Whether you just started up your fire inspection company or simply want to update your process, you need to develop the right fire inspection forms. This will help you organize the data itself, streamline things for your technicians, and help communicate important information to the customer. Nobody likes to read or fill out a confusing form, so we will go over some tips you can use when creating your own form(s) to improve the process for your company.
It’s important to note that what may be required for your state or city may be different than what we suggest in this article. Still, these tips will serve as a good starting point.
General Information
The first thing you will almost always want on the form? General information for your company and for your customer. This should include all relevant data, such as name, address, and the phone number (or email) used to contact your customer. For your company information, you will want to do the same, but also include other information such as the name of the technician performing the inspection, the date they did it, and any other information required by your state or city. You should also place your logo here.
If you use a fire protection software system like Smart Service, this information can auto-populate when you apply the form to a customer, saving your techs time and energy on the job site.
Checklists
Checklists provide the best way to handle many fire protection forms, especially those that need to track a lot of equipment. Making sure your questions and answer sections are properly set up and organized is the key to making a form work. You don’t want item #3 to have a direct follow-up question later on in item #15. These points should quickly follow each other. Group your options together based on their subject matter to keep things organized. Put all "alarm" related questions in one area, "sprinklers" in another, etc. You can even have a "general" section for those questions that may or may not need an answer depending on the job.
Checklists can look daunting to your average customer, especially if you have tens or hundreds of options to look at and fill out. Using color helps convey the needed information in a less intimidating way. Make your columns red and green, or possibly make the checkmarks themselves colorful. If you use a fire protection app like Smart Service to fill these out, this is an easy trick to set up. This gives your customer a way to easily scan a form and pick out the areas that need attention. You can also fill out a form much faster and eliminate any mis-checked items.
Dropdowns
Dropdowns only work on digital forms, but if you use Smart Service or another fire protection software, you should put these to use. Dropdowns are fields with a pre-set list of options to choose from for a given field. Using dropdowns is a good way to help with data entry, as you can set your fields to have all the standard options needed. Then, you simply select the option you need. This helps cut down on time, and also helps with those people who may have questionable handwriting. These should work in the same vein as checklists in organizing and presenting information, so keep those principles in mind when setting these up.
Signatures and Photos
Make sure you include room for signatures on your form. You need this for the customer to sign off and accept the inspections or work done. This shows they understand what you did for them. You may also want an area here to attach and document photos. This is best done using a program like Smart Service versus just printing out a form.
Free Sprinkler Inspection Form
To help illustrate the points described above, we've included a free example form. This one covers a restaurant sprinkler system, but the principles it exemplifies can be applied to any variety of fire protection forms. And, as an added bonus, this form works flawlessly with Smart Service, our award-winning fire protection service software.
Final Thoughts
If you keep these points in mind, you can set up a quick, efficient, and effective form for your company. Sometimes setting up a form takes some work, but in the end it offers a nice quality-of-life improvement for your company and how your customers perceive you. Nothing leaves a bad impression like a form a customer can’t make sense of. Remaining organized and presenting the data in a clear, concise way will always pay off.
Smart Service for Fire Protection
If you are running a fire protection business and want a software stack that handles scheduling, dispatch, customer history, mobile invoicing, and recurring service contracts, Smart Service integrates with QuickBooks and keeps your techs in the field synced with the office — through the Cloud mobile app, or iFleet if you run Desktop. Try a free demo to see how it fits!
