Ive finally got my license and am ready to get started on some inspections. Can I keep using the SOP report for them or get some software? I like tge SOP report because its free and it makes sure I cant forget anything thats part of the SOPs, but some of the software seems more user friendly and quicker to fill out. Any advice from my fellow inspectors would be very welcome.
IT’s a good time to look around and “test the waters”. Many software companies offer free examples and/or free trials. Check them out and do some practice inspections. You may likely find what fits your style.
Good luck.
The sop report tool is not meant for real world inspections, it lacks in many many ways. Most software comes with free trials. Just don’t cheap out. As you get what you pay for. Some software is pay per inspection and some have monthly fees.
ISN has a free report writer included with their per inspection fee. I have not used it, but it’s an option to look into.
With that being said… the high cost Software(s) currently being pushed, are becoming as outdated as what they claim to be better than… and are way overpriced, considering!
Remember… everyone has their own opinion on what is best for them and their company. Only YOU can decide what is best for YOU, your Company, and YOUR PAYING CLIENTS! These are the only people that should matter to you! Take your time and search what works best for you, and builds the reputation that you want your company to portray!
Good luck!!
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Congrats Brandan! There are many, many threads on types of software for your reports any many different opinions. You need to see what fits you best starting out and you can always change software.
When I started out 8 years ago, I went with TapInspect because they are IOS based and offered per inspection pricing by buying a “lot” of reports which I thought was helpful not knowing how many inspections I would be doing. I have kept this type of subscription ever since. You can get 25 reports for $150 which includes 5 practice reports. The drawback is the five practice reports roll over once you use the first 20. There might be a way to distinguish between an actual vs. practice report but I haven’t tried.
Anyway, go through a lot of the threads about reporting software and ask questions about those you may be interested in.
Good luck!
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The first thing you should ask yourself is, do I want to own my software and have complete control over it and my reports, or do I want a pay to play type of software that is controlled by someone else?
I personally prefer to own my own software with the ability to manipulate it anyway I want, I also still have every report I’ve ever produced going back 23+ years, I’m not relying on someone’s cloud account to store my reports on.
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i write reports without any report-writing software besides what i wrote myself. a few scripts, word, python, and powershell. they look decent, not as good as some, but not terrible like some checklists i have seen and one that looks like a fancy excel spreadsheet. prints to pdf and easy to make a webpage out of. add a webhost with databases and you have what you need without sacrificing your clents’ personal information. it’s almost polished enough to share with folks. i seriously doubt i’ll ever try to sell it, too many folks doing that now that ai makes it easy to program.