Put that dent on the record before you touch the vehicle
A blank walk-around sheet with the right body outline and a printed damage-code key. Free, no sign-up, and there is nowhere here to type a customer's name.
1 page per vehicle. 25 sheets in this print job.
A signed sheet records the marked condition and who signed it. It does not prove that every bit of damage was visible or documented.
This is your shop's own information. There is no field here for the customer or the vehicle.
How the vehicle check-in sheet works
We put every sheet together from a fixed library of blocks instead of generating it from scratch. Each block is a known height in points, and the page has a known budget: 720 points, which is a Letter page less half an inch of margin at the top and the bottom. Pick an intake type and we turn on the blocks that job needs. Pick a body shape and the diagram changes, along with five of its sixteen zone labels. Everything after that is arithmetic you can check.
The category picks the blocks
A changeover sheet gets the tires and wheels block. A tow sheet trades the customer-concern lines for hookup and winching notes. Switch the category and the blocks reset to that category's defaults, so nothing strays over from the last one you built.
The body shape picks the outline
Sedan, SUV, pickup, van. Sixteen zones on all four, numbered the same on all four, with five labels that move: a pickup's box side where a sedan has a rear quarter.
The code key is printed, not remembered
Eight codes, on the sheet itself: S, D, C, X, W, R, P and M. A mark means the same thing to every advisor on your counter and to whoever reads the sheet six weeks later.
The Canadian lines are on the form
Odometer in kilometres. Date written year-month-day, so nobody argues about whether 03-04 is March or April. Road salt, the wheel-lock key, TPMS sensors, the block heater cord. And the twenty points that earn their place in February: the vehicle arrived under snow or ice, so the walk-around could only see so much.
The page budget is honest
Add blocks and the sheet fills up. When it spills onto a second page we say so, name the block that moved, and give you the smallest single change that brings it back to one page. When nothing small will do it, we say that instead of inventing a fix.
Then it prints
As many blanks as you asked for, in one job, on Letter or on A4. Nothing goes to our server, and the page writes no cookie and no localStorage. Share the setup link, or open its summary in your own mail client, and the other advisor prints the same sheet you do.
Who this is for
You're printing these on the Monday of changeover week. Or the morning after a customer told you that scratch wasn't there when they dropped it off. Or the day the shop finally ran out of the photocopied sheet somebody hand-edited in Word two years ago.
We built it for service advisors and owner-operators at two-to-six-bay independent shops, mobile detailers, tow and recovery operators and the front counter at a collision centre. Picture one person at a shop desktop, running off a stack before a busy stretch so there are blanks on the clipboard by the time the first car arrives.
You're not here for a digital inspection app, an estimate, a work order or an authorization to do the work. Those are different documents, and we publish a separate tool for one of them.
Why the body outline has to match the vehicle
A mark on the wrong outline lands nowhere real. Draw the scratch on the box side of a pickup and you can put your finger on it at pickup time. Draw it on a sedan diagram when the vehicle is an F-150 and it sits in empty paper beside a car nobody owns.
That is the difference between a record and an argument. It is also the one thing the static templates we checked did not do. Each gave the shop one fixed form and left the rest to the pen.
The zone numbers are the part people miss. They're the same sixteen on all four shapes. So a sheet from the tow truck and a sheet from your counter describe the same vehicle in the same language, and zone 8 means the same place on both.
Where this sheet stops
Three documents this one is not, and keeping them apart is the whole point.
It is not an authorization
Recording what a car looked like is a different act from a customer agreeing to a price and a scope of work. Provincial consumer-protection rules govern written estimates and repair authorization. Mixing the two into one signature is the mistake we built this form to avoid, so there is no price, no labour line and no total anywhere on it. The optional road-test initials are a narrow consent to operate the vehicle for that purpose, and nothing more.
It is not an inspection certificate
Nothing on this sheet may be read as a Safety Standards Certificate, an out-of-province inspection or an emissions result. That is why the sheet's own second line says plainly that it is not an inspection certificate, why the word turns up nowhere else on the printed sheet, and why there is no seal or crest anywhere on it.
It is not a waiver
The signature acknowledges the condition that was recorded. It gives up nothing, in either direction.
Shop questions about check-in and walk-around forms
What should be on a vehicle check-in sheet?
Six things do the work: who the shop is, what the vehicle is, a diagram of the right body shape, a key that says what each mark means, the custody items you took, and two signatures with a date. Everything else is optional. The odometer in kilometres and the date written year-month-day stop two arguments before they start.
Who signs the check-in sheet?
At an attended drop-off, the customer and the shop representative can sign beside the marked diagram. At an after-hours drop-off, the shop representative records and signs the condition at opening, and the customer can review and sign later. There is no notary, witness or stamp block on this sheet.
Is a check-in sheet the same as a repair authorization?
No, and mixing them is the mistake this form is built to avoid. A check-in sheet records what the vehicle looked like when it arrived. An authorization is the customer agreeing to a price and a scope of work, and provincial consumer-protection rules govern that one. Keep them as two documents, signed at two different moments.
Does a signed check-in sheet protect the shop?
It creates a dated record, and it is not armour. A checklist cannot prove that all damage was visible or documented. Not a panel under road salt, not a mark you both missed, not a defect that only shows in daylight. What it does is record what was marked, when, and by whom. If you also take photographs, the sheet records that they exist, and the images stay on your phone.
Why does the body outline matter?
Because a mark on the wrong outline lands in empty paper. Draw a scratch on a pickup's box side and you can point at it. Draw it on a sedan diagram and it sits beside the car rather than on it. Six weeks later that is the whole argument. Pick sedan, SUV, pickup or van and the diagram changes with you.
Can I use this sheet in Quebec?
It is English only. Section 57 of the Charter of the French language reads: "Invoices, receipts, acquittances and other documents of the same nature must be drawn up in French." The statute does not say whether a check-in sheet belongs to that family. A French version is not in this first release, so do not treat this sheet as Quebec-ready.
Check-in sheets, walk-around forms and vehicle condition reports
The same document goes by four names. The front counter calls it a vehicle check-in sheet. Whoever holds the clipboard calls it a walk-around inspection form. The moment somebody disputes a scratch, it turns into a vehicle condition report. Detailers and body shops call it an intake form. Whatever the name, it's the same two minutes at the vehicle.
What separates a useful one from a photocopy is narrower than most template sites suggest. It needs a diagram that matches the vehicle in front of you. It needs a key, so a mark means one thing rather than four. It needs the custody items, because "we never got a wheel-lock key" can turn into an avoidable dispute at pickup. And in Canada it needs a line for the days when the car arrives under an inch of ice and the walk-around can't see the panels.
We'd print a stack before the week starts, because the busiest morning of changeover season is no time to be opening a template.
Sources and last checked
Sheet library version 2026-08-24. Sources last checked 2026-09-08, and this page last changed on 2026-09-09.
The block library, the zone map, the damage-code key and the category rules are ours. They're the layout of our own sheet: block heights in typographic points against a 720-point Letter budget, sixteen zones plus four wheels on four body shapes, and eight single-letter codes. There's no outside authority to cite for any of it.
The code key is deliberately not AIAG M-22. That's the industry standard for finished-vehicle transport damage, and we read the 6th edition listing at aiag.org before deciding against it. It's a paid publication licensed to one end user account, and it's written for carrier claims, not for a service counter. Ours is our own key, printed on the same sheet as the marks, and we never call it standard or official.
The Quebec language line quotes section 57 of the Charter of the French language, CQLR c C-11, from the consolidated text at legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca. We quote it and rule on nothing. We opened every directory link on this page and read the page itself, not just its status code.
Nothing on this sheet is a legal opinion, and nothing here replaces your own province's rules on written estimates and repair authorization.
More tools for the same counter
Start at all free tools for shops, which lists every one we've built and what each is for. Two of them sit either side of this sheet: the auto service review response generator, for the one-star review this form is meant to prevent, and the workmanship warranty statement generator, for the promise that follows the job this sheet opens.
Bookmark this page and share the setup link with the other advisor, so the whole counter prints the same sheet.
Find the shops that document intake before they touch the car
Shops that write down a vehicle's condition before they work on it are the shops our readers are looking for. Browse by what a shop does.
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Using this form doesn't give a shop any standing, certification or placement, and the optional footer line on your sheet isn't an endorsement in either direction.
The completed paper sheet is a customer record your shop now holds. Store it and dispose of it the way you handle the rest of your customer paperwork. This page writes no cookie and no localStorage and sends nothing to our server. A link you share carries its configuration and any shop header you chose to include, and Email opens that summary in your own mail client. There is no field here for a customer or a vehicle.