Taking a digital inspection from checklist to estimate
Build the checklist, record findings and photos at the car, and let an advisor choose which problems become work.
For technician, service advisor, owner, manager · checked against the product on 2026-11-03
Fill in an inspection
Step 1: Rate each item
Press OK, Soon or Now on every line, or N/A when it does not apply.
Step 2: Say what you saw
Type a note and add a photo for anything that is not OK.
Step 3: Turn a finding into work
Press Request estimate on the line, so the writer can price it.
Step 4: Finish it
Press Complete inspection.
From the first rating to the customer
A digital inspection begins as a reusable checklist, becomes a sheet tied to one repair order, and freezes as evidence when somebody completes it. The technician records what the car says; an advisor decides whether a problem becomes work the customer may be asked to buy.
Step 1: Build or install a checklist
Open Settings › Inspection templates. If the shop has none, choose Install courtesy inspection. To make your own, enter a Template name, group each row with its section, choose Add checklist item as needed, then press Create template. The visible checklist rows post as ordinary form fields, so creating or editing a template still submits those rows when JavaScript is switched off.
Step 2: Write the shop's quick notes
On the same screen, choose Manage quick notes and type the findings your technicians write again and again into Quick notes, one per line — "Pads at 3 mm, recommend replacement", "Seeping, monitor at next service". Press Save quick notes. Every open inspection sheet offers them beside each item's note. Empty the box and save to offer none.
Step 3: Start it from the repair order — a technician's screen
Open the repair order you are assigned to. There are no tabs on it: the work fills the screen and the Inspections panel is in the right-hand column, listing any sheet already on the car. Choose the checklist and how many wheels the vehicle has, then press Start inspection. A repair order needs a vehicle, and at least one active checklist must exist first — when the shop has none the panel says so, and an owner or manager adds one in Settings.
Step 4: Start it from the repair order — an advisor's screen
An advisor, manager or owner opens the repair order's Inspections tab, chooses + Add inspection, selects the checklist and wheel layout, then presses Add inspection. When the shop has no checklist yet the tab says so, and an owner or manager is offered Load a starter pack, which installs one. Every door starts the same sheet.
Step 5: Work down the sheet
For each item choose OK, Soon, Now or N/A. Each press saves on the spot; the sheet does not reload. Add a note or any offered gauge readings before choosing the rating, or pick one from the item's Quick note list — the words go into the note, where you can still edit them. The bar along the bottom of the sheet counts how many checks are rated and how many need attention; Next unrated takes you to the next item still waiting for a rating. The repair order shows the sheet in progress, including its rating counts, notes and photographs, and its Inspections tab offers the same Quick note list beside each item's note, so a finding can be rated and worded from the order without opening the sheet.
Step 6: Keep the evidence with the item
Choose Add photo on the item the picture explains. Taking the picture sends it — there is no second button to press. JPEG, PNG and WebP photos are compressed before upload.With no signal, Torqix keeps a queued photo on that signed-in device and sends it when the connection returns — you can leave the screen. If an upload keeps failing, a note in the corner says why and offers Try again and Discard photo. The device holds twenty photos; past that the camera says so and offers Discard the oldest photo. Remove photo takes one back off the item. Press a saved photograph to open it in the viewer, where you can move through the sheet's pictures and choose Download.
Step 7: Or record it, when a picture will not carry it
The same item takes video. Add video accepts MP4, WebM and QuickTime, up to a size limit your shop sets — the sheet says the number in megabytes once, above its first section (and the button's tooltip repeats it), so read it rather than guessing. Recording the clip sends it. A noise, a leak under pressure or a play in a joint is a clip; everything else is a photograph. Remove video takes one back off. Two things behave differently from photographs and are worth knowing at the car: a video is uploaded as recorded rather than shrunk first, so a long clip is a long upload, and there is no offline queue for video — with no signal, record it and add it when you are back on the network.
Step 8: Let an advisor price a problem
A yellow or red item offers Request estimate under its four rating buttons, only to somebody allowed to edit estimates. Pressing it adds a job to the same repair order and the button turns green as Estimate requested, which opens that job. A template may suggest the job title, but no rule presses this button for the shop.
Step 9: Add a check the checklist forgot
On a sheet still in progress, type the item and, if you like, a section at the foot of its card on the repair order's Inspections tab — or choose + Add item at the foot of the full sheet — then press Add item. The new item rates, takes a note and photographs, and can become a job like any other. Only this inspection changes; the original checklist does not. A completed sheet takes no new items.
Step 10: Record that the customer put a finding off
On the repair order's Inspections tab or the full sheet, a yellow or red item offers Deferred by customer to somebody allowed to edit estimates, on an open or a completed sheet. It is the same deferral as on the service card: the finding's job is marked deferred — made first, as Request estimate would, when there is none — it leaves the estimate's total, and a follow-up opens straight away, dated from the finding's colour. It shows under the vehicle's deferred work and on the follow-up list for the next visit. Undo puts the job back to what it was before and closes that follow-up. A job the button made itself stays on the estimate afterwards, unpriced and not authorized, exactly as Request estimate would have left it.
Step 11: Keep a note on the inspection as a whole
Each inspection card on the repair order's Inspections tab has one internal note for the sheet as a whole. Choose Add internal note under the card's title, type, and press Save note; once saved, the note stays open on the card. The line beside the button says who saved it last and when. Only the shop sees it: it is never printed on the estimate or shown in the customer's glovebox. It can be written after the sheet is completed, and saving it empty clears it.
Step 12: Complete the record, and answer the question it asks
After the checks are finished, press Complete inspection. Nothing is frozen yet: the sheet saves what you have typed and asks Complete this inspection?, naming what completing does. Press Yes, complete and send to finish it, or Not yet to carry on — what you typed stays on the screen either way. The completed sheet can no longer be rated, and its photos can no longer be removed or added to. Completing sends it: a text when the customer has a number that agreed to texts and the shop can text, otherwise an email, and the repair order then says what was sent and where. A customer with no number and no email is sent nothing — the order says so — and the inspection waits in their glovebox. Somebody who cannot message customers, such as a technician, is asked Yes, complete instead, and a service writer sends it from the card or with Send inspection at the top of the repair order's Inspections tab. The Completed switch on the card asks the same question: it opens the full sheet at this step.
Build your own inspection checklist
Step 1: Open Inspection templates
Go to Settings › Inspection templates and press New template.
Step 2: Name it and add items
Fill in Template name, then press Add checklist item for each thing to check. The order here is the order on the technician's sheet.
Step 3: Press Create template
Press Create template. Editing it later saves a new version.
What changes when a checklist changes
Choose Edit as new version for a checklist already in use. Save as new version changes only inspections started later; an open or completed sheet keeps the rows, order and wording it began with. Retire removes the checklist from the start picker without changing old sheets. A row marked Suggest a job when this comes back with a problem may prefill a title after the chosen yellow or red result, but a person still has to press Request estimate.
When completion is refused
A shop can turn on Require a reviewer before sending or Require photos on red items under Settings › Inspection templates. If the first rule stops a technician, the sheet says A reviewer must sign off before this inspection goes to the customer. Have an advisor, manager or owner open the same sheet and press Complete inspection. If the second stops it, the sheet says Every red item needs a photo before this goes out. Add a live photo to each red row, then try completion again.
Printing and sending the inspection report
A completed inspection is its own document. On its card on the repair order's Inspections tab, Print inspection opens the report as a PDF: the car, the customer, every item with its rating and note, the readings and the photos. The same button at the top of the tab prints the sheet you have open, or the newest completed one, and it waits until an inspection is complete. Send inspection opens the send dialog, where you choose text, email or both and can add a message. The customer gets a private link to the report in their digital glovebox, and the email carries the PDF.
The report is made the first time it is printed or sent, and never changes after that. Every later print and send is the same file. The inspection's internal note is never on it. Sending makes a fresh glovebox link, so a link the customer had before stops working. Findings also still print on the repair-order copy and travel with the estimate when inspections are shown. See Signing invoices and inspections for customer sign-off.