TOPIC: REPORT WRITING

Hi all,

My name is Gerrie Van Niekerk, from Cape Town, South Africa. I've been in the building industry since 1989, but I've only been involved as a home inspector since July 2011.

I have customized / adjusted the HIP templates to our South African standards. I have probably done about 15 inspections these past few months.

My question is: How do I get the actual time down when doing my inspection (capturing the data on the computer for the report). It takes anything from 4 to 12 hours. The reports are between 30 and 45 pages long with about 20 to 60 pic's.

Do anyone have some suggestions.

Thanks

Hi Gerrie, welcome to the site. Now, that's way too long to spend on a report! A few questions for speed:

1. Are you using the Batch Add features when adding photos into the report?
2. Are you adding annotations (arrows, circles, etc) to every photo?
3. Can you post a report here for us to review?
4. Are you hitting Save Inspection on each job so that the template is conforming to your style?
5. Are you using a computer to collect Data on site? If not, how are you collecting information?
6. Do you have the TV on and/or kids running around when trying to finish your report?

Ideally most inspectors finish the inspection on site or within 45 minutes at home. So lets work on getting you to that goal!

Hi Dominic,

Answers to your questions;
1. Yes, I Batch Add photo's.
2. Annotations - probably 25% of the photo's.
3. How do I post a report?
4. Yes - I don't change the template for each inspection.
5. Yes - I'm using small notebook to collect some data on site. The rest (majority of info) I collect by taking photo's. At least 120 to 250 photo's.
6. No TV, kids, radio or anything to distract me when doing a report. I'm not super fast or slow - I think I'm average on typing etc.

Click on reply and you'll see an attach option which will allow you to attach a PDF. It'll help us more when we can see it!

Gerrie emailed me the report so I can post it here. I'm sure you guys will like seeing a report from South Africa. Here was his comments on how he does photos:

Yes - I'm doing a section and then the photo's (photos already batch added).
Example:
Grounds / Select - Boundary Walls - enter info for that section - then selecting photos. Next:
Select - Paving - enter info for that section - then selecting photos., etc., etc.

Gerrie,

Instead of going back and forth with your photos slot them all at once. Then while you're doing the report you'll see the photos appear next to your comment so you won't have to flip back and forth. Draw arrows and do captions at the end if you want to use the drop down box on captions to speed things up.

While your property introduction is nice, it's a huge time sink. I'm sure it's taking you 20 minutes just to come up with that and write it out. The agents job is to sell the property, your job is to look it over and review it. I'd drop that section. An exception might be if you have an out of area buyer that can't see it themselves.

Cost estimates are frowned on in most (not all) of the US but might be totally normal in South Africa (I'm posting this more for others to see).

Drop the property info page. You already have those bookmarks in the PDF and the sections exist within the report. There's no reason to duplicate them.

Your description comments tend to give a lot more information than necessary. For example in your Geyser 1/2 description you've spent a ton of time describing it. Your observation comments are great.

As you use the program more you'll find ways to save a lot of time and just speed up because you're more comfortable.

I'm sure some of the other guys will chime in!