Capturing a visit: notes, photos, readings and voice

You're on the roof with the panel off and one hand free. Whatever you record in the next few minutes is what the office and the customer will ever see of this visit, so Field takes it quickly and holds on to it, whether or not the phone has a bar.

Recording against a unit or the whole stop

Open the stop and each unit at the site has its own Add note, next to its photo and label. Use it for anything about that unit, and use Add note at the bottom of the stop for things that belong to the visit as a whole. Either way you get the same note: type what you found and what you did under "What you found and did", tap Voice to talk it through for up to five minutes, and take a picture with Camera or pick one from Photos. That's what the report is written from, in your words, and the office checks notes before anything goes to the customer.

The chip at the top of the note says where it goes: Whole visit, or the unit's label, like RTU-5. Tap it to put the note somewhere else before you save, and your words, photos and voice notes go with it. If the unit isn't listed, Not listed? Add a unit adds it to the stop and puts the note on it. One note goes on one unit or the whole visit, so something about three of the six RTUs belongs on the whole visit. On an iPhone each unit keeps its own open note. On Android there's one open note per stop, so if you tap Add note on a unit while a note for somewhere else is still open, Field asks whether to move that note to the unit you tapped or finish it where it is first.

Your notes are under Notes on the stop, above Equipment. Notes for the whole visit show there, newest first, with Show all for the rest. A unit's notes open from the count on its card. Unit and nameplate photos stay on the unit's card rather than in the list.

Anything that still needs fixing goes under "Recommend anything?", one item each, like "Supply fan bearing noisy, replace next visit". It reaches the report as a recommendation for the office to quote, never as work that was done. Readings, parts and the checklist have their own fields under "Readings, parts, checklist". Only the checklist items you tick go on the report as work performed. Anything you leave unticked, like the rest of the preventive maintenance list, stays on your phone, and so does a reading you didn't fill in.

If Field picks up no sound in the first three seconds, you'll see a warning to check the mic. It keeps recording, and the warning clears when it picks up sound. This checks for sound, not speech, so wind or handling noise can clear it too.

Put a reading or a photo on the unit it belongs to rather than on the stop in general. The report groups everything by unit, and a photo floating at the stop level leaves the office guessing which RTU it was.

Anything left open from an earlier visit shows on the unit under "Still open from earlier visits". Mark each one Resolved or Still open, so the office knows whether that belt or that leak still needs a quote.

Saved means saved on this phone

Field writes a note, a photo or a reading to the phone before it tells you it's saved, which is why a restart or a dead battery on the way down the ladder doesn't cost you anything. Until the office has it, the note carries a small cloud mark, and the stop's Notes list shows each note as Saved on phone or Office has it.

If Android can't save your draft, it keeps the composer open and shows Try again, so leave the note open until the phone confirms it's saved.

Voice notes work the same way with one wrinkle. The recording is safe the moment you stop, but turning it into text happens after it reaches the office, so in a basement you'll see the recording with no words under it. The text shows up with the note once it has gone up. If a recording caught no words at all, like wind or a muted mic, the note says no speech was heard rather than showing made-up text. If the app gets killed in the middle of a recording, reopen it and the recording is back in your note. On iPhone you'll see "Interrupted voice note" instead, with a way to recover it or discard it if it can't be played.

Fixing a note after you've saved it

Open the note in the stop's Notes list and tap Edit to change what it says. Only the words change: the photos, the recording and the details under "Readings, parts, checklist" stay as they are. Whoever wrote the note can edit it, and so can the visit's lead and the office. Anyone else on the visit sees the note without Edit. For a voice note you're editing the text the office wrote out from the recording, so Edit shows up once the note has sent. Edit replaces Add a correction, so a fix no longer starts a second note.

An edit saves on the phone first, like everything else, and the note reads "Edited · not sent yet" until the office has it. After that it shows who changed it and when.

If someone else changed the note before your edit reached the office, BoltWright keeps their words rather than writing over them. Your edit shows as not applied, on the note and under Needs attention. Tap Edit again to see what the note says now, with your words below it, and save to use yours. Or tap Discard edit and the note stays as they left it.

When something changes after you've written a note, like the part shows up or the unit trips again an hour later, tap Add an update on the note rather than rewriting it. Say what changed. The update is a short note of its own that sits right under the original, marked Update, and the report treats it as the latest word. Anyone on the visit can add one, and it saves on the phone first like any note. An update is words only, so start a new note for photos.

If a note went on the wrong unit, tap Move and pick the right one, or Whole visit. Move is there for the same people who can edit the note, once the note has reached the office. The note reads "Moving · not sent yet" until the office has the move. If someone moved it first, yours isn't applied and the note stays where they put it: it shows Not moved, on the note and under Needs attention, and Discard move clears it.

Units that aren't there, or are wrong

If there's a unit on the roof that isn't in the system, tap Add equipment on the stop, take a photo of the unit and one of its nameplate, give it a label like RTU-3, and save. Make, model, serial, type and tonnage fill in from the nameplate photo once it sends, so check them when they arrive, or type them yourself under Details. You can start recording against the unit right away. If a unit that is in the system has the wrong serial, model, tonnage or location, open it and fix it on the spot. Both work with no signal and go up with everything else. With the equipment tag update installed, you can also fix the label or reopen a new unit and correct it before it has sent. If your app doesn't offer label editing, the office can fix it there. The same goes for a unit that's filed under the wrong site altogether: the office can move it, and its open items go with it. If they move a unit while a change of yours is still waiting to go up, your change is kept for the office to review rather than landing on the wrong site.

The unit photo and the nameplate photo

Each unit has one main photo and one nameplate photo, on its card in the stop and on the site, so you can check you're standing at the right RTU and that the plate matches before you start. Once photos taken on a unit have sent, BoltWright picks the best unit shot and the nameplate from them, and it never uses a picture with a person in it as the unit photo. To use a different one, tap the photo, then Change, and pick another of that unit's photos or take a new one. Remove clears it. Your pick always beats the automatic one, and it works without signal. A make, model or serial that came off the nameplate says From nameplate until somebody changes it.

Some sites have more than one building, and the office sets those up by name. A unit belongs to one building on its site, so RTU-1 on the north building and RTU-1 on the south building are two different units with two different histories even though the labels match. Check which one you're standing on before you record against it. Field can't create a building or move a unit to one, so a unit you add from the phone arrives without a building and the office puts it on the right one.

Small parts don't get their own unit. A failed thermostat goes in the note for the unit it serves, with a photo if that helps, and the same goes for any part that small. Adding it as a new unit leaves the site with a standalone asset called "thermostat" that the office has to clean up later.

When it doesn't belong to a stop yet

Sometimes you need to write something down before the stop exists on your phone, or it isn't about a stop at all. Use Quick note on Today. It saves like any other note. Pick the stop as you save it if it's on your route, or leave it and choose the stop later from the Quick notes list on Today, which works offline too. You pick the stop, not the unit, and nobody in the office can file it for you, so do it once the visit is on your route.

Receipts from the supplier

If you picked up a contactor or a box of filters for the job, photograph the receipt in a note on the stop with Camera, the same as any other photo, or pick it from Photos if you took it earlier. Don't set it as a unit's main photo or nameplate photo. There's nothing new on the phone and nothing to fill in: once the note reaches the office, BoltWright reads the receipt and puts it on the job as an expense for the office to check.

Saying or typing "receipt" in the note helps it get picked out, and so does "invoice" or "packing slip". Up to four receipts can go in one note. If you paid with your own card, say so ("my card", "I paid", "reimburse") and the expense names you as the one who paid. If the total can't be read off the photo, nothing is recorded and the office adds it from the picture, which stays with the visit's photos either way. Once it's read as a receipt, it never prints on the customer's report, so the customer doesn't see what the parts cost the shop. The AI that drafts the report and any quote doesn't see it either. A receipt in a quick note counts once that note is filed to a stop.

Bolt can take it down for you

With a connection, you can tell Bolt what you found instead of typing it, or tap Ask Bolt about this in the note. Bolt can save a note or readings against the unit you name, add or correct a unit, and mark an open item Resolved or Still open, and it tells you what it saved. Without signal, record a voice note instead. It keeps everything you said, and it goes up with the rest.

What the office sees

Everything you capture on a stop feeds the service report for that site. The draft groups your readings, photos and notes by unit, and by building where the site has more than one. BoltWright picks the photos that show the customer the equipment and the work, so a clear shot of the problem and of the fix goes further than ten of the same thing. The office reviews it all before anything goes to the customer. The office can't build the report off a photo that's still on your phone, so if your manager is waiting on a report, the words they're waiting for are Office has it.

Updated October 28, 2026.