For appraisal teams, manually tracking fee splits and commissions is a time consuming and error-prone process. In the age of the bifurcated appraisal, there might be a primary appraiser, a trainee, a data-entry or research assistant and an internal reviewer on a single assignment. Additionally, the appraiser and trainee may earn a percentage of the appraisal fee while the research assistant and reviewer are paid hourly. To calculate all of these splits and commissions manually, no less than four separate calculations are required (and later reconciled across all the appraisals completed during the pay period for payroll - per assignee).

Appraisal Inbox automates this process by allowing you to configure a team member's default fee split. And as an option, a team member's fee split can be configured based on a specific user role (appraiser, data entry, scheduler, etc) and property type (industrial, multi-family, land, etc). For example, if a specific team member with the role of appraiser always receives 60% of an appraisal fee specifically for Industrial appraisals, this can be configured. Additionally, if that same team member always acts as a reviewer on industrial appraisals but is paid by the hour, that can all be set up. The neat part is, when adding an assignee to a new order - Appraisal Inbox knows which commission calculation to apply based on the subject's property type!

The fee splits can either be flat (i.e., hourly rate) or a percentage of the assignment's fee (with the option of Net or Gross an order's Expenses). And since the commission's are automatically saved in the system, running payroll (and slicing and dicing as needed) is easy as just a couple clicks and exportable to csv format (which can be imported to Excel or your accounting software).

With the massive growth of web-based business tools over the last decade, the ability to connect your services is more important than ever. Siloed applications that can't communicate with each other are going the way of the dinosaur (as are appraisers who refuse to learn and adopt modern tools). Technology in the appraisal industry has especially been lagging in technology and interconnectivity, resulting in time consuming double entry and serious productivity loss. But we're changing that.

Appraisal Inbox unlocks your data and productivity by allowing you to integrate with 3rd-party platforms or even your own server and create any custom integration with Webhooks. For example, whenever you add a new contact in Appraisal Inbox, you could use our Send Webhooks feature to automatically sync them to your CRM with Zapier. Or perhaps you want to send your appraisal orders to Google Sheets via Make whenever they are changed. The possibilities are endless!

To learn more, check out our Send Webhooks guide.

A typical appraisal assignment often has a number of fees and expenses which need to be tracked. For example, the order might have been engaged at a specific fee. But your client needs the order quicker than usual and is willing to pay an 8% rush charge. Additionally, you may need to track mileage for tax purposes as well as record the client's "upload charge" for internal record keeping.

Appraisal Inbox makes tracking these various fees and expenses simple for appraisers. You can track one or more fees (which can be a flat fee multiplied by quantity - or - a percentage of the report fee). Fees are automatically summed up for purposes of billing your client. And for internal accounting purposes, you can track your business expenses (either on a per-appraisal basis or stand-alone).

Save your spot with Jeff Weiner (CEO of Realquantum, 100% web-based commercial appraisal analysis and report writing software) and Chase Pursley (Founder of Appraisal Inbox, appraisal order management and scheduling software) for our second joint-webinar on November 17 where we will be discussing how commercial appraisers can adopt new technology to streamline their operations, grow their revenue and regain their sanity.

Save your spot here: LIVE WEBINAR | Commercial Appraiser Tech Tools (Update)

As the cliche goes, communication is key. On your team, you may have several people working on a specific appraisal order. For example, maybe there's someone who schedules and manages the assignment, the licensed appraiser, a trainee or two, an inspector and perhaps even a reviewer. Conversations between these various assignees often take place across a number of places like email, phone calls, messaging apps - making it difficult to keep everyone on the same page.

But instead of having to juggle it all, Appraisal "Inbox" brings conversations around a specific appraisal order into one place. With Team Messaging, your team has a single unified location to communicate about the appraisal order. In addition, Appraisal Inbox sends emails containing unread messages to the assignees on the order (optional - team members can unsubscribe). This means you don't even have to leave your email inbox to discuss an appraisal order with your team!

Keeping your schedule organized is a key part of running a successful appraisal business. Appraisal Inbox has a built-in Schedule featuring agenda and month views that are automatically populated when you set Due and Inspection dates for an appraisal order.

You can manually sync dates into your Google, iCal (Apple), Outlook or Yahoo calendars. And if you're a Google Calendar user, you also have the option of having Due and Inspection dates automatically sync from Appraisal Inbox into your Google Calendar.

To learn more, check out our Google Calendar integration guide.

On a daily - even hourly basis, appraisers are inundated with "request for quote" and other order emails from their AMC & lender clients. Dealing with this influx of emails is a major time sink and quite frankly, a huge annoyance. Each order and its status must be tracked which generally means manually copying and pasting the order details into Appraisal Inbox. This means less time focused the important value-added tasks like inspecting subjects, researching comps & typing reports. But what if there were another way?

Our "Order Forward" feature allows you to forward these order emails to a special email address and Appraisal Inbox does the rest! With a little magic, Appraisal Inbox automatically pulls in the order details - meaning you no longer have to manually enter it! No more copy-paste-tango, email juggling & time-wasting double entry. If you want to take it to the next level and automate the whole process, set up auto-forwarding rules in your email client. Additionally, you can add notes to your order and assign appraisers by cc'ing them.

To learn more, check out our Order Forward guide.

According to the USPAP Record Keeping Rule appraisers must keep a comprehensive and complete Workfile. In the process of an appraisal, appraisers need to collect any number of files and pieces of information to support their value. For example, in an assignment, the appraiser might need to obtain a copy of the rent roll spreadsheet from the landlord, floor plan scans and the past few years of assessments in PDF format from public records. Additionally, interior, exterior and other photos of the subject property as well as comps are typically taken and need to be stored. And once the appraisal is completed and delivered to the client, the final report (and any revisions) need to be stored as well.

Appraisal Inbox's Workfile storage gives your team a secure and convenient place to store, share and retrieve all of the files, photos, reports and other supporting documents involved in the assignment.

One of our goals with Appraisal Inbox is to keep everyone on your appraisal team in the loop. At any time, your staff should be able see exactly where an appraisal order is in the valuation process. We've recently redesigned views so that everything is grouped more logically - making information both easier to understand at a glance and faster to input & update. At the center of it all is "Activity" - an activity feed (also known as an audit log) which is a historical record of what was updated, when changes were made and who made them to an Appraisal, Client, Contact or Team Member.

Back in 2012 I was working as an appraiser at a small firm. One of the major benefits of our practice was that staff had the option to work from a home office. When not in our office typing reports, we were on the road inspecting properties. However, working remotely and frequent travel caused communication gaps that often left us wondering:

• When is my next inspection scheduled?
• Which reports are due this week?
• What's the current status of this order?
• Who's assigned to that appraisal?
• Which appraisals have we done nearby?
• Where's the phone # for the property owner?
• What are the client's report requirements?
• Who currently owes us money?
• How did we do last quarter?
• What is the turn time of a specific appraiser?
• What percentage of bids are we winning?
• Are our fees increasing over time?

In earnest, I tried to find a solution that could work for our entire team. My first attempt was to build a “super” job-log with Microsoft Excel. While it sort-of worked for a while, the file continued to get larger and larger and… you get the picture. Additionally, in order to share the job-log we still had to email the spreadsheet back-and-forth to all team members each time any of us made a change. Not very efficient and prone to error - we never knew who had the correct version.

Then I realized that there must be software out there that solves our problem. After trialing several software suites built “just for appraisers” and a few general project management and CRM systems, none of them really did the job. The “appraiser” software was clunky, outdated and not really team-oriented while the general purpose software was not specific enough for the appraisal profession. And importantly, they were all too difficult for the boss to learn and use on a daily basis.

Not being content getting stuck with spreadsheets or clunky software, I embarked on creating Appraisal Inbox. Originally, Appraisal Inbox was built just for internal use until conversations with other appraiser friends helped me realize that the entire industry was experiencing the same problem. After many improvements and new features over the years (based on feedback from our wonderful customers), I’m proud to say that Appraisal Inbox is the product that I wish had existed back then.

Today, I’d like to invite you to join the satisfied apprasial teams who are already using Appraisal Inbox to manage their appraisal businesses. Whether you’re ready to move on from spreadsheets, you’re fed up with other complicated software or have no system in place yet, I hope you’ll give Appraisal Inbox a shot. I’m so confident that it will save your team time and increase productivity, that no contract is required and you can cancel your subscription at any time.

I’m always glad to answer your questions! You can email me any time at chase@appraisalinbox.com and connect with me on Linkedin.

Chase Pursley, Founder