How Appraisal Orbit works
From Appraisal Request to Organized Workfile — Without Entering the Same Information Over and Over.
Appraisal Orbit is a complete appraisal-management platform. Reads supported order documents, suggests assignment information for review, and carries confirmed details into the tools used throughout the appraisal process. Click any feature below to see exactly what it does.
Upload the documents you already receive — an engagement letter, purchase contract, order form, tax record, or other assignment document. Supported formats include PDF, DOCX, PNG, JPEG, and pasted text. Scanned PDFs with limited extractable text may be processed using page images and vision, subject to page limits.
Appraisal Orbit identifies and suggests assignment information for review — including borrower, client, property, contact information, due date, assignment type, and special instructions. You review and confirm each suggestion before anything is saved to the order. Appraisal Orbit does not extract the appraisal fee or the appraisal effective date from the order document, and suggestions are for review — they are not a substitute for professional verification. Appraisal Orbit does not make appraisal decisions.
Once confirmed, that information carries forward into the bid, the order, and the rest of the assignment, and the original source document stays attached to the workfile for reference. If the request came in as a bid, accepting it preserves the information already gathered — converting an accepted bid into an active order doesn't mean starting over.
Fields that may be suggested include:
- Client
- Borrower
- Owner
- Property address
- City, state, ZIP, county
- Parcel number
- Lender
- Property-access contacts
- Names, emails, phones
- Due date
- Property type
- Intended use / users
- Appraisal purpose
- Property rights
- Scope information
- Inspection type
- Special instructions
- Legal description
- Site or building size
- Zoning
- Loan reference
Instead of reading an order and typing the same information into several places, the source document and confirmed assignment details stay connected — reducing repetitive typing and the missed details that happen at the start of an assignment.
Send and receive email from inside the order — to clients, lenders, borrowers, agents, and other contacts — without leaving Appraisal Orbit or switching to a separate mail client. Send signed engagement letters and other order documents directly from the assignment.
Every message and attachment is saved with the order automatically, building a complete, chronological communication history that anyone in the office can review later. Signal messages can use assignment merge fields, and Signal Center helps surface communication and activity that needs attention.
Text-message availability is subject to carrier approval, recipient consent, and office configuration.
Because messages are attached to the assignment instead of scattered across individual inboxes, a colleague can open the order and see the full prior conversation instead of guessing at what's already been said — reducing scattered emails and lost attachments.
The order and workfile are one connected assignment record, not separate systems to keep in sync. Confirmed information from intake carries through the bid, the order, inspection scheduling, the workfile, billing, and report setup.
Assignments move through a visible lifecycle — from request to bid or order, through inspection and workfile, to billing and report setup — with status, appraiser assignment, hold status, and due dates tracked on the same record.
The goal is one connected assignment record rather than separate copies of the same information living in different places.
Prepare a bid using assignment information already entered or identified. Record the proposed fee, timing, scope, property details, and notes.
Bid statuses are Draft, Sent, Accepted, Declined, and No response. Accepting a bid marks it accepted. Conversion to an active order is manual through Launch Pad. Accepted bid information can be used to create or complete the order, and supporting bid documents may be carried into the new order when selected.
Offices can also take requests directly from clients through a branded public quote form and embeddable online-ordering widgets, so new business doesn't have to start with a phone call or a stray email.
The office can move from request to quote to active assignment while preserving the core information already gathered.
Accept or decline an assignment from inside the order. Choose the engagement signer from saved office staff profiles, and their on-file signature is applied to the lender's engagement letter or order-form PDF using detected or configured signature placement.
Accepting produces a signed return package — a cover sheet plus the signed form — stored with the order's workfile, and it can be emailed directly to the client or lender contact from inside Appraisal Orbit.
The signed engagement letter stays with the assignment it belongs to, instead of living in a separate email thread or a folder on someone's desktop.
Store the property-access contact with the order. Record inspection dates and times, and view Today, This Week, Upcoming, and Unscheduled inspection lists. The appointment stays associated with the order, property, contact, and due date instead of becoming a separate calendar entry with missing context.
Prepare a field sheet using confirmed assignment information — client, property, inspection-contact, due-date, and note details — and print or download it before the inspection.
Confirmed assignment details travel into the field without rebuilding a separate inspection worksheet from scratch.
The order and workfile are one connected assignment record. Files stay attached to the correct assignment, organized by appraisal-specific categories, with report-use and workfile-only material separated when needed.
Bulk-upload subject photos and let Appraisal Orbit suggest categories, descriptions, and feature tags for review — you review and edit suggested descriptions, and manual descriptions remain authoritative. Choose Report or Workfile only for each photo, and reorder report photos as needed.
Workfile categories
- Final reports
- Comparable sources
- Subject materials
- Supporting documents
- Prior appraisals
- General workfile
- External research
Files remain available under the office's retention policy. The appraiser and office remain responsible for applicable record-retention requirements.
The workfile grows with the assignment and can be reviewed without searching through email, Downloads, or personal folders.
The appraisal fee is entered and associated with the order. Client or lender billing information supports invoice preparation. The office can track invoiced, paid, unpaid, and overdue status, along with payment date and payment method. Payment posting is manual.
The billing record stays connected to the assignment that created it.
Client organizations, branches, and contacts are saved to the office and reused across assignments — including delivery preferences, standing instructions, and notes — instead of being re-entered order by order.
Link a contact to an order in a few clicks, and Appraisal Orbit can backfill client records automatically from historical order data as your office's client list grows.
The client directory grows with your office instead of living in someone's personal contacts app.
Invite staff by email, assign roles, and manage login access for everyone in the office. Owners can activate or deactivate a member, mark them as an appraiser, and control billable-seat status, which stays in sync with billing.
Each office member can have a signer profile — name, license numbers, and a saved signature image — used for staffing and signing reports and engagement letters.
One office subscription, with visible control over who has access to what.
Add a task to any order — a title, an optional description, and a due date — and move it through Pending, In Progress, Completed, or Blocked as work happens.
Tasks roll up into a My Tasks view on your dashboard, so what's outstanding across your assignments is visible in one place instead of scattered across sticky notes and order comments.
Due dates and follow-ups stay attached to the assignment they belong to.
Mission Control summarizes active orders, in-progress assignments, due this week, overdue or due soon, inspections this week, inspections not scheduled, unassigned orders, orders on hold, and fee pipeline.
Each summary leads back to the actual order, so Mission Control is a starting point rather than a second list to maintain.
Pre-Delivery Review scans an uploaded report against a detailed checklist — USPAP compliance, the signature block, subject description, comparable sales, math, addenda, and internal consistency — and flags items with a severity level for you to address.
E&O Review combines deterministic checks for contradictory data between report sections with an AI-assisted pass that suggests findings, an explanation of why each one matters, and a suggested fix. Every finding requires your decision — apply the suggested fix, fix it manually, skip it, or ignore it. Nothing is applied automatically.
AI assists the review — the appraiser remains in control of every decision.
Narrative Report Writing is for both commercial and residential narrative appraisal reports. Pricing is $149/month for the first appraiser and $99/month for each additional appraiser. The plan includes all Appraisal Management features — Narrative Report Writing cannot be purchased without Appraisal Management.
The goal is to use confirmed assignment, subject, workfile, photo, and analysis information to support report preparation and reduce copying information into a separate report-writing program.
Narrative Report Writing is not available for purchase today.
One Connected Appraisal Workflow
Less repeated typing. Fewer disconnected systems. One connected assignment record where documents stay with the order and confirmed information moves forward — with the appraiser remaining in control.