Every Item, Accounted For: Descriptive Inventory & Storage Recap

For a lot of movers, descriptive inventory is something that happens on paper, in carbon copy, and only when a customer or contract requires it.

This month, we brought together moving company owners and operators to look at what changes when that process moves into SmartMoving. The session was hosted by Edward Sanchez. He was joined by Chris Saad, who spends his time in the field with moving companies nationwide, and Holly Prentice, who built these features.

Together they covered two connected tools many of you already have access to: Descriptive Inventory and Storage Inventory.

The idea behind both is simple. Capture every item and its condition once, on move day, and let that record follow the shipment everywhere it goes: onto the truck, into your warehouse, through your customer portal, and all the way to final delivery, without anyone retyping a thing.

Missed the webinar?

Watch the full recording here.

Descriptive Inventory: Your Best Claims Defense Starts at Origin

A descriptive inventory is an itemized list of everything being moved. Every item, including mover-packed and owner-packed cartons, gets a unique tag number, and the crew notes its condition: scratches, dents, loose hardware, or any unusual wear. The shipper reviews and signs the inventory at origin and again at destination.

As Chris explained, the FMCSA requires a documented inventory on interstate moves, and military shipments require one on local moves too. That requirement is the floor.

Done well, a descriptive inventory:

• Protects you from incorrect claims by documenting the condition of every item before it leaves the home
• Creates a premium customer experience that shippers notice, especially on VIP moves
• Becomes a competitive advantage in a market where most of the industry still runs on paper

Inventory in the Crew App: Fast to Capture, Easy to Adopt

When SmartMoving talked with movers before building this feature, one theme came up again and again: the foremen who had done inventories for years were comfortable with the process, but newer crew members were hard to get on board.

Holly's team designed the crew app experience so anyone on the truck can pick it up with minimal training.

• Pre-filled job details carry your company name, customer name, and origin and destination addresses straight onto the shipper's PDF, with optional fields for van line and Department of Defense moves
• A Common Items tab built from the 25 items that show up in about 80% of inventories completed in SmartMoving, fully customizable from your master inventory list
• Plain English damage badges let crews mark what the damage is and where it is on the item, with no exception codes or location codes to memorize
• Photos, notes, and room assignments for every item, with room for 10 or more photos per item and a notes field for serial numbers or details like where the chandelier bulbs were packed
• High value flags that highlight items on the inventory and the final PDF so everyone knows what needs extra attention
• Bulk entry for boxes so crews can add six owner-packed medium boxes at once and copy the same packing type, contents, and damages to all of them
• QR code and barcode scanning to tag items at origin and check them off at every stop after

Before signing, the crew walks the shipper through a read-only review screen, so everyone agrees on what was documented and nothing can be changed without the crew. The carrier and shipper sign on the device, and a clean, typed PDF is generated automatically.

Back in the office, the descriptive inventory report is available on the opportunity the moment the crew starts capturing items. Move coordinators can watch items, damages, and photos come in live, and the signed PDF is saved to the opportunity's documents.

"Everything on the document, no matter who's entering it, looks the same," Holly said. "If I have a claim submitted six months down the road, I just go to the document. It's very clear for me to read, and I can see what damages we had already notated at the origin."

Checks at Every Stop: From Truck to Warehouse to Final Delivery

Once an inventory is captured, crews use checks to confirm every item arrives, the digital version of the "bingo" process many movers already know. The flow is the same at every stop, so crews learn it once.

• Three ways to check off items: scan QR codes or barcodes, enter item numbers on a keypad, or tap through a numbered list
• New damages tracked separately from the origin check, with a date, time stamp, and the user who recorded them
• Warehouse checks that capture releasing agent and receiving agent signatures to document the custody exchange between the driver and the warehouse manager
• Destination and final destination checks that support multi-stop deliveries, so you know exactly where every item was dropped off
• An updated PDF after every check with a new page showing which items stayed on the truck and which items had new damages recorded

Every check is optional, so you can match the process to what you need to defend a claim. Some movers only complete the origin inventory. Others run a check at every stop.

When items head into storage, they flow straight into the customer's storage account. If the storage account doesn't exist yet on move day, you can create it later and use Import Items to bring in items from any completed descriptive inventory for that customer.

Storage Inventory: Turn Your Warehouse Into a Trackable Line of Business

Many movers track storage the hard way: a spreadsheet that doesn't connect to anything else, managed by one person who holds all the answers. With Storage Inventory, every item in your warehouse carries its full history with it.

• A complete item record with lot and tag details, warehouse location, packing details, and every damage recorded from origin onward
• Every photo ever captured, organized by check with a date attached, plus the ability to add photos and damages while items are in storage
• An activity log for every item, including items that have already been released from your warehouse
• Bulk container assignments that automatically add new containers to the customer's monthly recurring storage charges
• Oversized item types you can create on the fly and bill for on the next invoice
• Customizable tags like Needs Repair, Needs Inspection, and Wrong Item Received that you can apply to dozens of items at once

Chris pointed out that storage customers go well beyond households. Interior designers, restoration companies, hotels, and local and state governments all store goods with movers, and they expect a digital experience. Commercial RFPs often require a self-service web portal, and offering one can support a premium rate.

The Customer Portal: Self-Service Release Requests

Your storage customers can now see and manage their items directly from the storage portal they already use to view and pay invoices.

On your side, release requests show up in three places: on the storage account, in a new Release Requests metric on your storage dashboard, and in a new column on the storage accounts page. One click on + Opportunity opens the New Opportunity Wizard with these details already filled in:

• The customer's contact details
• Their preferred date
• A Storage Outbound service type
• Your warehouse as the origin
• Their requested delivery address

The requested items carry over to the crew app, ready to scan out of the warehouse.

"Because we create opportunities for every storage request, it turns this type of business from a favor you used to do for customers into a trackable line of business," Chris said. "If scheduling and billing aren't connected to what's in the warehouse, then you certainly have revenue leaks."

Getting Set Up: QR Codes, Barcodes, and Crew Permissions

QR code and barcode scanning is now available for Descriptive Inventory.

Here's how to get started:

• Turn on scanning from Settings > Crew App > Descriptive Inventory > QR Code and Barcode Scanning
• Generate stickers from the Inventory section of any opportunity's Estimate tab. Choose QR codes or barcodes, set a quantity, starting number, prefix, suffix, and lot number, and select which details print on the label. Lot details you set here pre-fill in the crew app automatically.
• Print your way on 8.5 x 11 label sheets like Avery (templates are in the Help Center) or on a thermal roll printer like Zebra
• Enable the Manage Descriptive Inventories permission for your crew. Then choose which optional permissions to add: using the pre-move list as a starting point, editing completed inventories and resetting signatures, and bulk marking items as received

Start Small and Run It End to End

The best way to see what Descriptive Inventory and Storage Inventory can do for your business is to start with one crew, one lane, and one storage account. Run it from origin to final delivery, see how it works for your team, and roll it out from there.