Having visited a client’s office recently for training I really enjoyed watching inventory clerks interact with InventoryBase first hand.
They were using both the app and the web-based version of the software and we began chatting about what they did before they had the system. Pen and paper or a Dictaphone were the only tools available and it seemed no-one missed those days!
Like bird-nests in their glove-boxes, crumpled sheets of paper with barely legible writing were the norm for most inventory clerks. Then back at the office trying to turn the nests into final reports was a whole other challenge – deciphering their own handwriting, and then formatting and styling the report using Microsoft Word or some other text editor.
The Dictaphone provided less paperwork, but an equally problematic method when it came to dead batteries, running out of memory (or tape!!) and losing them under the car seat on the way back to the office. The results still had to be typed up and a muffled recording could prove devastating!
At InventoryBase we sought to solve the issues for both of these methods, replacing handwriting and manual typing with dictionary driven text entry, and swapping Dictaphones and external cameras for an all-in-one solution complete with voice recording and uploading audio files for typing up later from the cloud.
InventoryBase’s powerful report workflows provide clerks with the full description of the property at the last visit, so that the report can be updated to reflect the current state of the property quickly.
The software provides lots of tools to speed up the job, but handwriting is still faster than entering text, so what’s next? What if there was a way to combine handwriting and text entry to produce speedy inventories without having to invest in expensive hardware and software?
Well, if you’re an Android user you can. Using a stylus pen you can simply write your text into InventoryBase making the whole system even faster to use!
To try it out for yourself, load up InventoryBase and navigate to an item to edit the description. When the keyboard appears, press and hold the T symbol to the left of the space bar, and several keyboard options should appear. Choose the T with a pencil to its right.
Now you can list items and hand-write descriptions and conditions effortlessly, which gets automatically converted into printed text in the box that you selected. And what’s great about this feature is that it recognises thousands of styles of cursive handwriting so you can scribble away to your heart’s desire. No more nests of paper to deal with, instead you get the golden goose of property inspections – a complete, detailed inventory, signed and delivered the moment you leave the property.
Are you a hand writer, a dictator, or a typer? Get involved by answering our poll.
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