Short answer

First add each vehicle (or piece of plant) as an asset, then attach a pre-use inspection checklist. There are two ways to make the check happen each day:

  1. A daily routine, one per depot — the cleaner option. Put all the depot's vehicles in a routine, set it to recur on the working days (e.g. Monday–Friday), and assign it to everyone who might drive that day. Each driver sees the check in their task list; whoever does it marks it complete and it drops off the others' lists. If a vehicle isn't used that day, cancel that one task so you don't build up a pile of "overdue" checks.
  2. An on-demand inspection — the driver creates the check themselves when they pick up a vehicle (big + → add an inspection → pick the vehicle). Simpler to set up, but it relies on people remembering, so it's the weaker option for a daily safety check.

For most councils the routine is the right call — it's reliable and it gives you the data.

Detail

Add the vehicles/plant as assets first. Photograph each one, let the AI classify it, then rename it to your own convention (fleet number, registration). Nothing can be scheduled until the asset exists. The same applies to driven machinery — ride-on mowers, sweepers, diggers and the like have their own Check/Sweep checklists just like road vehicles. Handheld powered kit (strimmers, chainsaws, hand tools) doesn't have a dedicated pre-use checklist yet — those default to the general Simple Checklist until one is built.

Granular checklists are supported, and usually better. A pre-use vehicle check is often far more detailed than a generic inspection — explicit headlights, rear lights, side lights, indicators, hazards, reverse light, fog light, beacon, fluid levels, and so on. A longer, explicit checklist is a feature, not a problem: it forces the operative to actually check each item rather than tick straight down the list. When a response indicates a problem, the defect button pre-fills a defect (with the asset name and the issue), so raising it takes a couple of taps. Electric vehicles can carry slightly different questions; where one template can't cover every variant, set the not-applicable items accordingly.

Choose how thorough each check is. A vehicle check can be run at three levels of detail, so you can match the effort to the risk: swipe-accept (one tap to pass the whole vehicle — quickest, but not itemised), a grouped checklist (a handful of grouped checks — braking, lights, cleanliness, fluids, leaks — with simple pass/fail responses), or a detailed checklist (every item explicit: headlights, rear/side/indicator/hazard/reverse/fog lights, tyres, first-aid kit, fire extinguisher, and so on). Most of the time staff just run down the detailed list tapping "OK" and only stop to record a defect on anything that fails — a 37-point check is around 90 seconds. Pick the level that gives you the control you need.

You can vary the depth by day of the week. A common pattern is a quick check Monday–Friday plus a fuller, detailed walkaround once a week (e.g. every Monday). It's done with two routines, not one: drop the chosen day from the light routine (so it runs Tue–Fri), and add a separate weekly routine on that day using the detailed checklist. Before settling the cadence, check whether your insurer or H&S advisor requires the detailed walkaround daily — that often drives the decision.

Why one routine per depot. Vehicles live at a depot, and the "nearest assets" sorting surfaces the ones in front of the driver. A routine per depot, with that depot's drivers assigned, keeps each person's task list to the vehicles they could actually be using.

The data pays off. A year of pre-use checks shows where vehicles fail most often, so you can plan preventative maintenance and reduce the vehicles going out of action unexpectedly.

Risk-assessment / PPE pre-use checks (coming). A related pattern on the roadmap: add the plant (e.g. a strimmer) as an asset onto a job, and require a pre-use checklist (eye/ear protection, boots) to be completed before use.

Watch-outs

  • On-demand relies on memory. If you go the on-demand route, the check only happens if the operative remembers to create it. For a daily safety check, the routine is safer.
  • Cancel unused-vehicle tasks — don't delete them. With a daily routine, a vehicle that isn't used will leave its check showing as not done. Mark that task Cancelled (in the app or the web), ideally with a quick note ("not used today") — don't delete it. Cancelling clears it off the list and stops overdue items piling up while keeping it in the audit log as a resolved task with the reason recorded; deleting it loses that evidence. The driver it's assigned to can do this themselves, so the team stays self-sufficient.
  • The person who uses the vehicle does the check — assign all potential drivers, not a single supervisor, so whoever takes the vehicle that day sees and completes it. (Same multi-assignee mechanic as covering a round — see the related Q&A.)
  • Add the assets before you build the routine. The routine can only include vehicles that already exist as assets.