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This article is designed as a series of tutorial videos to walk anyone through the steps needed to write great home inspection reports.

The Basics

Once you download your ScribeWare trial, play around with the software to see how easy it is to produce and publish a great inspection report. The software is designed to be as intuitive as possible, so very little training is needed to make a report using a basic template. However, to maximize the quality and efficiency of ScribeWare, you will want to take advantage of many of its advanced customization features. For this, we have created a sequence of training videos that will show you everything you need to know to craft ScribeWare into your perfect report-writing solution.

  1. Create a new report
  2. Connect ScribeWare to your photos, videos, and diagrams
  3. Harness the descriptive pulldowns to ensure your inspection complies with your state or country SOP. 
  4. Drag and drop inspection photos, videos, and diagrams
  5. Re-sequencing photos within the report for super-clear observations
  6. Write or speak your narrative observations
  7. Tricking out your photos: captions, arrows, circles, cropping, and endless backend options
  8. Search the extensive and professionally written library by using our exclusive keyword search – right from an observation. 
  9. Use ScribeWare’s Text Replacement Feature
  10. ScribeWare has a separate comment library just for photo captions – speed up and improve your reports with quick and easy photo captions.
  11. Use the ScribeWare qualifiers to distinguish your observations for your clients
  12. Building an “Additional Inspections Recommended,” summary page.
  13. Re-sequencing observations within a section. 
  14. Using the residential template for multi-family.
  15. Use the track progress feature to never forget or omit anything! 
  16. Preview, then publish the report, which automatically sends emails to both the client and agent.
  17. Publish to a link you can send to your clients yourself or upload to any software delivery/business management system.  Also, how to re-publish to update information. 
  18. Copy and paste any picture, diagram, or screenshot from your desktop into a ScribeWare report.
  19. Version 5 – Shipping with Illustrations and Improved Access to Illustrations
  20. Version 5 – The New Home Page Search Feature

Customizing ScribeWare For Your Needs

Once you see how easy it is to produce great inspection reports with ScribeWare, you likely want to tweak the software to suit your style, your geographic location or your add-on services. ScribeWare offers an array of ways to customize templates for yourself and we also offer personal one-on-one help to get your templates set up for your needs. These videos show you some ways in which ScribeWare can be customized.

  1. Editing your narrative library of pre-made comments 
  2. Adding titles to more easily find and distinguish your observations
  3. Changing chapter names and sequence
  4. Using inspector only notes
  5. Changing section names and descriptive pulldowns
  6. Connecting narrative descriptions to pulldowns
  7. Setting default descriptions so that they show automatically in EVERY report
  8. See how I connect a single narrative to a whole string of pulldowns. In this case: the water is too hot or too cold. Water Temperature. 
  9. Permanently connecting diagrams to narratives
  10. Inserting hotlinks into your observations so clients can access a deeper level of information.
  11. Defining the default modifier or qualifier for any section. With this feature, as soon as you hit add observation, the observation can be made to come up as a repair item or a no modifier or any modifier you want. 
  12. Switching off the Summary page, How To Read This Report page, and the Scope and Purpose pages. 
  13. Add a Venmo Scan Code to Your Invoice Page and Get Paid by Your Client, Right from the ScribeWare Report

Including a Pest Inspection In The Report… or NOT

  1. Turning the embed pest inspection feature on or off
  2. Embedding a pest inspection in your home inspection report

Using Check Boxes

  1. Adding checkboxes for quick observations
  2. Having blank checkboxes show or not show in a finished report

Setting up and Using Contracts Through ScribeWare

  1. Using the contract editor to set up your contracts
  2. Contract creation, delivery, and customization 
  3. Sending a contract to your client and see how they would sign it. 

Template Customization

  1. Watch a meeting showing the creation of a Roof-only inspection template. This meeting shows some useful insight into how to create custom report templates. 
  2. Customizing your summary page. Choose which qualifiers go to the summary and choose if you want photos, videos, and illustrations to go to the summary with the narratives. 
  3. Building a Stand-alone Garage Chapter – this shows you how to copy an existing chapter and then split it up to make two different chapters. 

The Mobile App and Related Features

  1. Basic Need-to Know info about the Mobile App
  2. How do I access my pictures for use outside of ScribeWare? Use the Report Directory! 
  3. This video shows a demo of the mobile app – reporting on a water heater. 

FAQ

  1. I just deleted my chapter or section by accident. Help. Here is how you can restore a deleted chapter or section.
  2. How do I get rid of the receipt or invoice page? 

Examples of Report Writing Techniques

  1. Numerous Electrical Items Found: Using the Bullets and Captions Feature
  2. Reporting on blue tape items in a new construction inspection
  3. The Recommended Maintenance Qualifier

The Finished Report: What Makes These Reports So Great?

  1. Why do we deliver HTML reports?
  2. How can clients and agents print the report and create a PDF of the report?
  3. Report Overview with the Inspection Response Feature!!

Advanced Report Writing Techniques, Tips, and Ideas

  1. Using the photos captions to make a bulleted list below your general observations
  2. Heat pumps: Using videos, infrared and photos to limit your liability
  3. A discussion on how to use qualifiers

Useful Home Inspection Conversations on common Home Inspection Traps

  1. Seasonal Condensation issues in the attic

Your Privacy and Security

At ScribeWare, we do not and will not sell your personal information. All of your reports, templates and library changes will be stored in the cloud in a very secure location so if anything happens to your computer, we have you covered and backed up. In addition, all of your reports can be saved to PDF files and backed up on your own computer or storage device should you wish an additional layer of security.

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