the daunting M&A data prep project into a simple, one-time action.
As part of our strategic rollout, this direct API integration is currently available exclusively for agency owners who use Hawksoft as their AMS. We view this as the blueprint for all future AMS integrations.
How It Works: The Simple, One-Time Setup
Getting started with Automated Sync is incredibly simple and takes just a few minutes. It’s a two-part, one-time setup:
- Authorize: The agency owner first authorizes data sharing from within the Hawksoft Marketplace.
- Activate: You then paste your Hawksoft AMS ID (your Contract ID number) into the My Book integration section of the Milly Books platform to activate the secure connection.
What Happens Next? Initial Sync & Weekly Updates
Once activated, the system goes to work for you:
- Initial Sync: The platform performs an initial data synchronization, typically within 24 hours, to import your entire book of business (excluding all sensitive PII, of course).
- Automatic Weekly Updates: This is the most powerful part. The system then performs automatic weekly policy updates in the background. You never have to think about it again.
Your data in My Book remains perpetually fresh, ensuring your AI-powered valuation is always based on the most current and accurate snapshot of your agency.
The Core Benefits of Automation
Automated Sync provides massive strategic advantages by optimizing your data’s quality and flow while eliminating your personal effort.
It Eliminates Administrative Burden
This is the set it and forget it promise. You are completely saved from the time and hassle of manual data entry, exporting CSV files, or worrying about report formatting. It removes the single biggest hurdle to M&A preparation, allowing you to focus on your business.
It Guarantees the Highest Data Integrity
Manual data uploads always carry the risk of human error—an improperly formatted file, a partial report, or simple typos. By pulling data directly from the source via API, Automated Sync eliminates these manual errors. This guarantees your My Book command center is a reliable, accurate single source of truth.
It Keeps Your Valuation Current
Your agency is a living, breathing entity. A valuation from six months ago is already outdated. Because of the automatic weekly updates, your valuation in Milly Books is also a living, dynamic number. You can log in at any time and know with confidence that the value you see reflects the current state of your book.
Our Future Roadmap: Automation for EZLynx, Vertafore, and More
While Automated Sync is currently exclusive to Hawksoft, it is our top priority to expand this functionality to other major AMS platforms.
We are actively working to build direct API integrations with other industry leaders, with EZLynx and Vertafore AMS360 as primary targets.
Our goal is simple: to provide the benefits of automation to every single independent agency owner. This will increase accessibility, grow our community, and ensure every owner has an effortless path to M&A clarity.
The Easiest Way to Fuel Your Transactions
Connecting your data is the essential fuel and the single most important step to unlocking your agency’s true value. Automated Sync is, by far, the easiest, most accurate, and most efficient way to do it.
If you are a Hawksoft user, this is your ideal path forward. You can have a complete, secure, and automatically updating valuation of your life’s work in less than 24 hours, with just a few clicks.
If you don’t use Hawksoft, we still have you covered. Our Manual Upload and premium Concierge White Glove Service are ready to help you connect your data today.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Yes, absolutely. Automated Sync is just one of our four flexible data onboarding pathways. If you use Vertafore, you can use our Agency-Initiated Data Push. If you use EZLynx or any other AMS that can export to Excel/CSV, our Manual Upload option is the universal solution. Or, you can use our Concierge White Gove Service, and we’ll do all the work for you.
Yes. Security is our highest priority. The connection is made via a secure, direct API. Most importantly, our system is built to systematically exclude and never store sensitive client Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like names, contacts, or addresses.
The sync pulls only the anonymized, policy-level data required for an accurate valuation and for matching. This includes data like carriers, Lines of Business (LOBs), premiums, commissions, and geographic data (like state/ZIP). It never pulls sensitive client PII.
Glossary of Key Terms
- Automated Sync: The set it and forget it data onboarding method that uses a direct API to automatically sync agency data and provide weekly updates.
- AMS (Agency Management System): Your agency’s software for managing clients and policies (e.g., Hawksoft, Vertafore, EZLynx).
- API (Application Programming Interface): A secure, digital messenger that allows two different software systems (like Hawksoft and Milly Books) to talk to each other and exchange data automatically.
- Hawksoft: A leading Agency Management System and the first Milly Books partner for Automated Sync.
- My Book: Your secure, private command center on the Milly Books platform where your agency’s policy data is organized and managed.
- Essential Fuel: The Milly Books principle that clean, granular, policy-level data is the indispensable prerequisite needed to power all AI-driven M&A intelligence.