Commercial inspection software is the tool a property manager uses to walk a commercial property they manage and come away with a finished report instead of a phone full of photos and a legal pad. The job is narrow and it is worth stating plainly. The app has to carry the building's areas and systems as a fixed list so the same walk happens every period, let the manager set a condition and attach a photograph against each line, turn the failures into deficiencies that carry a location and an estimated cost, and file the finished report against the property so the next walk opens with the last one beside it. Anything that does not survive into that file is decoration. On this site the free commercial property inspection report builder runs that walk in the browser, with the areas, the deficiencies and the immediate-repair estimate, and the paid product saves it, puts your name on it and keeps it against the property alongside every earlier report.
The list the app has to carry before you walk
A commercial walk is only comparable period to period if the list does not move. Set it once per property: the site and its approach, paving and striping and drainage at grade, exterior walls and glazing, entrances and door hardware, the lobby and corridors and stairs, restrooms, janitorial and back of house areas, vacant suites, and each occupied suite by number. The app should hold that list against the property rather than against the walk, so a manager who inherits the building inherits the same list, and so a line that was fine last time still appears this time with its previous condition visible.
Recording a deficiency so it survives to the file
A deficiency is not a note, it is a record with parts. It needs the area it sits in, a plain description of what is wrong rather than a grade on its own, at least one photograph taken close enough to show the defect and one wide enough to place it, a severity that separates what has to be fixed now from what is watched, and an estimated cost. It also needs an owner: the building owner's cost, the occupant's cost, or unresolved pending a document check. The free builder on this site asks for each of those parts, because a deficiency missing any of them turns into an argument later.
Pricing the software against your own portfolio
Price the tool against the portfolio you actually manage, not against a feature grid. Property Inspect Solo is $49 per month for a single user with 100 properties included, so a manager holding 60 commercial properties on their own account pays that flat and leaves 40 property slots unused. Put three colleagues on it who each walk their own buildings and the shape changes: Property Inspect Standard is $97 per month with 2 users included and $10 per additional user, so four users means two additional seats, $20 on top of $97, and $117 a month. Per unit pricing turns on doors instead of people: RentCheck starts at $1 per unit per month, so a portfolio of 140 units starts at $140 a month and one of 40 units starts at $40. Work out all three numbers for your own count before you look at anything else.
Filing, exporting and the next walk
The report earns its keep after it is signed. A commercial property inspection app should file each report against the property, keep the history in date order, and export a version an owner can read without logging in to anything. When the same building is walked again, last period's deficiencies should carry forward with their status, so the report answers the question an owner actually asks, which is what changed and what was promised and never done. That carry forward is why a saved report is worth more than a printed one, and it is what the paid product on this site adds to the free builder.
Questions people ask about commercial inspection software
How is a commercial property inspection app different from a residential one?
It is organized by area and system rather than by room, it carries vacant and occupied suites separately, and it prices deficiencies for the owner rather than splitting them against a tenant deposit.
Can I run a walk without paying for anything?
Yes. The free commercial property inspection report builder on this site takes the whole walk and prints the report with its repair estimate. Saving, branding and filing reports against the property is the paid part.
Should the app cover accessibility items?
It should record what you can see on the walk, such as a blocked accessible route, missing signage or a parking space that has been restriped wrongly, and refer the technical requirements to the ADA design standards cited below rather than guessing at them.
How many photographs is enough?
Enough that a reader who was not there can locate each deficiency and see it. In practice that is one wide shot placing the defect in its area and one close shot showing the defect itself, for every line you marked as failed.