Judge a snagging list app on one plot rather than on a feature list: log twenty snags with photos, split them by trade and get a PDF out before you reach the van. Punch List & Site Audit is built for that walkround — no signal needed, a marked-up photo and a responsible trade on every snag, and the PDF made on the phone. Below is what to test, and where a focused app stops being the right tool.
Choose the one that gets through a real walkround: a photo you can mark up on every snag, a trade and a due date against it, a report you can cut down to one subcontractor, and a PDF built on the phone with no signal. Punch List & Site Audit does all four, and it is free on iPhone, iPad and Android, with watermarked PDFs until you upgrade to Pro.
Learn more: how to send each subcontractor their own snag list.
Snagging apps look alike in a store listing and diverge the moment the list leaves your hands. Work backwards from the three things a UK job actually needs out of a walkround.
Numbered snags, each with a location, a photo and a status, so a schedule of defects at practical completion reads as evidence rather than an email thread. Check that the app numbers snags consistently and that those numbers survive onto the report.
A joiner will not read sixty pages to find six items. Check that you can cut the list down to one assignee and to the snags still open, and that the result prints as one line per snag rather than a page each.
If the report needs a laptop and an evening, the list ages before anyone acts on it. Check that the PDF is built on the device, that it shares straight from the phone, and that none of it depends on having signal in a half-finished building.
Half an hour on a plot you were walking anyway tells you more than any feature table. Run these six steps with each app on your shortlist.
Create a project with the client's name and the address. If starting a job is a chore you will skip it, and snags from three sites end up in one list.
Give each one a title, a description and a location. In Punch List & Site Audit, Save & Add Another returns an empty form so the walk keeps moving; anything that needs more than a few taps per snag will not survive a busy handover.
Take a photo, then add an arrow, a circle, a numbered marker or a line of text in the colour and thickness you want. An app that only attaches pictures leaves someone on site guessing which socket you meant.
Set the assignee, a category such as Electrical, Plumbing or Painting, a priority and a due date. A list without owners is a list you end up chasing yourself.
Filter the report by that assignee and keep only Open and In Progress snags. Compact gives one line per snag, Detailed a page each with full-size photos. Check the snag numbers still match what the app shows.
Share the PDF by email, WhatsApp or Messages. Photo quality is yours to choose and the file size is shown before you send, which matters when a mail server bounces anything over a few megabytes.
After the walkround, these are the points that decide it. They are worth asking of any app on your shortlist, not only this one.
Screens from the iPhone app, matched to the checks above.
Title, description, location and photos sit on one screen, and Save & Add Another starts the next snag immediately.
Annotate the photo before it reaches the report: arrow, circle, rectangle, numbered markers, text and freehand, with undo and redo.
Status, priority, category, assignee and due date are set on the snag itself, so nothing has to be reconstructed from memory later.
Search and filter by status, priority, category and assignee, both in the app and again when the report is generated.
Snag numbers, status, priority, due dates, assignees and photos, generated on the device while you are still on site.
Every project keeps its own snags, open count and progress, and search finds a job by name, client or location.
A template costs nothing and holds up until photos are involved. Then the pictures sit in a phone gallery, the rows get retyped in the evening, and nobody can tell which image belongs to which line. If your snags never carry photos a template is fine; if they do, it is the bottleneck.
Suits site managers running handovers, fit-out and refurbishment contractors, snagging inspectors and homebuyers: anyone whose job is to find defects, get them to the right trade and see them closed without putting a whole supply chain through new software.
Suits jobs where snags have to be pinned to drawings, tied to RFIs and document control, or edited by several companies inside one system. Expect licences, configuration and training to match.
Each person's projects live on their own device and subcontractors receive a PDF rather than a login, which is why it needs no onboarding from the trades. PunchList Business adds shared team projects for crews who do need to work on the same lists.
Keep the photo with the snag. Each item carries a title, a description, a location, a status, a priority, a trade and a due date, and the marked-up photo travels with it into the PDF, so nobody has to match pictures to a list afterwards.
For most walkrounds, yes. Punch List & Site Audit is free with unlimited projects, snags and photos, and its PDF reports carry a watermark. Pro removes the watermark, puts your company logo and contact details on the report, and unlocks project import, export and iCloud sync.
This one does not. Projects, snags and photos stay on the device and the PDF is generated there too, so a plot, basement or riser with no Wi-Fi is no obstacle. You only need coverage when you send the report.
It holds up until photos matter. Once each snag needs a marked-up picture, a spreadsheet leaves the images in one place and the rows in another, and the file gets retyped in the evening. An app keeps the two together and produces the PDF on site.
Choose the platform if snags have to be pinned to drawings, tied to RFIs and document control, or edited by several companies in one system. Choose a focused app if the job is finding defects, getting them to the right trade and closing them out without onboarding the supply chain.
In the app, each person's projects live on their own device and subcontractors receive a PDF rather than an account. PunchList Business adds shared team projects for crews who need to work on the same lists.
Free to download on iPhone, iPad and Android. Run these checks on your next walkround and see how far the list gets before you leave site.
