Using the Inspection Support Network with Tap Inspect

May 3, 2017 - 3 Comments

When you operate an inspection business, you know that time is money. Tap Inspect was designed to save as much time as possible while you’re at the job site, but all of the effort associated with scheduling and coordinating inspections can also be very time-consuming. With that in mind, we are thrilled to announce that Tap Inspect now integrates directly with the Inspection Support Network.

What is the Inspection Support Network?

ISN specializes in handling every aspect of your inspection business, from scheduling and agreements to invoicing and billing. Their service provides a great solution to reducing the overhead associated with coordinating with your customers.

How does it work?

Take a look at our detailed guide for information on how to get started.

Once you have connected your ISN account to Tap Inspect, scheduling an inspection at ISN will automatically create a report in Tap Inspect with the property address, client, agent, and other information already filled out for you. All you need to do is tell us which template to use for each ISN order type and our system will do the rest.

Tap Inspect can even populate items in the general section of your report with information that was entered at ISN, such as approximate age, square footage, etc.

If you prefer, we can also push published report PDFs back to ISN’s system so that you can take advantage of their report delivery features. ISN will appear as a recipient when you publish a report, alongside the client and agents.

We have worked hard to make the experience as seamless as possible, and we would love to hear your feedback.

Expire Your Report Invitations in Tap Inspect

March 27, 2017 - 2 Comments

Not everyone wants their reports to be available forever. You can always read any of your old reports but maybe you want to set a time limit on your invitations.

Invitations Don’t Have to Be Forever

When your reports are published by Tap Inspect we send an invitation email on your behalf. The invitation has a special link that your client or their agent clicks to view the pickup page and then to view their report.

Up until recently, those links worked forever, unless we manually expired them at your request.

Set Your Invite to Expire

We have added the ability to set the expiration to any number of months or years from the time you published your reports. Take a look at this handy howto article showing how.

How I Use Tap Inspect with HomeBinder

March 22, 2017 - 3 Comments

I have been using HomeBinder in my home inspection business. My clients have really liked the idea and seem to appreciate the free lifetime subscription I give them.

Since getting started, I have picked up a few best practices that I wanted to pass along. They should make it incredibly easy to use Tap Inspect along with HomeBinder. You can provide a little extra value to your clients without it taking any more time or effort.

What is HomeBinder?

HomeBinder gives homeowners a place to manage their home maintenance needs. They also provide a few other features like recall checks of appliances and equipment. HomeBinder will also send maintenance reminders that you can pre-setup.

Once you create a HomeBinder account as a home inspector, you can setup a template with all the reminders you want your clients to get. You can even add a list of contractors you trust and provide documents like a flyer or maintenance guide.

Create a HomeBinder from Tap Inspect

We tried to make getting set up as simple as possible. After you set up the HomeBinder integration, it shows up in the app just like the client or agents. When you publish your report, it gets published to HomeBinder too.

We put together a guide to help you get set up.

Update your Invitation Email

At the end of my inspections I have been telling my clients about HomeBinder. Then I say to keep an eye out for an email from them in a few days. It seemed a lot simpler to update my invitation email with the same info.

I think this has worked pretty well. It reminds my client what to expect and also lets them get a little more information before the binder arrives. I also like the idea that their agent sees the same invitation so they know about the gift.

Auto Transfer Your Binders

My goal is to get the HomeBinder into my client’s hands while they are still thinking about the home inspection. I think they are more likely to engage if they are still thinking about the inspection. HomeBinder has a setting to let you do it automatically.

There are two important things to keep in mind. First, once you transfer a binder you can not edit it again. Second, once you publish your Tap Inspect report to HomeBinder, you have to manually update HomeBinder with the new PDF if you re-publish the report.

The default HomeBinder Binder Transfer/Share Delay (in hours) setting is 5 hours. I changed it to 72 hours, or 3 days. That gives me plenty of time to update the report PDF if I needed to make any changes.

Remind Your Client to Enter Appliance Info

I am not a fan of typing or long checklists. That includes recording any serial or model numbers in my home inspection reports. Why not ask the client to enter them? In my HomeBinder template I have added a Maintenance Item to remind them 60 days after the binder gets created.

My thinking is that not everyone will find value in the recall checks and notifications. If my client does see the value they will not mind entering the information. By entering the information, they will use HomeBinder and hopefully explore a little more.

Why We Built Tap Inspect for Home Inspectors

March 28, 2016 - 1 Comment

Anyone that has done it knows that growing a home inspection business is hard work. Its is a special club of home inspectors that have risked safety and predicability to build a business that they hope makes the world a little bit better.

So why did we build Tap Inspect?

My partner, Jason Adams, and myself come from different backgrounds but share a common belief. We believe that all the hard work, sacrifice, and risk is worth the price if we can make a small dent in the universe. We honestly hope we can leave the world a better place due to our efforts.

With Tap Inspect, we realized that building home inspection reports does not have to be that complicated. There is more to life that sitting at a computer every night and writing home inspection reports. Everything we do, every feature we add, and every design we implement is focused on making that a reality.

It is hard to believe that so many home inspectors use Tap Inspect every day and it has become such a big part of so many lives. We look forward to more improvements and helping all of you spend more time doing what you love the most.

3 Ways to Get Home Inspection Photos onto your iPad

March 26, 2016 - 6 Comments

Using an iPhone to take your home inspection photos and sharing via your iCloud Photo Library may be the easiest way to view photos on an iPad but not everyone likes using an iPhone.

A number of Tap Inspect’s home inspectors that either have an Android phone or still like to use a point and shoot camera or maybe even a high end DLSR. We are big believers in using the best tools for the job and the best tool is usually down to the preference of the person using it. Here are three ways that some of our users have told us about. Let us know if you have more.

Wifi Enabled Camera

Over the past few years many manufacturers have released point and shoot cameras with built in WiFi to let you share photos right from the camera. So what is the general consensus?

These camera are worth a look if you want a higher quality home inspection photo than you can typically get with your smartphone. Beware though. They can be pretty tricky to get setup right.

Once you do get them setup they work like a champ. Just install the camera’s companion app on your iPad . Then every photo you take is wirelessly sent from the camera for you to view on your iPad or add to a Tap Inspect report.

Fair warning. If setting up a wireless router forces you to call the Geek Squad these devices may be more trouble than they are worth.

Wifi Memory Card

Much like a Wifi camera there are WiFi enabled memory cards like the EyeFi memory card that can give your non-Wifi camera, Wifi connectivity.

Once you insert this gizmo into your camera and get it setup it works just like Wifi cameras. Each photo you take is wirelessly sent to a companion app you install on your iPad.

This is little less expensive than buying a new Wifi camera so that can be a plus. The downsides are that these things can burn through batteries. In my experience, I got about half the life from my batteries compared to using a non-wifi enabled memory card. The other downside is that, just like the wifi cameras, these devices can be a little tough to get setup or to troubleshoot if anything goes wrong.

Apple’s SD Card Connector

If you are looking for the simplest, most reliable method to transfer home inspection photos from a camera or even your Android phone, it is hard to beat the Apple Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader.

Just remove the SD card, plug it into this device, then plug the device into your iPad. The Photos app will launch and allow you to import all the photos on the card or select just the photos you want.

The biggest down side is that you have to remove the card from your camera or Android phone first. This is fine if you want to import all your photos at once. If you want to add and view photos as you take them the Wifi options may be better.

So there you are, three ways to get home inspection photos onto your iPad. There is no best way but there is probably the best way for you.

Tag: tap inspect