Curious about the impact of technology in the appraisal profession? Tune in to "Appraisers on Purpose" and discover how appraisers can harness the power of technology to excel in their field. Don't miss this thought-provoking conversation: Empowering Appraisers in a Tech-Driven World with Chase Pursley, founder of Appraisal Inbox, and host - Michael Hobbs.
In this episode of The Appraisal Buzzcast, host Hal Humphreys speaks with Chase Pursley, Founder of Appraisal Inbox. Chase tells us about his history in the industry, as well as how technology is changing the way appraisals are done. How does the commercial space compare to the residential space with bringing in new technology? How is artificial intelligence affecting the appraisal and valuation industry? Should appraisers be worried about this taking their work, or is it a tool they can use to help themselves?
View Appraisal Buzzcast episode here: Is technology helping or hurting the appraisal profession?
We're excited to introduce our latest feature, Client Form. The Client Form allows your existing (and even new clients) to submit appraisal orders via a unique order link. New order requests flow direcly into your Appraisal Inbox and both you and your client receive an email confirmation of the new order submission.
Your client can then reply to the "order submitted" email and communicate with your team directly without having to log into a separate system. Messages between you and your client are synced to the appraisal's message thread in Appraisal Inbox in real time, keeping a central record of all communications.
The Client Form also allows clients to securely share files with you like engagement letters and other important documents. And your clients can upload additional documents simply by attaching them to the email thread when replying to you, ensuring that all necessary documents are easily accessible and organized.
Nobody likes filling out forms, especially appraisers. And in the valuation profession, there's a lot of redundant data entry. At Appraisal Inbox, one of our big goals is to save appraisers time by reducing the amount of double entry and time spent digging through multiple sources of data. Based on feedback from our customers and several iterations, we've completely revamped the form for adding appraisal orders to Appraisal Inbox. This allows you to add appraisals orders much faster by reducing the number of fields that need to be filled out and automating data entry.
Our "Smart Form" now requires fewer clicks and pre-fills fields in advance. This is accomplished by automatically generating the file number, auto-filling essential property data, and pulling in other crucial information. For example, when typing the subject property's address, the Smart Form automatically geocodes it and fetches the owner, property type, and other important data from public records. The Smart Form also allows users to quickly pull up clients (or add new ones) and assign team members based on their role and commission settings in just a couple of clicks.
We've excited to announce version 2.0 of Order Forward, which includes several major improvements. The new version is much more reliable and accurate, and can handle practically any order email format that your clients use. Additionally, the feature now automatically pulls order details out of PDFs that are attached to forwarded order emails!
With Order Forward, you can simply forward your AMC, lender, and other client order (including request for quotes) emails to order@forward.appraisalinbox.email, and Appraisal Inbox will automatically add the order to your Appraisal Inbox, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
Learn how to start using Order Forward: here
In an era where technological advancements are quickly reshaping entire industries, the appraisal profession and valuation industry is no exception. AI for Valuation Professionals, our upcoming Lunch & Learn webinar series, is designed to foster insightful discussions and networking among industry professionals. Here, we aim to bridge the knowledge gap and introduce the nuances of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to valuation experts.
Register here: AI for Valuation Professionals
But it's not all theory and concepts! Our upcoming sessions will feature industry experts demonstrating how they have successfully incorporated AI technology into their valuation practices and appraisal businesses. Gain firsthand experience on how to leverage AI to amplify your business model and provide unparalleled value to your clientele.
The journey towards becoming a technologically empowered appraisal professional begins here. Our Lunch & Learn webinar series is the quintessential platform to engage with industry peers, share insights, and brace yourself for the forthcoming wave of valuation proficiency.
Register now: AI for Valuation Professionals
In the lifecycle of an appraisal assignment there are various "to-dos" - tasks that need to be completed. For example, everything from scheduling the inspection, pulling property records, selecting comps, writing the report, delivering it for review and everything in between. And with bifurcated appraisals, different team members are often assigned specific tasks. All of these tasks and when they were completed and by whom can be difficult if not impossible to track manually.
With Tasklists, Appraisal Inbox makes it easy for appraisal firms to create custom workflows. While there is a default Tasklist, additional Tasklist "Templates" can be configured by per-property type. For example, if your team's workflow for industrial and retail appraisals differ, that can be configured. Additionally, each Task can be assigned to different team members and given a due date (which display on the assignees Schedule and can be synced with their Google Calendar).
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).
