Features
5 min read

Delivering Reports

Last updated May 4, 2026

Publish your inspection report and deliver it to clients and agents by email and SMS, with magic-link access on their end.

Once you've finished an inspection, the Review step of the wizard is where you set up recipients, attach pricing, and publish. Hometrace handles the rest: it generates the report, sends each recipient a personalized email and SMS, and gives them magic-link access without making them create an account.

Before you publish

A quick sanity check on the inspection:

  1. Every section and subsection you intended to cover has findings or notes (or is intentionally empty).
  2. Photos are attached to the right items and the upload sync indicator shows everything is on the server.
  3. AI suggestions and Needs Review items are resolved (accepted, edited, or dismissed).
  4. The inspection has a price set if you want Hometrace to collect payment, or you've already recorded an external payment.

See Inspection Reports for the build flow itself, and Pricing, Services, and Fees for invoice configuration.

Add recipients

In the Review step, you'll see two sections side by side:

  • Client Information. Add one or more clients (the homeowner, the buyer, anyone who paid for the inspection). For each client, enter a name, email, and phone number. Use Add Client for a fresh entry or the contacts picker to pull someone from your existing contact list.
  • Agent Information. Add one or more real-estate agents. Same flow as clients. Agents get their own delivery email and SMS distinct from the client's.

Multiple clients and multiple agents are both supported. Each recipient gets their own personalized link.

Publish

When recipients and pricing are set, click Publish Reports. A confirmation dialog asks you to confirm; once you do, Hometrace:

  • Publishes the report (it stops being a draft and becomes a live shareable inspection).
  • Sends a Reports Ready email to every client and agent you added, with a magic link to view the report.
  • Sends a Reports Ready SMS to every client and agent who has a phone number on file (subject to their SMS consent on first interaction).
  • Triggers any payment requirement you configured: if reports are locked behind payment, the recipient sees a payment screen first; if not, they go straight to the report.

You can re-publish at any time if you make edits after the fact. Recipients keep the same magic link.

What recipients see

Hometrace deliberately does not make recipients sign up or create a password. Their experience is:

  1. Open the email or SMS we sent. Both contain a link unique to them.
  2. Tap the link. Hometrace signs them in via magic-link, no account creation.
  3. Land on the report. They can browse the full inspection: sections, subsections, findings, photos, and any notes you published.
  4. Leave reviews on findings (clients and agents can do this if you've enabled review collection on the inspection).

The link is bound to their email address; if they forward the email, the recipient can request a fresh magic link from their own email.

Lock and unlock reports

If you've set a price on the inspection but the client hasn't paid, you can keep the report locked so they can't view it until payment is recorded. Both directions are available from the inspection's Payment row context menu (the ⋮ icon at the top of step 1):

  • Unlock Reports to share the report with the client even though payment is still pending.
  • Lock Reports to require payment before access.

Recording an external payment (cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or other) automatically unlocks the report. See Payment Processing for the full payment-handling flow.

After delivery

  • You can re-send the email or SMS from the inspection page if a recipient says they didn't get it (check their spam first).
  • You can edit and re-publish. Make changes in the wizard, click Publish Reports again, and recipients see the updated content with the same link.
  • You can add more recipients later. Adding a new client or agent on a published inspection sends them their own delivery email and SMS without re-sending to existing recipients.

Tips

  • Deliver promptly. Aim for same-day or next-day delivery while the inspection is fresh in everyone's mind.
  • Add the agent. Even if the client is your direct customer, adding the buyer's and (if relevant) listing agent ensures they're in the loop without a forwarded email.
  • Use the contacts picker. Pulling clients and agents from your existing contact list takes a few seconds and avoids typos in critical contact info. See Managing Contacts.
  • Set a price before publishing. It's faster than configuring it after, and it keeps the payment expectations clear from the moment the recipient opens the report.

Troubleshooting

Recipient can't find the email. Ask them to check spam and promotions folders. If still missing, re-send from the inspection page; we use a transactional email provider, so deliverability is generally reliable but not flawless.

Recipient gets a "link expired" page. Magic links rotate after extended inactivity. The page shows a "send me a fresh link" button that emails them a new one within seconds.

Report won't publish. Make sure every required field on the inspection is filled and that photos have finished uploading (the sync indicator should be green). If the publish button is greyed out, the wizard's validation is flagging a missing piece.

Getting help

Email support@hometrace.co for any delivery issues we haven't covered.