Survey practice software
Quote it, survey it, send it, keep it.
From the first phone call to the report the client opens that afternoon, and the archive that still has it in ten years. Quote, capture, draft, deliver, get paid, keep it all. On the desk and on the dock.
No subscription · nothing charged until you release a case · one surveyor or ten
Report finished 2 hours ago. Client notified.
Seven things have to happen. Today they happen in seven different places.
Where the day goes
Half the job is not on the boat.
Working surveyors put about four and a half hours into the survey and another four and a quarter into writing it up, which makes roughly half the work desk time. Everyone is attacking the writing. Nobody has touched the hours on either side of it, which is where byHIN lives.
Yours. byHIN only makes sure nothing you capture there has to be typed again later.
Also yours, in whatever tool you already trust. We do not touch the body of your report.
Unbillable, invisible, and spread across a calendar, a folder, an inbox and a spreadsheet. This is the part we take.
Hours from Worksmith Marine, The State of Marine Surveying, 2026. Published by a vendor in this category.
Delivery
Paid and delivered in the same minute.
Nearly every surveyor already holds the report until the balance clears. Doing it by hand costs you a reminder email, a phone call and an awkward silence. byHIN holds it for you and opens it the second the money lands.
And the photo set does not go out on a share link that dies in thirty days.
- 01Invoice and report in one linkThe client pays and reads in the same place. No 40MB attachment bouncing off a broker's mail server.
- 02Released on paymentCard or transfer. The link opens itself when it clears, at any hour, without you.
- 03You see when it was openedDate, time and by whom. That record stays with the case.
- 04No expiryThe client can come back to it in four years. So can you.
- 05Watermarked on requestYour name on every page, for the reports you would rather did not travel.
On the boat
Capture it once, at the dock.
Photos, voice notes, moisture readings and engine hours go straight onto the case from your phone, tagged to the part of the vessel you were standing in front of. Uploads keep going in the background and resume on their own when the yard's signal drops. By the time you sit down to write, the material is sorted and nothing needs transcribing.
Every frame lands on the case at full resolution and stays there, not just the forty that made the report.
Dictate findings with wet hands in a bilge. Transcribed and attached to the case, ready to work from.
Moisture percentages, engine hours, serial numbers and meter readings recorded against the area they came from, next to the photo that shows it.
History
Indexed by hull, so it is still findable in 2034.
Cases file themselves against the HIN, not against a client's surname. The same boat under two owners is one history. When another member holds a record on a hull you are working, you can see that it exists and ask them to release it, and nothing moves without their client's authorization.
Assist
Your notes in. A draft out. You decide what it says.
The findings you dictated at the dock come back as clean, readable prose in the structure your reports already use. It is a draft, not a report. You read it, change what is wrong, and nothing reaches a client until you have said so.
Rough voice notes and shorthand become finished paragraphs with your own phrasing and your own section order, learned from the reports you have already written.
Compares this survey against the last one on the same hull and flags recommendations that were issued, never confirmed cleared, and are about to be issued again.
Groups the day's photos by area and pairs them with the findings they support, so you are choosing rather than scrolling. Past valuations of similar hulls surface the same way.
Three things we hold to. Nothing Assist writes goes out without you approving it, and you can rewrite any of it or throw the whole draft away. Every suggestion it made is logged against the case, because a survey is an evidence document and you may one day have to account for how it was written. And you can switch Assist off entirely, for good, at which point byHIN behaves exactly as it did before: you write in whatever tool you prefer and we handle everything around it.
Working together
One surveyor, until the boat is sixty feet.
Built for a practice of one, and it stays out of your way if that is what you are. When a job needs an engine surveyor, a rigger or a second pair of eyes, add them to that case and the work stays in one place.
A specialist uploads findings and photos into your case, sees only that case, and their access ends when it closes. Free, member or not.
Their own login and case list, against the shared archive. Adding people costs nothing, because we charge for cases, not seats.
Books the work, sends the reports, chases the invoices. As many as you need, never counted.
The export guarantee
You keep a copy. Including the day you leave.
Your workfile is a professional obligation, not a subscription feature. byHIN keeps an offline copy of your whole archive up to date in open formats: reports as PDF, photos as original files, records as CSV. Cancel and you keep it. Nothing you are required to retain is ever held behind a payment.
Surveyors working to USPAP must retain the workfile for at least five years after preparation, or at least two years after the final disposition of any judicial proceeding in which they gave testimony, whichever period expires last.
Pricing
You pay for the work you actually did.
No subscription, no seats, no minimum. A dollar a foot when a report goes out, a few cents a gigabyte for what you keep, and nothing at all for the months you are quiet. Both meters are visible in the app before anything is charged.
Charged once, when the report is released to the client, which is the moment you get paid. You bill your work by the foot. So do we.
Full-resolution photo sets are the bulk of it. Hold a little and pay a little. Older cases move to archive storage on their own and get cheaper.
Only if another surveyor asks for a prior record on a hull you hold, and only if you decide to release it. You set the fee.
Start from a practice like yours, then move the sliders.
Ten surveys a month, mostly 40 footers, a few years of photos on file.
At this volume most firms do better on a negotiated rate, with invoicing on account instead of per case. Tell us what your year looks like and we will price it properly.
Talk to us about enterpriseCost is exact. Hours are an estimate, built from about two hours twenty per case: 25 minutes quoting and scheduling, 40 minutes sorting photos and notes, an hour drafting from your own dictation, 15 minutes invoicing and chasing payment. A survey day plus its write-up runs about 8.75 hours, which is where the second figure comes from.
Get started
Tell us who you are, and we will tell you when byHIN opens.
There is nothing to buy yet. Request access below and, while you are here, six quick questions about how you work today shape what gets built first.
We will email you about byHIN. Nothing else, and never a shared list. Privacy notice.
Every answer saves the moment you pick it. Skip anything, come back anytime with the link from your email.
Thanks for the details. As one of byHIN's founding surveyors, your back catalogue migrates in free and your rate locks at what it is on the day byHIN opens. We will be in touch before launch.
Questions surveyors ask first
Do I have to change how I write reports?
No. Keep your report writer and byHIN will take the finished file and handle everything before and after it. If you would rather start from a draft of your own dictated notes, Assist will write one, and you can turn that off permanently if you never want to see it.
Will the AI write my findings?
It will write a draft of them from the notes you dictated, in the structure your reports already use. It does not decide what the findings are, it does not send anything, and it never speaks to your client. Nothing leaves the case until you have read it and approved it, and every suggestion it made stays on the record. If you would rather it did not exist, switch it off and the rest of byHIN works exactly the same.
Can another surveyor read my reports?
They can see that a record exists on a hull, its date and its type. The contents move only if you release them, and only after your client has authorized it. If the authorization does not come back, the release does not happen.
What if I only do a few surveys a month?
Then you pay for a few surveys a month. There is no subscription and no minimum, so a quiet January costs you close to nothing and a busy March costs what it earned.
What happens when I retire?
Your retention obligation outlives your practice. We hold a retired archive in read-only form at a reduced rate for as long as you need it, and your offline copy is yours from the first week regardless.
Are you affiliated with SAMS or NAMS?
No. byHIN is independent and is not endorsed by or acting on behalf of any accreditation body.