How to Inspect Gear?

Inspect equipment before it ships and after it returns to protect your business and keep quality high. For example, when a customer returns a camera kit after a weekend shoot, you can verify every lens, cable, and accessory, capture photos of any damage, and flag items that need repair—all with a timestamped record on the order.

Inspections live in their own top-level area. Open Inspections from the main menu to land on the hub at /inspection.

The Inspections module is a subscription add-on and requires the Maintenance read permission. If you don’t see the menu, check your plan and role with an admin.

The Inspections Hub

The hub organises everything into five tabs, each with its own search box and status filter:

  • Active Dispatch — orders being sent out that still need checkout inspections.
  • Active Return — orders coming back that need return inspections.
  • Active Recurring — long-running orders on a periodic inspection cadence.
  • Scheduled — one-off or recurring inspections you booked ahead through Schedule Inspection.
  • Completed Inspections — a history archive with Dispatch and Return sub-tabs.

Each row shows the order, customer, and an inspection progress bar so you can see at a glance how far along a batch is.

Inspecting an Order (Dispatch & Return)

Most inspections are driven by an order.

1. Open the order’s inspections

On the Active Dispatch tab (checkout) or Active Return tab (return), click the order row. This opens the order’s inspection detail page at /inspection/order/:id.

At the top you’ll see a completion ring and stat tiles—Total, Completed, In Progress, Scheduled, and Skipped for dispatch; Dispatched and Needs Insp. for return—followed by a table of every asset stock on the order.

2. Start the inspection

Each stock that needs inspecting shows a Start button. Click it to open the inspection.

Inspections are completed on the mobile app. Once you press Start, the row switches to In Progress and shows a Via mobile badge. The actual checklist—pass/fail checks, photos, notes, signatures—is filled in on the Rentablez mobile app, not the web portal. Use the web hub to start inspections, watch progress, and pull reports.

3. Download the report

When an inspection is Completed, the row’s action becomes Download Report, which generates a PDF of the checklist, results, and any captured evidence. Completed inspections also stay in the Completed Inspections tab for later reference.

Scheduling an Ad-hoc Inspection

Need to inspect something outside the normal dispatch/return flow—a spot check, or a periodic inspection on a long rental? Use Schedule Inspection (top-right of the hub).

In the modal you choose:

  • By Order or By Asset — search for an order and tick which asset stocks to inspect, or search a single asset by tag, serial, or name.
  • Template — pick a specific inspection template, or leave it on Auto (from category) to use the template mapped to the asset’s category.
  • Recurrence — One-time (no recurrence), Weekly, Bi-weekly, or Monthly.
  • Scheduled date — the date the inspection is due.

Scheduled inspections land on the Scheduled tab, and recurring ones also surface under Active Recurring.

On a dispatch order’s detail page you can set or change the Recurring inspection cadence directly from the dropdown in the header—handy for turning a periodic inspection on or off after the order is out.

What the Checklist Covers

Every inspection follows the template assigned to the item’s category. Templates can include pass/fail checks, text and number fields, ratings, dropdowns, date fields, and photo, video, signature, or GPS capture—so the exact checkpoints depend on how the template was built.

Logging Damage

If an inspection turns up a problem, log a defect against it (with a severity of critical, high, medium, or low). A defect doesn’t move the item’s status on its own—you decide what happens next and can raise a maintenance job from it when repair is needed. See Handling Damaged Gear for the full flow.