Apps make home inventory process painless.
Home Inventory for Mac and its companion iOS applications fill a very specific need, which is to meticulously inventory all of your belongings in case you should ever have to file an insurance claim to replace them. Though you can surely do this without Home Inventory, from my experience, I think the application is a worthwhile investment (both in buying the app and the time it takes to use it).
When I was a senior in high school, my best friend’s house caught fire. The fire started in the room next to hers, so though the house was mostly okay, nothing of hers survived. Like me, she had a massive collection of books and losing all of them was one of the worst parts of the whole ordeal. From then on, she kept a minutely detailed log of everything, just in case something like that would happen again. I started cataloging my books as well (with her enthusiastic help).
Beyond books, Home Inventory works with the idea of knowing what you have and compiles all the necessary tools together in one convenient place. With it, you can keep track of your appliances, furniture, tech, art, and personal belongings with photographs, receipts, info logs, and files of warranties and manuals. You can then match up your inventory against your insurance policies to make sure everything is covered. It’s relatively easy to input all this information, too, with the options of using the iOS companion app, Remote Entry, to add to your inventory from your phone. I was recently able to review the latest release of the app, version 3.5, which feature two huge updates – Home Inventory Inbox and Photo Entry Mode. With the Home Inventory Inbox you can send receipts for online purchases to the app from email, a web browser, or other apps and they will be stored until you are ready to organize them. Photo Entry Mode allows you to add items quickly from your iPhone, iPad, or even the iPod Touch. Photo mode also incorporates dictation as an input method.
I particularly liked using Remote Entry in conjunction with Home Inventory, as it made it much easier to add photos and update entries around the house without having to run back and forth to my workstation. You can even use the app to scan barcodes on your items so you don’t have to input all the information manually. The one downside to this is that you have to have a certain window open in Home Inventory in order to do a remote entry. You can add things to the iOS app offline, but there isn’t a way to permanently sync the two applications that I’ve found.
Remote Entry isn’t the only tool available to Home Inventory, however. There are also the iOS app, Mobile Backup, and a print plugin that allows you to send receipts to Home Inventory from your email, browser, or other applications.
Really, Home Inventory makes the entire process pretty painless. Its user guide offers some helpful tips on the process to make use of the app as streamlined as possible.
DOWNLOAD – iOS – FREE
DOWNLOAD – MAC – $24.99
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