Mr Restore has seen many homes suffer from fire, water, and storm damage in Dallas, Fort Worth, and all surrounding communities. Unfortunately, when your home suffers from damage, it is likely that many of your possessions will be damaged or destroyed as well. You should complete a home inventory in order to keep track of your belongings in case of an emergency.
It can be a tedious process to keep track of all the items in your home. It doesn’t matter if you live in a small apartment or a two-story house. You should take some time to organize and go through your home inventory, even if it feels like a chore. Using a home inventory app is a great way to keep track of what you have. Here’s how to pick the right one for you.
Why Use a Home Inventory App?
Put simply, a home inventory is a list of your personal possessions. Such a list should also have each item’s estimated financial value. An up-to-date home inventory will:
- Help you find and buy the right insurance
- Make it easier to file a claim
- Provide evidence of a financial loss for tax purposes
You can use a home inventory app to organize your belongings. They can even help calculate your assets total value.
Choosing the Right App
There are some options for home inventory apps available. They offer a variety of features like:
- Being able to add photos
- Sort the items based on their location
- Store the inventory on the cloud
To determine the best app for you, look at your needs and how detailed you want your inventory to be.
Here are a few apps to consider:
- Sortly: This app allows you to organize your home inventory to best suit your needs using folders and subfolders. In addition to photos, you can add other details such as serial numbers and purchase dates. This app is free at the basic level, but there is an annual fee for the premium level.
- Memento Database: You can choose from 3,000 templates to best store your inventory. You can add any information you need for each item. Plus, you get to control how everything is saved.
- Nest Egg: You can have up to 10 HD photos of each item. You can also scan barcodes for the product information. Another great feature is the batch edit. This allows you to edit groups of items instead of changing them one by one. Unfortunately, this information stays in your phone with no backup to the cloud. However, because there is no backup, there is also no monthly fee.
- MyStuff: You can manually add items to your inventory or auto-fill using the barcode. It also has an auto-sync feature that let you share with your other devices and other users. The Lite version lets you store 15 items. To get unlimited items, you must upgrade to MyStuff 2 Pro.
- Magic Home Inventory: You can build a home inventory to cover more than one property. You can create each home's inventory by breaking down items room by room. Each item can have a photo and description, as well as its location. The app also has a search feature that might be useful when you need to find items quickly.
- BluePlum Home Inventory: Your items can be organized by their location in your home or business. They can also be "tagged" which can make searching for them easier. Each item description can include photos, videos, user manuals, receipts, and other related documents. This way an item’s essential information is kept together. Finally, you can keep a record of the item’s value. From there, you can track their value as it depreciates over time.
- Smart Inventory System: You can scan your item’s QR codes to quickly build your inventory. This will help fill in details about your items such as their name, description, quantity, and barcode. You can make your own custom fields if the ones provided don’t fit your needs. You can easily locate items using the app's voice search feature.
Mr. Restore recommends that you keep an accurate home inventory just in case a disaster strikes. Although you can do one on paper, using an app that allows photos, descriptions, and other identifying information will certainly make the claims process easier. Remember, if your family or business does suffer from a fire damage, water damage, or storm damage, immediately contact Mr Restore. Our experienced technicians will arrive at your home or business within 60 minutes to assess the damage and help your life get back to normal.
