Everything you need to know about using SiteBrief — from first launch to project completion. Follow these steps in order for the best experience.

Before creating your first project, configure your business settings. These details appear on every report you generate and only need to be set once.

A project represents a single job at a specific site for a specific client. You can create multiple walkthrough reports within one project (e.g., initial assessment, progress update, final walkthrough).

A walkthrough report documents your on-site observations with photos, area tags, and notes. The report wizard has three steps: Setup, Photos, and Notes. From the Project Detail screen, tap + New Walkthrough Report to begin.

After tapping Generate Summary, the AI produces a professional, organized report from your photos, captions, spot observations, and voice/text notes — organized by area, written in your industry’s language.

In Settings → Workflow you can choose how voice memo notes are transcribed. Accurate (recommended) records your full audio and types it out right after you stop — best word accuracy, with the text appearing a few seconds after you finish. Live preview shows words as you speak — instant, but it can lag or miss words on a weak signal. Either way you can always edit the text before it goes into a report.

The client opens their portal link (no app or login required) and sees all walkthrough reports with photos and summaries. They have two options per report:

When the job is done, close out the project. There are two paths depending on your plan:

Enter the property or job site address, your client’s name, and the industry or job type. This takes less than a minute and gives the AI the context it needs to write a report that sounds like it came from a professional in your field — not a generic template.

This is where you document what you see. Start by setting your current area — kitchen, mechanical room, Unit 4B, roof section, whatever applies to your job. Everything you capture from that point is automatically tagged to that area.

Take photos of anything that needs documenting. Tap any photo to add a caption — describe exactly what you’re looking at. See something that doesn’t need a photo? Tap Add Spot Observation, speak or type what you noticed, and move on. It saves instantly.

When you move to the next area, update the area name. That’s it. SiteBrief keeps track of what belongs where so you don’t have to.

Tap the microphone and speak freely. Walk through everything you observed, anything discussed with the client or occupant, your professional assessment, and your recommended next steps. Don’t worry about structure or format — just talk through it the way you would explain it to someone.

You can also type your notes directly if you prefer. Both go to the same place.

The AI listens to everything — your Step 2 photos and observations plus your Step 3 notes — and writes your report.

Tap Generate Summary. SiteBrief takes everything — your photos, captions, spot observations, and walkthrough notes — and produces a complete, professionally written report. Organized by area. Written in your industry’s language. Ready to send.

Review it, make any edits you want, and send it directly to your client from the app. They receive a clean, professional document that represents your work at its best.

When a project has two or more walkthroughs, numbered jump tabs appear at the top of the project screen — tap one to go straight to that walkthrough instead of scrolling.

On their portal, the client sees every walkthrough report with photos, observations, and next steps. Below each report they have two options:

After the client signs off and the project is marked Completed, a star rating card appears at the bottom of their portal. They can leave a 1–5 star rating for your work. It’s optional for them and takes one tap.

Once you mark a project Awaiting Sign-Off, the client’s portal shows a sign-off section at the bottom. The sign-off process includes identity verification to ensure the correct person is signing.

1. Reviews all walkthrough reports one final time
2. Taps Send Verification Code to receive a 6-digit code by SMS (or by email if SMS can’t be delivered)
3. Enters the code to verify their identity
4. Draws their signature on the signature pad
5. Taps Sign & Complete Project

For reports people argue about money over — move-outs, damage documentation, final visits — you can flip on Require ID verification to accept when you send. Your client must then verify with a fresh one-time code (sent by text message, with email as the fallback) right before their one-tap acceptance, and that identity verification is recorded in the acceptance evidence. The switch suggests itself automatically for move-out, damage, and final visit types. Standard acceptances are also sealed with tamper-evident evidence — exactly what was accepted, when, and from what device; the elevated switch adds the fresh identity check on top. This is in addition to the sign-off code, never a replacement: the sign-off code always runs before the final signature, while this switch adds a fresh code right before the client accepts one specific report.

To manage storage, the original photo files are automatically deleted 14 days after a project is marked Completed (90 days on Premium). Text records, summaries, observations, next steps, and all feedback threads are kept permanently. On a project the client signed off, the photos are not lost: they are sealed inside the signed PDF, which you and your client can still open years later — only the separate original files are removed. If a project is marked Completed without a client sign-off, SiteBrief saves an unsigned Completion Record PDF with the project photos embedded — clearly stamped UNSIGNED, kept for one year, and included in the Evidence Pack — so the photos survive after the original files are removed. A later genuine client sign-off replaces it with the signed record.

The Archive is your permanent record of all finished work. Access it from the Projects screen by tapping Archived. Every archived project shows its original status badge so you can see at a glance whether it was completed with a sign-off or just manually filed away.

A full project PDF can be generated at any time from the project detail screen. It includes your branding, all report summaries, photos, client feedback threads, and the final signature if the project has been signed off.

SiteBrief works fully in English and Spanish — and you and your client don’t have to use the same language. If you both use the same language, none of this matters: everything is written in that one language, start to finish, with no extra steps. When your languages differ, SiteBrief handles it automatically — the report keeps one official language, and a clearly labeled courtesy translation is added for the other side. Here is what each language control changes:

Premium includes everything in Pro — unlimited reports and photos, client e-signature & sign-off, PDF export, up to 3 contacts, AI Polish, sub-reports, and custom branding — plus the features on this tab: Continuous Walkthrough with 600 included minutes per billing cycle, 90-day photo retention, Quick Agreements, automatic sign-off reminders, QuickBooks draft invoicing, Draw Invoices (progress billing built from the walkthroughs your client has already seen — see the Draw Invoices tab), and the Evidence Pack included at no extra charge. Manage your plan any time in Settings → Plan & Billing.

Something changed on the job — extra work, a substitution, a credit? Send a Quick Agreement from the report thread instead of waiting for a phone call. Describe the change, set the price effect (Add $, No charge, or Credit −$), and optionally attach one photo. Your client gets a text and approves or declines right in their portal. One photo only — Quick Agreements do not take PDFs or Word files. To send a document (an estimate, a spec sheet, a third-party report), use Attach Sub-Report on the report itself: any PDF up to 10MB (Pro & Premium). Word files have to be saved as a PDF first.

The Evidence Pack is a downloadable ZIP of a project’s complete record: the report PDFs (including the frozen signed PDF once the project is signed off), the photos, the full message thread, the sign-off record, and a manifest listing every file with its digital fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) plus a trusted third-party timestamp certificate proving the content existed at that moment. Photo availability follows retention: every photo stays sealed inside the signed record PDF permanently, so a pack built years later still shows them, while the separate original photo files are deleted 14 days after a project is marked Completed (90 days on Premium) — a pack built after that lists those original files as no longer stored and the sealed PDF is unaffected. If a project was completed without a sign-off, the pack’s reports section includes the stored unsigned Completion Record PDF (clearly stamped UNSIGNED, kept for one year) with the photos embedded, so they remain available after the original files expire.

When a project sits in Awaiting Sign-Off, SiteBrief can nudge your client for you with polite SMS reminders — sent during reasonable daytime hours, capped so clients are never spammed, and stopped automatically the moment they sign, reply, or text STOP. Turn it on and tune the defaults in Settings, or override per report. You keep a full log of every reminder sent.

Connect your QuickBooks Online account in Settings → Integrations (strictly optional — nothing connects unless you do it). Once connected and enabled, a client sign-off creates a draft invoice in your QuickBooks for that project.

Premium includes 600 Continuous Walkthrough minutes per billing cycle — record hands-free while you walk and talk, and the AI assembles the report. Included minutes reset each cycle and do not roll over; one-time packs are +60 ($4.99), +150 ($9.99), +300 ($19.99), and +600 ($34.99), and purchased minutes never expire while your account stays open. Free and Pro do not include minutes — they get 3 free Continuous Walkthroughs to try it. See the Continuous Walkthrough tab for the full guide and Billing & Minutes for how minutes are counted. Premium also extends photo retention from 14 to 90 days after a project is completed, giving you a much longer window to export PDFs with photos included.

A Draw Invoice turns walkthroughs your client has already seen into a clean, professional payment request — a Draw Summary PDF tied to the exact work on record. You create it, you set the amount, you decide when the client hears about it. SiteBrief never moves money and never sends anything automatically.

Open a project and tap + Create Invoice in its Draw Invoices section — invoices are always created from the project screen. Pick the walkthroughs the invoice covers; each one shows its billing state (Not invoiced, Invoiced, Paid, or Paid + invoiced again) so you can see at a glance what has already been billed.

You enter your own line items (description + amount), tagged Entered by professional, and any change orders your client signed in SiteBrief on the selected walkthroughs are added automatically, tagged Signed in SiteBrief. The amount requested is the total of those lines — SiteBrief does no tax or contract math. Read and verify the total before you create the invoice; the record is honest about the fact that the lines came from you.

Nothing is ever sent automatically. When you’re ready, tap Notify client and SiteBrief sends exactly one message — over the same channel the report was delivered on (text if it was texted, email if it was emailed) — telling your client a new draw summary is on their link. That is the only message Draw Invoices ever sends.

On their existing report link, your client gets an Invoices card showing only the current active invoice — its title, amount, date, live status, the walkthroughs it covers (tappable, straight to their own reports), and the Draw Summary PDF. Voided invoices disappear from their view (your records keep everything). The Draw Summary is a summary of documented work — it is not a payment demand.

Wrong amount or wrong scope? Void the invoice — you’ll type a short reason that stays permanently on the record — and create a new one. The voided invoice and its Draw Summary stay in your records exactly as issued; nothing is ever silently altered. A reissue appears to your client as the new invoice.

Once an invoice is marked Paid or voided, a Receipt button appears on it — a printable PDF status record with your business branding, the invoice’s details, and the digital fingerprint of the frozen invoice it references. Your client can download it too: their portal has a Receipts card for paid invoices, next to the Draw Summaries card that keeps every summary in one place.

If QuickBooks Online is connected, a draw invoice is also posted into your QuickBooks — but SiteBrief never sends the QuickBooks invoice to your client and never records payments there. You review and send it from QuickBooks yourself, or skip QuickBooks entirely and use the Draw Summary PDF as the invoice’s delivery.

Instead of stopping to type or dictate note by note, Continuous Walkthrough records one hands-free audio track while you walk the site and talk naturally. Snap photos any time. When you tap Finish, the AI turns everything you said and captured into a draft report automatically. Available on plans that include it; free accounts get a limited number of trial walkthroughs.

If the app closes or you step away mid-walkthrough, nothing is lost — your audio and photos are saved. You'll see an unfinished walkthrough banner on your dashboard and a ⏺ in-progress chip on the project card; either takes you straight back to continue. Discarding an unfinished walkthrough permanently deletes its audio and photos, so the app always asks you to confirm first.

While you record, your audio uploads to the cloud in small pieces as you go. If the phone dies, the app is killed, or the device is lost mid-walkthrough, open the walkthrough on the same device — or on another device you sign in on, once the original has been quiet for 10 minutes — and choose Recover this walkthrough: the report is built from everything already uploaded. The last moments before the interruption may not have finished uploading; the app tells you honestly if anything could not be recovered, and the recovery is noted on the report record. Photos are protected the same way.

Continuous Walkthrough records real audio of everyone within earshot. Recording-consent laws vary by state and country — some require everyone being recorded to agree. Before you start, tell the people around you that you're recording and get any consent your location requires. See our Terms of Service for the full policy.

Subscriptions renew automatically each cycle and can be cancelled any time from Settings → Plan & Billing (or your app store's subscription settings) — cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period. Payments are handled by Stripe or by Apple/Google in-app purchase; SiteBrief never stores your full card number.