TOPIC: How do you do your summary with the client?

Yes you have to take advantage of all the features in the program. Update your narratives, reorder so your most popular are on the top, don't overload with rare narratives, etc. Mike the average HIP user finishes in an hour at home so you're definitely not adding 2-3 hours on site!

Wow, an hour. It generaly takes me 1/2 hour to load and lable photos and 1 1/2 hours to finnish it up. But that is down an hour and a half, from my very first inspection, in June. Not haveing enough  pre- written narratives are my time killer.  Dom, I love your HIP program and your support is awsome! But the pre-loaded template narratives were not so great. In August I spent a weekend (when the kids/family were gone) Deleating and writting narratives and I need to spend an equal amount time again to fine tune it. Maybe then, I will be in a position to start doing Data entry on site.

The narratives are general narratives taken from several dozen narratives. There's no way to write narratives to cover every type of house, every age and cover everywhere in the country (and other countries). So they're more like a guideline. Then from there you build your own, saving template every inspection so each inspection gets faster.

I understand that and not to mention that every inspector will be different as well. 

I have never taken a single note while on site since I started doing home inspections.

Everything either goes into a digital recorder, which can be downloaded into a voice dictation program and printed out into the report or take a picture of it.

As for the out briefing with the client, it doesn't really matter if you miss anything because this is not your final report. I like to talk with the client as much is possible (even if it takes a lot of time) because it can cut down on what you must do in the written form. You can determine what is important to the client and focus on those areas.

I talk about everything and anything because much of this information never goes in the inspection report. Otherwise I would be up for two days writing the report. You can have problems in the bathroom that'll take up about 75 pictures and seven pages of annotations. The client may tell you that the first thing they're going to do before they move-in is rip the bathroom out. If they're in a tear it down mode, there's no reason to talk about it. Just make a notation that the client intends to rip it out and it is not part of this inspection. Talk about the things that are important.

For those of you that take a lot of pictures and feel like you have a mess to deal with when you get done, here is a suggestion to help organize all of those photographs:

At the end of your inspection there are a lot of photographs that you take for reference and there are some photographs you want to put in your report. You may take pictures out of sequence at different stages as you chronologically go through the on-site inspection but need to put them back together in the report in the same place.

I download all of my photographs and put them in a folder for the client.

I then copy all the photographs and place them in another folder that I call "report pictures". if I screw them up or delete them I still have a backup.

I use a thumbnails view of the folder and go through the photographs and decide which ones I want to use in the report and where they're going to go.

In your inspection report program you may have a dozen "primary" sections of the report (interior, exterior, electric, plumbing etc.). In the thumbnails view of the folder left click on the photographs that you want in a specific section such as plumbing. To speed things up, hold the "Ctrl" button as you click through the pictures and the folder. Just don't click too fast or it will make a copy!

Once you have selected all of the photographs you want in one section (such as plumbing), right-click and select "rename". Do this on the first photograph that you took for that section so it appears first, and  everything follows behind it. Now name that first picture with a numerical reference (such as 01 - 12). All of the photographs that you selected will have the numerical reference with a secondary sub reference. If your folder is set up to group your files by name, they will move to the top of the folder in the sequence that you assign them.

If there are photographs you don't want to use, don't rename them. At the end you can select that batch of unnecessary photographs and delete them from the folder. you still have them in the other folder.

Batch upload your photographs into home inspector Pro and they will now all be together in the sequence of similar components. This will be easier to assign the section they go to because they are all together.

If you have multiple photographs of one particular issue that are not next to one another in sequence you can simply select those and rename the first one with the same original numerical name with an alpha (1a, 1b, 1c...). All the photographs will now come together.

I find that this organization of the file names significantly decreases the amount of time spent on categorizing and even selecting which photographs you really need to have been your inspection report, but still you to have a whole bucket load of photographs to depict the issues that you would otherwise have written down on a piece of paper.

Makes sense, David. I am going to try that on my next inspection. My only problem is I'm not using HIP software (my mistake), but I can still manipulate the photos like you suggest. Keeping photos NOT in the report is a good idea. You may have to refer to them later if something comes up. I was accused of "missing" a leak 4 months after an inspection. Luckily, I had kept photos of that area even though the photos were not in the report. It was my proof that leak was not there during the inspection. Anyway, thanks again, and have a Great Christmas!!