What is Spectora Academy?
Spectora Academy is your one-stop place to learn how to use your Spectora account. From easy, efficient videos to full-platform walkthroughs, learn everything you need to know about the industry's leading inspection platform.
Spectora Academy is broken down into 5 easy-to-follow modules. Each module will cover important settings and tools that will help you navigate Spectora, build your business, and improve your inspection process.
Let's jump right into the third module!
🌟 Did you miss the second module? No worries! Click here to go to Module 2.
Module 3: Spectora Settings
Welcome to Module 3 of Spectora Academy. By the end of this module, you should feel confident in your Spectora profile, and ready for clients to book through your online scheduler. We'll cover:
User Settings
Setting Up Your Profile
Services & Fees
Availability
Inspection Agreements
Spectora Payments
User Settings
In this video, we'll walk through your user settings page and give a brief overview of admin tools, including partnerships, emails, text messaging, company settings, and more. By the end of this video, you should feel confident in what each category on the settings page means, and what admin tools are used for.
📹 Watch time: 9 minutes
Click on "Settings" at the top of your dashboard
First, you'll find "Profile."
This is where you'll fill out your company information and contact info.
This is super important to fill out correctly from the start as this information will be visible in one way or another to your clients and your agent.
Next, click on "Services & Fees"
This is where you will create your primary services and add-ons, and set up your pricing structure.
Following that, you'll see "Availability."
This is where you'll configure the available times you will give to your clients and agents when they're looking to book you on your online scheduler.
Next up, you'll click on "Teams."
This is where you can add additional inspectors as well as support staff.
Support staff accounts are free, however they can only help with scheduling and some admin tools. They are not able to access the mobile app or be assigned to inspectors or events.
After "Teams," you can click on "Sample Reports."
In this tab, you will have any sample reports you have made from real inspection reports.
These are great to put on your website to showcase your customized reports!
Following that, you'll be able to navigate to "Discount Codes."
This is where you can set up discount or coupon codes that apply to primary services and/or add-on services.
Next, let's look at "Partnerships."
This is a totally optional feature!
This allows your clients to see partners for services they may need or want in their client portal.
We've vetted a ton of very highly qualified partners, most with some of the best referral payouts in the industry!
You're in complete control of which partner you show in the portal.
Partnerships include moving services, home security, insurance warranties, and so on.
Let's move to "Business Tools."
First, we have Agreements.
You can create as many agreements as you
want.
Basically, copy and paste your agreements in and make some adjustments as you need to!
Next up is "Payments."
This is where you can set up Spectora Payments (powered by Stripe).
Payments allow your clients to pay online with their debit/credit card.
Let's look at "Review Options" next.
This is where you can allow the client to leave you a review or allow the agent to leave a review when they are viewing your report.
These reviews are seen only on our directory pages.
Next, you'll see "Internal Communications."
This allows you to select your preferred method of
communication - for example, if an email bounces or a
text message fails to send, we will let you know via in-app messaging or email.
After that, you can navigate to "Email Settings."
This is where you can control the point of contact for your emails.
What this means is who the email will be coming from; if it's the inspector, their email address and phone number will show, or if it's from the company, the company's email address will show.
Below this, you also have a place where you can customize your header and footer on your emails.
We do have default headers and footers available so you do not have to customize your own if you'd prefer not to!
Let's review "Text Settings" next.
This is where you can purchase a custom phone number.
Now some pros and cons of having a custom phone
number versus not ~
It is $20 per month to have a custom phone number.
If you do not purchase one, it's totally okay!
Your text messages will come from a standard
720 phone number.
With a custom phone number, you can then customize all of your text messages to say whatever you would like.
Finally, you will be able to have a forwarding number assigned so if a client or agent responds to a text, you can get their response
forwarded to say a cell phone of someone working in your
office.
You also will have a list of text templates you can choose from if you decide not to purchase a custom phone number.
Next, we'll move to "Scheduling Options."
To start, in your scheduling options, you can decide if you want us to automatically populate certain home data during the scheduling process; specifically square foot and age of home.
You can also create a list of custom referral fields if you want your client to choose from a set list of questions rather than typing in any
referral source that comes to mind.
You can also create custom scheduling fields.
As for the scheduling tools themselves, we have the Online Scheduler, the Get a Quote Widget, and the Inspection Request Form.
All three of these can be embedded straight into your website.
The Online Scheduler and the Get A Quote Widget will tie directly into your availability. The will also tie directly into your services & fees set up, so your clients and agents will see exactly when you are available and what services you offer.
The Inspection Request Form is a form that has open fields for your client or agent to fill out.
They can request any day, time, and service that they're looking for an inspector to perform.
They will not see your actual services or availability.
Let's look at "Report Options" next.
Under Report Options, we have Report Tools.
This is going to be where you can turn on a couple
settings - such as 360 photos and the ability to allow your company to assign certain inspectors to certain reports on the same inspection
You can also enable a setting where you're required to complete a report before publishing.
Next, you'll see Recommendation Types.
Here, you can create custom recommendations like "Chimney Repair Professional.
You can also recommend local contractors from your area.
Up next, we have "Location Tags."
You can customize three different groups of location tags
that you can use on any comment in your reports.
Moving on, we'll look at "Company Settings."
Most notably, we have System Integrations.
This is where you can integrate your Spectora account with other products such as
Repair Pricer
Home Binder
Blipp reviews
Google Drive
Quickbooks
Mailchimp
and a few call center options
Last but not least, we have "User Settings."
Under "Dashboard Settings," you can customize your dashboard calendar.
You can customize your "Navigation Bar" to decide which features you want to have easy shortcuts to.
"Integrations" is where you can set up a calendar integration with Gcal or iCal.
Under "User Options," you can change your email address and password for your Spectora account.
That was a quick run-through of the settings! Be sure to keep reading for more in-depth info on setting up your profile, services & fees, availability, inspection agreements, and Spectora Payments.
Setting Up Your Profile
Now that we've covered your settings, let's walk through setting up your profile. You'll want to complete this step before booking any inspection through Spectora because both agents and clients will see your Spectora profile.
📹 Watch time: 4 minutes
Click on "Settings" at the top of your dashboard
Click on "Profile"
On this page, you will fill out your Company Information
Be sure to include your Name, Address, Phone Number, Website, and Email
You can also add your Company Logo and Header logo by clicking on the photo box, and uploading one from your computer.
For the best presentation, we recommend the company logo to be a square-shaped image, around 500x500 pixels.
For the Header Logo, we recommend a short and wide image, around 500x50 pixels.
Fill out your Inspector information
Be sure to include your Name, Personal Phone, Credentials, Address, and Description to show on your Public Profile.
Add a profile picture
Put a face to your name! This helps your clients know who they're working with.
Add a Signature so you can automatically populate it to agreements, forms, and inspections.
Fill out your YouTube information, services you offer, your service area, and a description that will show on your Spectora public profile
Don't forget to click the SAVE button!
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do I get my signature to show on my report?
As long as you have a signature setup in your profile, it will automatically populate in your report!
Do I have to use my personal address if I don't have a company address?
The address you enter on your profile will need to match the address that your business is registered under. This will only show on your Spectora public profile if you choose to display it. You can opt out of having your address displayed publicly.
Why won't my picture upload to my profile?
Be sure to double-check the file format of your picture. Only JPG or PNG photos are accepted.
Why don't I see the option to add/change my profile picture?
If you're part of a multi-inspector company, your admins may have enabled certain permissions on your account to hide this option. You'll need to reach out to your profile picture.
Services & Fees
Before booking a real inspection, you'll have to set up your services and fees. In this video, we'll walk you through setting up services and fees, cover setting up pricing modifiers, and what to do if you have multiple primary services, upsells, and partnerships.
📹 Watch time: 8 minutes
Click on "Settings"
Click on "Services & Fees"
Fill out your Service Name, Base Cost, and Base Duration.
These will auto-populate when you choose this service while scheduling an inspection
Optional: add a description to your services and add-ons, these will populate on the Online Scheduler and the Get a Quote Widget to describe your offerings to your clients and agents.
You can add an entirely new service by clicking the "+Add Service" button
Choose which Template and Agreement you'd like to populate when you choose this service
Optional: add your pricing modifiers. You can choose to add modifiers for square feet or square meters, age of home, year built, zip/postal code, foundation, and miles/kilometers away from the company address.
Optional: choose your add-on services such as Radon or Sewer-scope
You can also add modifiers to your add-ons!
Optional: add taxes if you do business in a country that taxes services.
Availability
In this video, we'll walk you through setting up your availability settings within Spectora, including your internal scheduler, your online scheduler, open scheduler versus time slots, and how to set time off in your Spectora calendar.
📹 Watch time: 4 minutes
Click on "Settings"
Click on "Availability"
Choose either "Open Schedule" or "Time Slots"
Open Schedule: will allow customers to book an inspection anytime between your availability hours, making sure that your last inspection of the day will end at the same time your availability ends (for example: 9-5 availability, your last inspection will end at 5 pm)
Time Slots: This will allow customers to book an inspection only during a few pre-determined time slots throughout the day. (For example: you only do inspections starting at 9 am and 2 pm Monday-Friday)
These are both described to the left of the toggle switch
It is important to note that you can schedule inspections yourself at any time - these slots are only for customers to see your availability
Click +SLOT or +BLOCK to add available times to your scheduler
To block off time for personal events or time off, click on the calendar, and select Event. This will block your schedule for that time. Click here for more information regarding scheduling time off.
Inspection Agreements
In this video, we'll walk you through setting up your inspection agreements (our stock agreement is from InterNACHI, but you can edit and/or replace the stock inspection agreement with your own).
📹 Watch time: 4 minutes
Click "Settings"
Click "Inspection Agreements"
We pre-populate this "Inspection Agreement" that is based on the InterNACHI inspection agreement.
You can edit this agreement any way you'd like, or click the +Create a New Inspection Agreement button to start fresh
Check out the InterNACHI Document Library for more agreements that can be copied into Spectora
Decide if you want your agreement signed with an e-signature checkbox or a written signature.
Both checkbox signatures and written signatures are legally binding for agreements.
They both capture the date and time as well as the IP address that the signature originated from.
Certain regions have regulations around which signature is preferred. Look into your local laws when selecting.
Customize the text your client will see before they sign the agreement
To edit a specific Agreement, click on the agreement and make any desired edits to the text box.
Don't forget to press SAVE AGREEMENT when you're finished!
You will see a list of "Placeholders" on the right side of the screen.
Spectora has placeholders that are unique to the software and can easily auto-populate information such as date, the client's first name, inspection address, etc.
Use them to save yourself time and enhance your level of customization.
In the agreement text box, place your cursor where you would like to insert the placeholder, then click the corresponding orange button to add it to your agreement.
Placeholders will auto-fill with the information from each of your inspections
Note: At this time, you cannot import a PDF agreement into Spectora. If you want to use a PDF agreement, you'll need to copy the text from the PDF and paste it into the text box.
Spectora Payments
Finally, we'll walk you through setting up your Spectora payments. In this video, we cover credit card payments, bank transfer payments with ACH, taking manual payments, and how to customize your payment instructions.
📹 Watch time: 3 minutes
Click on "Settings"
Click "Payments"
Click "Set up Payments" to create your Payments account through Stripe
You will need either your Business EIN or your SSN to continue setting up payments
Once you have your Payments set up, you can decide which features you want to enable.
You can choose to offer Buy Now, Pay Later options for your clients
You can choose to pass credit card fees on to your clients
You can also offer ACH (bank transfer) payments to your clients
To legally pass on credit card fees to clients, you must offer a “fee-free” payment option to the client, such as a personal check.
In the text box, you can specify the payment options you offer like Zelle, CashApp, Venmo, etc.
You can also customize the payment instructions your clients will see in the portal.
These are the payment instructions to your clients, which appear alongside the button to 'Pay Now'. Use {{BALANCE}} to display the outstanding balance.
You can also decide how you want to be contacted for any payment-related notifications - either in-app communication or via email.
Lastly, you can customize the text that appears on your invoice for clients.
Include things like your mailing address if you take check payments.
Note: Your business website will need to be live, or your account verification will be denied. If your website is not live, and you want to set up payments, you can use the URL to your Spectora Public Profile.
Now you're ready to move to Module 4: Templates
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
