5 Ways Mobile Inspection Apps Ensure Better Compliance

The whole point of inspections is to ensure compliance. They help you ensure your work is up to code and your employees are safe. But paper inspections come with a host of issues, many of which could be leaving you at risk. Here are five ways mobile inspection apps ensure better compliance:

1. Apps ensure information is accessible

Perhaps it got lost on the way to your office. Maybe you go to look up a form later on and just can’t find it. Either way, you’re missing a report. It happens to many businesses. In fact, up to 11% of documents are misfiled or lost. That’s 11% of your time wasted. Worse, lost inspections create a massive liability risk. 

Going mobile ensures you receive every inspection. Every finished safety inspection is stored securely in the cloud. There, you can access each and every form as a PDF, or download them for your own databases in various form types. GoCanvas also makes it easy in case OSHA audits you. 

With all safety inspections stored in your GoCanvas account, you can quickly retrieve your safety inspections to prove your continued dedication to a culture of safety. A mobile app ensures your business has all the safety inspection records you need to stay in compliance and give you an accurate bigger picture.

2. Apps help you avoid errors and misspellings 

Reading handwriting can be an art. You can have amazing inspectors, but if you can’t read their writing, they might as well have written the information in Greek! Mobile apps allow you to gather that information in a clear and easy-to-understand way. 

Every inspection has typed text. Easily read it at your computer, or even on the go on a smartphone or tablet. You’ll spend less time trying to translate and more time getting work done.

3. Apps create clear documentation

A safety inspection done on paper can be hard to verify. How can you be sure that it occurred at the appropriate time and place? 

Some companies have tried to game the system: New York is taking up a case against a business that hired unqualified people to pose as licensed site safety managers. These bad eggs, however, can put additional pressure on other businesses to prove that their work sites are safe. 

Going mobile can provide additional information to protect and validate your inspections. Automatic date and time stamps prove when an inspection took place. With one click, you can have GPS capture your location, proving that the inspection occurred at the right location. You can also take photos, providing visual information to back up your inspection. Need a signature? Just sign with a finger or a stylus. 

All of these features provide additional proof that paper forms can’t provide. They create external validation, protecting your business even further. Mobile apps keep your business safe and help you gather more information than ever before.

4. Apps eliminate paperwork and associated issues

It’s a dangerous world out there. Grease, dirt, heck even a cup of water can ruin a paper form! All it takes is a stumble for you to tear up an inspection and lose an hour of hard work. 

Sure, smartphones and tablets can break. But you can easily protect these devices in a way that was never possible with paper. You can put a paper inspection in a folder, but to use it, you have to write directly on it. 

On the other hand, with smartphones and tablets you have choices of different ruggedized devices and protective cases. Not only can you gather information, but you can also ensure that a cup of coffee won’t ruin your hard work.

5. Apps help to minimize rework and manual processes

It doesn’t matter how many asterisks or underlines you use; sometimes forms come back incomplete. With forms taking hours or days to come to your office, it’s often too late to go back and get good information. 

A mobile inspection removes this headache. With one click, you can make fields required. Even if an employee skips a section, they won’t be able to submit their inspection until they fill out the required fields. No more chasing down employees days later, just easy-to-read and complete inspections at your fingertips. 

Creating accurate reports relies on having the best data possible. Mobile technology reduces human error and allows you to gather more information in real time. Say goodbye to illegible handwriting, missing paperwork, and other holes in your information. Say hello to more accurate information in real time each and every time.

For more information about GoCanvas inspection apps, contact our team to start a conversation or sign up for a free trial to learn more.