Inspections are checklists for vehicle inspections that include statuses (Green, Yellow, Red) and notes/recommendations. Since inspections are both common and often standardized, saving inspections as templates is a big time-saver, allowing them to be quickly added to any estimate.

Why use inspections? You can use them as standard check-in/check-out inspections to make sure your customer's vehicle is documented from both entry and exit. In addition, you can send inspections to your customers, allowing them to review, comment on, and approve certain line items.

To create an Inspection, click on the Inspections tab of an estimate, and then click the New Inspection button.

You can add a title to the inspection and build out as many line items as needed. You can name each item as desired, set the status color, attach videos, photos, enter any notes/recommendations, and mark complete.

Each Inspection will have important dates that are reviewable. Inspection dates will be recorded when the Inspection is created and will let you know who made it. Dates will also be recorded when an Inspection takes place and will show who performed the inspection.

Marking the inspection complete will indicate to everyone in your shop that the inspection has been performed. If the notification has been turned on you’ll also notify your shop when the inspection has been completed. For more information on notifications check out our help article. You can also mark the inspection as not complete if you need to.

Marking status colors will quickly inform your shop and your customers of the state of the Inspection Item. Use the status color indicators to let the customer know if the Inspection Item is Checked and ok, May Need Attention, Needs Immediate Attention, or Not Inspected. If the inspection items does not apply to the vehicle you can also mark the status N/A.

Quickly view your inspection items using Inspection Filters. By clicking on the inspection statuses you can filter your list of items for that status. So click on “May need attention” to see just the items marked yellow, or click “Not inspected” to see all of the items you still need to inspect. You can click on more than one filter to make a list of only the items you want to see then click on the filter again to remove them from the list.

When a status color is Yellow or Red, an Authorize and Decline button will appear. With the ability to Authorize or Decline Inspection Items, your shop can accurately record that the customer is aware of important information related to their vehicle’s status.

Authorize and Decline buttons can be disabled in your Shopmonkey settings.

You can quickly upload images or videos to an inspection item. Just click the add photo/video button then select and add the image or video. A thumbnail image will show after the image or video has been uploaded. Click the thumbnail to view the image and click the trashcan button on the image to delete it.

When adding notes to an inspection item you can type in the recommendations manually, or you can use Inspection Quick Notes to fill in inspection item information with just a click. From the inspection item click the Quick Notes icon to show a list of of your saved notes. Just click the note to add it to the inspection item.

Shopmonkey has provided notes for some common inspection items, but you can also create and save your own notes. From the list of Quick Notes, click Manage Quick Notes. You’ll see your list of notes. Click on any note to make changes to the title or to the note itself then click save. You can also duplicate or delete the Quick note from the Ellipsis.

To create a new one just click New Quick Note. Then type in a title and the note then click Save. Now you can use this Quick Note whenever you’re performing an inspection.

At any point in creating or editing the inspection, you can click to the left of the line item and drag and drop it to change the order of the inspection.

Inspections are also available on the Shopmonkey for Techs Mobile App. You can add inspections, mark the status, add notes, upload images and videos, and more. For more information on the Shopmonkey for Techs Mobile App check out our help article.

Another feature of inspections is the ability to send them to your customers for approval. Click the Send Inspection button to open the Send Inspection menu:

Click on the Customer Inspection Preview text to preview what your customer will see when viewing the sent inspection. Click Send to send the inspection.

Your customer will then receive an email and/or a text. It will be sent using their preferred contact method and primary contact info from their customer details. For more information on preferred contacts and primary contact information check out our help article.

From the message they can view the inspection to see your attached photos, see and send messages to your shop, see your notes/recommendations, and can authorize suggested services. Customers will see inspection items sorted by red, then yellow, then green. Any services they approve will then be shown as "Authorized" and any declined will show accordingly.

To save the inspection as a template, click the ellipsis in the top right of the inspection then click Save as Template. It will then be readily available for future use.

Go to Lists > Inspection Templates to manage any inspection templates you have created. This area allows you to search and view all of your saved inspections, as well as create, edit, and delete your inspections.

You can also edit and create Quick Notes from your Inspection Template list. Just click Manage Quick Notes at the top to bring up the same menu as before. Make changes, duplicate, delete, or create new Quick Notes from here.

Once you have an Inspection Template saved, you can add it to an estimate from the estimate's Inspections tab. When you click the Add Inspection button, a list of your Inspection Templates will appear.

Click on the template you want to add to the estimate. You can also use the Search templates bar to find your desired template within the list. Clicking the Manage Inspections text will take you to the Inspections Template page.

Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the Chat Icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. Thanks for reading!