Glossary

PDI stands for Pre-Delivery Inspection: the check a dealer performs on a car before handover. What it covers, how long it takes, and what to ask for.

A permit to work is a formal written authorisation allowing a specific high-risk job to start at a specific place and time, issued by a named authorised person only once the hazards are identified, the precautions and isolations are verified in place, and the work party has confirmed it understands them.

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person, which under Article 4(1) GDPR covers far more than a name or an address: a photograph, a video clip, a voice recording and an online identifier all qualify. Context decides the edge cases.

What personalized video is: a video made for one viewer, with their name, car or case in it. How businesses use it in sales and service.

A phone up is an inbound sales call from a customer enquiring about a vehicle, treated as a live opportunity in the same way a floor up is. The only goal of the call is an appointment, because a phone up that ends in a price quote and a thank you is usually a lost one.

Photo documentation software is a category of tools that captures photos and short video on site, stamps each file with time, location and device data, organises the files by job, project or case, and turns them into a report someone who was not there can act on.

A photo estimate is a repair cost assessment produced from photographs of a damaged vehicle instead of a physical inspection, written by an estimator or generated by an estimating system and signed off by a person. It is now one of the most common appraisal routes in motor claims.

Photo manipulation detection is the checking of a submitted photo or video for signs that it was edited, generated, re-photographed from a screen, or reused from elsewhere, before a claims handler or inspector relies on it. It produces signals for a human to weigh, not a verdict.

A photo request link is a web link sent to a customer, tenant, driver or contractor by SMS, email, WhatsApp or QR code that opens a guided set of photo steps in the phone's browser, so the organisation receives the specific images it needs, in order, with time and location attached, instead of an unstructured batch of attachments.

A photo requirement is the specified set of images that must be present, shot by shot, before an inspection, claim or condition report is accepted as complete. It names each image by subject and angle, so the same evidence arrives every time, whoever is holding the phone.

Planned maintenance is any maintenance work that is known about, prepared and resourced before it starts, whether the trigger is a routine interval or a fault that has already been found. The defining feature is advance notice and preparation, not the reason for the work.

Plant and machinery is the collective term for the fixed and mobile equipment a business uses to carry out its work, from excavators, cranes and forklifts to compressors, boilers and production lines, as distinct from the buildings that house it. The phrase carries a tax meaning and a safety meaning at once.

Play rate is the percentage of people who loaded a page containing a video and pressed play, calculated as plays divided by page loads. It measures one thing only: whether the thumbnail, the placement and the copy around the player earned the click.

A policy excess is the amount an insured bears on each claim before the insurer's liability begins, usually a compulsory excess set by the insurer plus any voluntary excess the customer chose. It is the UK and Commonwealth term for what US policies call a deductible.

A post hire inspection is the condition check carried out when a hired asset comes back, set against the pre hire record to identify what changed during the hire. It is not an assessment of condition. It is a comparison, and it fails whenever the two records were shot differently.

Predictive maintenance is maintenance triggered by the measured condition of an asset rather than by a calendar date or a runtime interval, so the work is scheduled from evidence of degradation instead of from a fixed plan. Vibration, thermography, oil analysis or a structured inspection supplies the signal.

A pre hire inspection is the condition record taken of an asset immediately before it is released to a hirer, signed by both sides. It does nothing on the day it is made. It is the baseline every later damage claim gets measured against, and no charge survives without it.

Pre paid maintenance is a plan sold at the point of vehicle sale that covers a defined set of scheduled services for a fixed term or mileage, paid up front and redeemed at the dealership over time. It is booked as a liability at the sale, not as income, and earned as each service is performed.

A pre purchase inspection, or PPI, is a condition check commissioned before a buying decision by the party carrying the risk of that decision. It reports the state of the asset at one point in time so the buyer can proceed, renegotiate, or walk away.

A pre start check is the inspection an operator or driver carries out before a vehicle or machine is used, covering safety critical items that can be checked without dismantling anything, with every defect found reported and recorded before the asset is put to work.

A pre-trip inspection is the check a driver carries out on a vehicle before starting a journey to be satisfied it is in safe operating condition. In the United States it is a duty under 49 CFR 396.13; in the UK and Ireland the equivalent is the daily walkaround check before first use.

A pre-use inspection is the short visual and functional check the user makes on a piece of work equipment before each use or shift, to spot a defect that would make it unsafe. It applies to plant, powered access, forklifts, ladders, harnesses, hand tools and vehicles, and is separate from the periodic inspection a competent person carries out.

Preventive maintenance is work carried out on a fixed time or runtime schedule to slow or catch degradation before an asset fails, with the calendar or the runtime counter deciding when the work is due rather than the measured state of the machine. Filter changes, lubrication and scheduled inspections are typical.

A pre-visit assessment is a structured check carried out before a technician is dispatched, gathering the equipment details, fault evidence and site conditions a planner needs to decide who to send, with what parts, and how urgently. It sits between intake and scheduling.

Product registration is the process by which an owner records their purchase with the manufacturer, linking one serial number to a named contact, a purchase date and an address. It exists so the maker can reach that specific unit later, for warranty, service or safety reasons. Most owners never complete it.

Proof of condition is the evidence record of an asset's physical state at a defined moment: a vehicle at hire pick-up, a flat at move-in, a machine at delivery. It exists so that any change found later can be dated and attributed rather than argued about.

Proof of loss is the formal, usually sworn statement in which a policyholder sets out what was lost or damaged, when and how it happened, and the amount claimed, with documentation the insurer can verify. It is a condition of the policy, not a courtesy.

In field service, proof of work is documented visual evidence that a job was actually completed to standard, captured at the point of completion. It replaces a status field that says Completed with something a supervisor, customer or auditor can look at and check.

A property damage claim is a claim for physical damage to tangible property, covering the cost to repair or replace it rather than injury to a person. It can be first party or third party depending on whose property was damaged and whose policy responds.

A property inspection is a documented visual check of a rented property's condition, carried out by a landlord, letting agent or inventory clerk at a set point in the tenancy. It records the state of the building, its fixtures and its contents on a specific, evidenced date.

Provenance is the documented origin and handling history of a piece of evidence: where it came from, who produced it, how it reached you, and what happened to it along the way. It answers questions about the file's journey rather than about the scene it depicts.

Public key verification is the process of checking a digital signature against the signer's published public key, so anyone holding the signed data, the signature and that key can confirm the data has not changed since it was signed and that it was signed by the matching private key. No vendor login required.

A PUWER inspection is the inspection of work equipment required by Regulation 6 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies where the safety of the equipment depends on how it was installed, or where it is exposed to conditions that cause deterioration, and it must be carried out by a competent person and recorded.

Gross profit per unit is the total gross a dealership earns on each vehicle retailed, calculated as front end gross plus back end gross. Commonly written PVR, for per vehicle retailed, it is the single number most dealer principals use to judge a deal, a salesperson or a month.

A progressive web app, or PWA, is a mobile web app that adds an installable identity: a manifest file and a service worker let it be added to the home screen, launch without browser chrome, cache its own files for offline use, and on supported platforms receive push notifications.

A quality assurance inspection is a planned check that work or product conforms to a specified requirement, carried out at a defined point in the process, by a defined method, and recorded so the result can be relied on afterwards. The specification, not the inspector's judgement, sets the pass mark.

A racking inspection is a documented check of pallet racking and other storage equipment for damage, overloading and misuse, carried out at three levels under HSE guidance HSG76: immediate reporting by staff, a regular visual inspection by a trained person, and an annual expert inspection. Damage is classified green, amber or red to decide what happens to the bay.

A RAG report is the customer-facing output of a vehicle health check in which every inspected item is graded red for work needed now, amber for work needed soon, or green for checked and in order. The name stands for red, amber, green, the traffic-light convention used across project management and fleet compliance.

Reactive maintenance is repairing or replacing an asset after it has already failed, with no scheduled preventive work carried out beforehand, which means the failure itself decides when the work happens and what it costs. Also called run-to-failure or breakdown maintenance, it is still the dominant mode in industry.

Recommended work is the list of repair and maintenance items a technician identifies during an inspection and puts to the customer for authorisation. It covers everything beyond the job that was booked, priced as separate lines on the repair order, and it is the number declined work gets measured against.

Recon cost is the total spend needed to bring an acquired used vehicle to retail standard, covering parts, labour, sublet work and detailing, charged against that unit before any gross is counted. Dealers track it per vehicle, not as a department total.

Reconditioning is the work a dealership does to bring an acquired used vehicle up to retail standard before it reaches the frontline, covering mechanical repair, safety items, bodywork and detailing. Dealers shorten it to recon, and measure it in days rather than hours.

A red flag indicator is a single observable characteristic of a customer, a transaction or a claim that experience associates with financial crime, and that tells a reviewer to ask a further question. It raises scrutiny on a file. On its own it proves nothing.

Refurbishment is the work done to return an asset to a defined serviceable standard after use, covering repair, replacement of worn components, and cosmetic reinstatement. It restores an asset to an agreed condition rather than improving it beyond its original specification.

A re-inspection is a repeat examination of an asset already inspected once, carried out either to verify that a failed item has been properly remedied, or to redo an inspection whose evidence was unusable. The two look identical on a schedule and mean very different things.

Remarketing is the disposal of vehicles at the end of their fleet or lease life, covering the grading, pricing, channel choice and sale that turn a returned asset back into cash. Its job is to recover as much of the forecast residual value as the market will actually pay.

Remote adjusting is the handling and settlement of a claim without the adjuster physically attending the loss, working instead from images, video, measurements and documentation captured at the scene. It is remote-first rather than remote-only: complex and disputed losses still get a visit.

Remote assistance is any method that lets an expert help someone at another location without travelling there, working from what they can see and control through that person's device. It covers remote control of a computer and live video assistance through a phone camera.

Remote claim inspection is the assessment of damage from video, photos and structured answers submitted by the claimant, instead of an in-person visit by an appraiser. It covers both live video sessions and asynchronous guided capture the claimant completes alone.

Remote inspection is the umbrella term for any process in which a vehicle, property, machine or site is assessed without the assessor travelling to it, covering live video sessions, guided self capture, drone and sensor methods, and desk review of submitted material.

Remote triage is the process of assessing a reported issue from a distance and deciding what happens next: resolve it remotely, request more information, or dispatch a technician. It is a decision point placed deliberately between the customer report and the schedule.

Remote troubleshooting is the process of diagnosing and resolving a fault without attending the site, using what the person standing at the equipment can tell you, show you, or do on your instruction. The quality of the outcome is set by the quality of what you can see.

Remote video inspection is an assessment carried out by an expert who is not at the location, using video captured by someone who is standing in front of it. In most industry usage the term means the live variant, with the assessor watching and directing the camera in real time.

A rental agreement is the contract under which an owner gives a customer temporary possession and use of an asset for an agreed period and price, while keeping ownership of it. It settles three things that decide almost every later argument: permitted use, what gets paid, and who carries the cost of damage.

Repair approval is the customer's authorisation, given in writing, by phone or through a digital link, for a workshop to carry out specified chargeable work on their vehicle at a stated price. It is recorded against the repair order before the work starts and covers both the booked job and any work identified during inspection.

A repair network is the managed panel of approved repairers an insurer or claims organisation uses to carry out vehicle or property repairs, operating under one set of commercial terms, technical standards and performance measures instead of being appointed claim by claim.

Repair order count is the number of repair orders a workshop opens or closes in a defined period, and it is the denominator underneath almost every other fixed operations metric. It measures visits, not revenue, and the two move independently more often than managers expect.

A repeat visit is a return trip to a job the first visit failed to close. It is the direct opposite of a first-time fix, and in most field service operations the single most common cause is mundane: the part the job needed was not on the van when the engineer arrived.

A reputation score is a single number summarising a business's public review performance, usually built from star average, review volume, recency, response rate and spread across sites. There is no standard formula: each platform and supplier weights the inputs differently.

Residual value is the amount an asset is expected to be worth at the end of a lease or finance term, after deducting estimated disposal costs, assuming it is of the age and in the condition the agreement anticipates. It is fixed at inception and it sets the monthly payment.

Retail valuation is the price a used vehicle is expected to sell for on a dealer's forecourt once it has been prepared, warranted and advertised. It sits above the wholesale or trade figure for the same car, and the gap between the two pays for reconditioning, preparation, cover and margin.

A retake request is a targeted instruction sent back to a participant asking them to re-record or re-photograph one specific part of a submission, correcting a gap without discarding the material already collected or restarting the whole process.

Retargeting is paid advertising aimed at people who already visited your dealership website or viewed a specific vehicle and then left without enquiring. Their browser or account is added to an audience list, and ads for that stock follow them across other sites, apps and social feeds.

Returns management is the customer facing process a business runs when someone wants to send goods back: taking the request, deciding whether it is accepted, authorising it, arranging collection or drop off, and settling the refund, replacement, or repair.

Reverse image search is a search technique that uses a picture as the query instead of text, returning visually matching copies of that picture published elsewhere online. In claims work it is the fastest way to catch a recycled photo, and it fails quietly on edited or re-encoded files.

Reverse logistics is the physical and financial flow of goods travelling backwards through a supply chain, from the customer towards the seller, manufacturer, refurbisher, or recycler, together with the decision about what happens to each item that comes back.

Review management is the ongoing work of asking customers for public reviews, responding to the ones that arrive, and feeding what they say back into the process that produced them. It is an operating habit owned by the people who serve the customer, not a marketing campaign.

A risk assessment is a structured examination of a task, place or activity to identify what could cause harm, judge how likely and how serious that harm would be, and decide what control measures are needed before the work goes ahead. It is a decision-making process, not a form.

Risk scoring is the practice of turning observable facts about a customer, a transaction or a claim into a single graded rating that decides how much scrutiny the case receives. It ranks work for human attention. It does not decide the outcome of the case.

A return merchandise authorisation (RMA) is the approval a supplier issues before a customer ships an item back, carrying a reference number that ties the returning unit to a specific fault, order and outcome. No number, no return. It is also the last cheap moment to ask whether the item needs to travel at all.

A roadworthiness inspection is the periodic legal check that a vehicle already in use still meets the safety and environmental standards its country sets. It covers brakes, steering, tyres, lights, suspension, structure and emissions, and ends in a recorded pass or fail.

RO stands for Repair Order: the document a service department opens for every job. What an RO number is, what the RO contains, and how RO fees work.

A roof inspection is an examination of a roof covering and everything around it, including flashings, rooflights, gutters, outlets, fixings and rooftop plant, carried out to record condition, locate defects and water ingress, and decide what repair work is needed and how urgently.

In the automotive industry, the term "rooftop" is often used to refer to a dealership location. This term is derived from the physical buildings that house car dealerships, which are often large structures with prominent rooftops. However, in the context of the industry, it has come to mean much more than just a physical location.

Salvage is the damaged property an insurer takes ownership of after settling a total loss claim, and also the value recovered by selling it on. It is the closing step in a write-off, and the systems that classify salvage vehicles differ sharply from one country to the next.

Sample inspection is the practice of checking a defined random subset of a lot and using that result to accept or reject the whole lot. The sample size and the number of nonconforming items allowed come from a published sampling plan, not from the inspector's judgement on the day.

A scaffold inspection is the examination of a scaffold by a competent person before first use, after alteration or any event that could affect its stability, and at intervals of no more than seven days, with a written report. It is separate from the visual check users make before climbing on each day.

A schedule of condition is a dated factual record, written and photographic, of the state of a building at a fixed moment, normally the start of a commercial lease. Annexed to the lease and referred to in the repairing covenant, it limits the tenant to leaving the property in no worse condition than the record shows.

Scheduling optimisation is the use of algorithms to assign and sequence field jobs across a workforce so that travel, overtime and missed commitments are minimised, while skills, parts, appointment windows and working hours are all respected. It replaces the manual board with a scored, repeatable plan.

Screen recapture is the act of pointing a camera at a display and recording what is shown on it, so an existing image or video can be submitted as though it were captured live. It needs no software, no drivers and no technical skill, which is exactly what makes it durable.

A screen recording is a video of whatever is showing on a computer screen, narrated by the person recording it and usually with a small camera window showing their face. Dealership sales and BDC teams use it to show a stock list, a finance quote or a service estimate instead of describing it on the phone.

A sealed submission is a package of evidence, the files, the answers and the session record, bound together and cryptographically signed at the moment the receiving system takes delivery, so anyone can verify later that the package is complete and unaltered since receipt.

Second line support is the specialist tier that handles what first line cannot resolve: cases with no documented fix, cases needing elevated access or a system-level change, and cases where the cause has to be investigated rather than looked up. Ownership of the customer normally stays at first line.

A second opinion inspection is a fresh inspection of the same asset by a different qualified inspector, carried out to test the first inspector's conclusion. It is usually triggered by a dispute, a high-value decision, or a result that looks out of line with expectation.

A security deposit is money an operator takes or blocks at the start of a rental or hire as protection against unpaid charges, fines, and damage. In vehicle rental it is usually a card pre-authorisation rather than a payment, and it is released once the account is settled.

Self certification is an arrangement in which the party that carried out the work attests that the work meets the required standard, instead of an independent inspector checking it. It is fast, cheap and very widespread, and it puts the check in the hands of the party with the most to gain from a pass.

Self-service claims is the model in which the policyholder reports a loss and supplies the supporting evidence themselves, through a web page, portal or link, without a call to a handler or a visit from an assessor. The insurer reviews what arrives and decides.

Self service inspection is any inspection in which the person already at the location completes it unaccompanied, with no inspector, adjuster or engineer attending in person or watching live. The organisation sends the request, and whoever is there does the capturing.

A self-service portal is a customer-facing web area where people check status, complete routine tasks and find answers without contacting an agent, usually combining an account view, a knowledge base and a set of transactional actions. Most portals handle the start of an issue well and the end of it badly.

Send rate is the share of eligible opportunities that actually receive a video, and the share of licensed reps who send at least one in a given period. It is the adoption metric behind every other video number, because nothing downstream can happen on a video that was never sent.

A serial number is a unique identifier assigned to one individual unit of a product, distinguishing it from every other unit of the same model. It is the key that links a physical item to its build date, specification, warranty entitlement and service history. One unit, one number, never reused.

Service absorption is the share of a dealership's adjusted overhead covered by the gross profit of the fixed departments alone, service, parts and body shop. It answers one question for a dealer principal: if the showroom sold nothing this month, how much of the building would still be paid for?

A service advisor is the link between customer and workshop: takes the car in, writes the repair order, gets approvals, hands back. Duties, skills, typical day.

Service advisor training is the structured coaching that teaches dealership service advisors how to run a write-up, present inspection findings, explain recommended work in language a customer accepts, and follow up on the jobs that get declined. It is the main lever on approval rates.

Service capacity is the number of productive labour hours a dealership workshop can actually sell in a given period, calculated from the technicians on strength and the hours each realistically clocks onto jobs. It is measured in hours, never in bays, ramps or bookings.

A service contract is an agreement to maintain and repair an asset over a defined period for an agreed fee, instead of charging for each job as it arises. The customer buys availability and a response commitment. The provider takes on the risk of how much work that turns out to be.

A service desk is the single point of contact between a service provider and its users, responsible for capturing every incident, request and question that comes in, resolving what it can at first contact, and routing the rest to the right specialist. ITIL 4 defines it as a practice, not a team.