I don’t think anything beats the HIP reporting software nor the service provided and flexibility of the software to meet your design.
Dominic is a true expert Professional in assistance and design. 
I have over the years won and received full version free copies of all the soft out there…and I use none of them.
They are all behind in technology, I paid a programmer to develop our own for the Ipad. I may release it for sale in 2012.
For now pick one, they are only 500.00 or so. What is one inspection.
With business so poor here, perhaps I need to start selling my report software.
Thanks for the guidance. Is report host still a viable software? They show some affiliations with NACHI on their website but it is dated from a few years back.
I downloaded both HIP and HG and went with HG because I liked the “feel” of it. That was before seeing and reading Dom’s posts on this MB. If I ever decide to not use HG anymore Dom’s will be the first company I contact!
Has anybody used HomeGuage and Home Inspector Pro who can offer some feedback?
I’ve always used HG for reporting because that’s what I was introduced to. I’m now at the point to where I prefer and use the HIP website because it’s far better.
I’d like to have my software and websites through the same company so I’ve actually been grazing towards HIP software. I’m sorta just waiting to see which company is gonna provide a new reporting method that many of us have been hoping for.
Any likes or dislikes or perks pertaining to using one over the other would be very helpful to me as well.
You can still use HG and HIP together as Dominic is not doing anything to penalize you.He runs the two independent of each other.
Linas uses both and I did try HG back when I was deciding between Report Host,Horizon,and HG.
I picked Horizon because it was easy and had illustrations that rocked and helped a newbie.
I liked HG for ease of use but was not happy with the look on the client end at that time.
Report host was OK but seemed slow to work with and at that time (do not know now)the only way to change font was to use HTML code which was very time consuming and when I printed out to PDF it really sucked with the page breaks.
Dominic came along and offered me a free use of product for a honest review.
I told him what sucked about it and did not switch till he upgraded.
WOW did he up grade, and he still is.
He took my ideas and those of other users and put them in to effect.
Go to the message board and see how he is always fine tuning the darn thing.
Wait till 3.0 comes out.
I am salivating.
As usual, the advice varies …
Buy this software because the developer is a great guy … don’t buy this software because the developer never posts on the NACHI message board … buy this software because the school instructor uses it and likes it … this one is cheap … this one costs more … yadda, yadda, yadda…
Your report needs to convey your observations to your client accurately and in a clear and concise manner that he can easily understand.
If you have difficulty with grammar, spelling and punctuation or otherwise have a problem putting words together in meaningful sentences … use a checklist and save yourself the embarassment of providing your client with unprofessional looking documents that they, in turn, are forced to share with others.
If you have the time and the talent to create well written narrative descriptions of your observations, find a software package that allows you to do that in a manner that is not cumbersome or time consuming.
In the end … your client will be judging you by the accuracy of your information, and it is that — and not the bells and whistles by which you convey it — which you should focus upon as you set up your reporting infrastructure, IMO.
Try on all the shoes and wear the pair that is most comfortable to you.
James, that is just some of the reasons I developed my own reports. It marries both the check list world, and the narratives. Four years now and counting, and agents who work with me like the descriptive reports, with out incorporating pictures that are distracting. All of the pictures taken at every inspection get shown to the buyer via laptop right at the inspection, and placed on CD’s. Takes about 3 minutes total.
Reports are printed on site. Full inspection, printing, pictures total 3 hours on average. No work at home.
Nice advice, but is off subject.
Well put up that sample and start selling Gary.
I own HIP, then bought HG and went back to HIP. It was an $800.00 lesson learned.
Sell it to the area $99.00, soft report guys.
James ,please share what made you leave HG and come back to the commune of Hippies.
I went to HG, because I wanted to do a multiple inspector gig like Russ Herself does and HIP currently doesn’t support making multiple reports into one. I also likes their energy audit template. I also liked the “smart sentence” feature. I cannot get the hang of using the HIP lists and didn’t want to invest any more time in figuring them out.
I am making my own audit template (which I will share, like all good hippies). I use the program without the lists and Big D says he has an idea how to put together multiple inspectors.
Yeah HG has more gadgets.
Guess you never looked into Active Words software which I rave about for the last 3 years.
I am not sure how Active Words would help me in what I am trying to accomplish. I already own Dragon and it is a memory hog. I want to finish onsite and am using 2go tablet. The 2go is another discussion altogether.
You could use it to trigger pop up lists based on what you type.
Just another way to produce fast text comments in that respect.
Does anyone know how much data GoToMyPC uses on the iPad? I don’t want to pay a ton of money each month because I’m connected to GoToMyPC for 10 hours a day.
Sheehan what is your need for that app?
To be honest this looks a heck of a lot more appealing https://www.google.com/search?q=new+microsoft+tablet&hl=en&qscrl=1&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ybEcUL6hOKyayQHctICIAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CH8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=643and I hate microsoft simply because of my personal grudge on the Microsoft office prices and their difficult to understand tutorial history.(my opinion).
[addendum] there are many apps that allow you to sync files with no need for that third party app Sheehan.
Example…Carbonite stores every file on your computer for view from any device.