A Guide for Writing Good Home Inspection Reports

There are lots of ways to customize your home inspection reports when using powerful home inspection software.

Getting set up

1. Create your own title page
2. Add your company logo, tagline, etc.
3. Customize your database

When writing reports

4. Add photos and illustrations
5. Use templates

Let’s look at each of these:

When setting up your software

1. Create your own title page

Choose from one of 256 professional title paid designs or contact us to build a unique design for your company. Once it is set up, every report will automatically include your unique high-quality title page. And of course, you will be able to include a photo of the front of the home on the title page for each report.

2. Add your company logo, tagline, etc.

You can drop your logo into Horizon, and it will automatically appear on each title page, cover letter, invoice and receipt. Each of these pages will also show your company address and phone number, email address and website if you choose. Your company tagline can be included on your title page. We like, “Powered by knowledge”.

In addition, you can add other logos to the title page that might include your credentials such as your Association membership, a photo of yourself, your vehicle, your office and/or your staff. You can also add a footer to every report page that might include your tagline or some other message, such as, ” Boston’s premier home inspection Company since 1990″.

3. Customize your database

Our report writing software starts you off with over 6000 standard database items. We encourage you to add items that are specific to your area or your way of doing business, and to hide those that you don’t use. A quick one time set up prepares you to work quickly and efficiently.

Houses sometimes surprise you. Horizon always lets you add information on the fly. If you come across a raccoon in the attic or a scorpion in the crawlspace, you can add it quickly and easily. Better still, with the click of a button, you can save those comments and add them to your database for future use.

When writing reports

4. Add photos and illustrations

Good software should allow you to add photos as you need them. Horizon takes this to a new level, allowing you to not only add photos, but to edit them, number them automatically and have them automatically captioned for you. We find we often take more photos than we put in the report. Horizon automatically archives photos that you have taken but not used in the published report. If you couldn’t inspect the garage because it was full of boxes, keeping that a photo of that limitation in your archives makes great sense. Some inspectors put these limitation photos into their report, but it doesn’t add any value for the client.

Horizon report writing software automatically adds appropriate illustrations when you select database items. We have gone through our 1700 illustrations from the Illustrated Home and attach them to appropriate items. You have access to all 1700 illustrations and the flexibility to add them to any items, including database items that you add.

5. Use templates

Templates are a powerful tool that allow you to make several entries with a single click. If for example, you have an area with subdivision houses that are all the same, you can record the fact that they have a concrete block foundation, wood frame walls with vinyl siding, roof trusses with plywood sheathing, asphalt shingles etc. All at the touch of a button. You can add as many templates as you like and can use multiple templates in any report.

You can also attach illustrations, photos, links to websites and relevant articles or papers to your templates. This allows you to provide outstanding value to clients by giving them information that goes above and beyond the basic home inspection, all at the click of a button!

If you are interested in a simple and efficient way to create professional, custom home inspection reports, we invite you to try our home inspection software for yourself.