HORIZON - Booking an Inspection

In this session we will cover how to:

1. Start the Booking Process
2. Enter Client Information
3. Enter Inspection Address
4. Enter Property Description
5. Enter Inspection Type & Fees
6. Enter Date, Time and Inspector
7. Enter Notes
8. Enter Agent Information
9. Complete the Work Order
10. Create Blank Work Orders

Booking an inspection allows you to collect the information needed to do an inspection.
Let’s get started.

1. Start the booking process:
1.1. Start by logging in, to get to My Schedule.
1.2. Click on Book an inspection at the top of the screen to open the Book an inspection screen (Figure 1).

Figure 1

1.3. Enter the client name and phone number and the address of the property. Enter as much information as you need, but fields with an asterisk * are required. (Figure 2)
1.4. Enter the client’s email address if possible, because HORIZON uses this to send the final report. (The client receives an email with a link to their report.)

Note: When you click the Next button at the bottom of the screen, one report credit will be used.

Figure 2

1.5. After you click Next you are brought to the Work Order screen. (Figure 3)

Figure 3

1.6. There are 7 categories where you may add information to the Work Order. Let’s have a quick look at each one, starting with Client Information.

Note: The words NO FEE appear in red under Inspection Type and Fee if you do no put in a fee. This is to help you remember to enter an inspection fee.

2. Enter Client Information :
2.1. You can enter two client names with contact information. (Figure 4)

Figure 4

Figure 5 (second half of Figure 4)

2.2. By clicking the checkbox Address is the same as Client 1, Client 1’s address information is copied to Client 2, saving you from having to enter the same information twice. (Figure 5)
2.3. You can also note who will be attending in the Inspection Attendees note field.
2.4. The Work Order Menu at the right allows you to move quickly between screens by clicking any of the links.
2.5. Or you can click on Save and Back to go back to the main work order screen.
2.6. A summary of all entered information will show on the Work Order screen (Figure 6).

Figure 6

2.7. From the Work Order screen, we can go to any other screen on the work order by clicking the category label or the edit link.

3. Enter Inspection Address:
3.1. Let’s click on Inspection Address from the Work Order Menu in Figure 6 to see the Inspection address screen in Figure 7.

Figure 7

3.2. Notice that the Client Information is checked off on the Work Order Menu on the right. This reminds us we have made entries here.
3.3. Make your entries, then click Save and Back or select Property Description to open.

4. Enter Property Description:
4.1. Notice that the Work Order Menu (Figure 7) now shows that we have made entries on two screens, Client Information and Inspection Address.
4.2. The Property Description screen is straightforward too. You can add as much or as little info as you want from the screens. (Figure 8)

Figure 8

4.2.1. We have said this is a detached, single family, 2-story home with 5 rooms, 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms. The purchase price is $250,000 for this 2,200 square foot home. (Figure 8)
4.2.2. Any entry you leave blank or as ‘unknown’ will not appear in the work order.
4.2.3. Uncheck Unknown before selecting a Year Built.
4.2.4. You won’t usually know which way the house faces when booking an inspection, but this can be filled in at the house. This is useful for those who refer to the north side of the house for example, in their reports. Once a direction is selected (North for example), a sentence will automatically appear at the beginning of the report that says,
“ Note: For the purpose of this report the building is considered to face North.”
4.3. Now let’s move to Inspection Type and Fees by clicking on that screen in the Work Order Menu.

5. Enter Inspection Type & Fees :
5.1. You just choose an inspection type and the appropriate fee from your list of Available Items. Highlight the item and click Add Selected Item to Invoice.

Note: You can enter your standard fees for all of your inspection types in Available Items from the Invoice section of my profile. If you haven’t looked at this section yet, we’ll get to it in “Tutorial 14 -Setting up the Invoice”. It’s very easy.

5.2. You can add several items if you are doing more than one type of inspection at the property. HORIZON will calculate the total for you.
5.3. If there are taxes, HORIZON will calculate and total them for you. Again, you set these in the Invoice section.
5.4. For one-of-a-kind inspections or unusual fees (friends and family discounts!) you can either build it on the fly or edit a standard item.
5.5. Let’s build one on the fly first. Highlight BLANK LINE ITEM and click Add Selected Item to Invoice. (Figure 9)

Figure 9

5.6. The Blank item is now added to the invoice.
5.7. Now, let’s click on edit beside the fee to customize the invoice item. (Figure 9)
We entered Pre-Purchase as the inspection type and $350 as the fee in Figure 10, but you can enter any Item name and cost in these textboxes. Click Save and Back when you are finished editing your line item. (Figure 10)

Figure 10

5.8. Now we have our Inspection Type and Fee recorded (Pre-Purchase inspection with a $350 fee) (Figure 11). HORIZON will also calculate the taxes (Taxes are set up in the My Profiles \ Invoice section). We can edit or delete the taxes on the fly the same way we changed the fee.

Figure 11

5.9. You can check the Paid in full checkbox at the bottom of the screen after you have been paid. While HORIZON is not a bookkeeping system, this may be useful.

6. Enter Date, Time and Inspector:
6.1. Let’s click on the Date, Time and Inspector link in the Work Order Menu to get to the screen in Figure 12.

Figure 12

6.2. You schedule your inspection here.
6.3. You can assign this inspection to any inspector from the Inspector dropdown list.
6.4. By default, all inspections are set to start the next day at 9:00 am with a 2.5-hour duration.
6.5. You can change this by clicking on any day in the calendar and/or selecting a new time and duration.
6.6. Click on the arrows on either side of the month/year heading to go to the next or previous month.
6.7. Today’s Schedule under the ‘Work Order Menu’ shows all the inspections for that day. This helps prevent double booking yourself.
6.8. Now we’ll move on to the Notes screen by clicking this link in the Work Order Menu.

7. Enter Notes (Figure 13): Here you can enter any information for you and your inspectors. We’ve entered a map number for the inspector to find the house and a client concern in this case.

Figure 13

7.1. Spell Check will help make sure your message is clear. Just click on the button to run Spell Check on this screen.
7.2. When you are ready, click Agent Information from the Work Order Menu to open our last section.

8. Enter Agent Information:

Figure 14

8.1. You can record the buyer’s and seller’s agents from this screen.
8.2. Highlight the Buyer Agent and Seller Agent from the appropriate lists, and click Save and Back, or go to another part of the work order using the Work Order Menu. Once a name is highlighted fro the Buyers or Sellers agent list, it is selected for this order.
8.3. This agent’s contact information will be included in your work order (although it is not all shown here).
8.4. If you entered the wrong agent, click on Remove Agent.
8.5. HORIZON has a special database that lets you record all the agents you interact with. Contact information for the agent and their company is entered in the Manage Real Estate Agents section of my profile. (We describe how to do this in the Managing Agents tutorial.)
8.6. You can remove an agent from your work order by clicking Remove Agent.
8.7. The Notes section lets you add information related to agents. Again, Spell Check helps you get it right.
8.8. If the agent is not in your list, click on Create New Agent. (Figure 15).

Figure 15

8.9. Agent Information (Figure 16): Your Agent must be linked to a company.
8.10. If you have the company and just need to add the agent, enter their first and last name and phone number and select a Company Name from the list. Click Add to create a new agent.

Figure 16

8.11. If the agent’s company is not listed, click New Company. (Figure 17)
8.12. Enter the agent’s first and last name and a Company, then click Add to create a new company and agent.
(Figure 16).

Figure 17

8.13. When you are satisfied with the information you have entered in your Work Order click Save and Back at the bottom of any Work Order screen to get this order ready for an inspection. (Figure 17)

9. Complete your Work Order:
9.1. You have 5 choices at the bottom of the Work Order screen:
9.1.1. Send to PDA: This changes the Work Order status to Ready for PDA. The next time you ‘sync’ your PDA, this inspection will be sent to your PDA. If you have more than one inspector, it will go to the inspector who has been assigned this inspection.
9.1.2. Send to Web: Changes the Work Order status to Inspected. You can write or edit the inspection report on the web side. You will not be able to send the work order to the PDA after this is done.
9.1.3. Cancel Inspection: This will cancel the current inspection that you have booked. After you have canceled the inspection you will not be able to retrieve it.
9.1.4. My Schedule: Takes you to the My Schedule screen to view all inspections and their status. This leaves the inspection in the Booked pool, without sending it to the PDA or the web.
9.1.5. Download Work Order: This allows you to download the work order onto a PDF document to view the information that you have entered and also print out the Work Order. (Figure 18)

Figure 18

10. Create Blank Work Orders
10.1. If you book inspections in the field, you may want to create blank work orders to send to your PDA.
10.2. You cannot create work order on the PDA. All work orders must start on the web.
10.3. But you can edit a work order on the PDA.
10.4. So, if you create a minimal work order and send it to the web, you can edit it with live client information on the PDA.
10.5. Let’s create a blank work order and send it to a PDA.
10.6. From any screen in HORIZON, click on book an inspection in the top toolbar. (Figure 19)

Figure 19

10.7. Enter a Blank Client Name and Address. (These are the required fields.) (Figure 20)

Figure 20

10.8. We entered the word Blank for the Client’s first and last Name and for their Street Address and City. You can use whatever you like.
10.9. Click Next to go to the second work order screen. See Figure 21.

Figure 21

10.10. You can see the Client Name and Inspection Address show as Blank.
10.11. The Inspector’s Name is selected. You can change that as needed. You may want all your inspectors to have one or two blank work orders on their PDAs.
10.12. You may want to set a Fee for the inspection as your most common fee. The fee cannot be edited on the PDA. It is a read-only field.
10.13. You cannot edit the Agent Information on the PDA, but you can put this information in the Notes field until the Work Order gets back to the web.
10.14. Click Send to PDA. The next time the inspector syncs his PDA to the web, this blank work order will go to their PDA.
And that’s it!

Congratulations! You know all there is to know about booking an inspection.

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