Core, shell, and the three surfaces
How Auditmark's one codebase adapts to your industry, and the three apps that make up the platform.
Auditmark runs on one codebase for every industry. Two layers, the Core Engine and the shell, combine to give your organization a platform that fits your terminology and workflow without a separate product or a code fork. This page explains those two layers, why the shell is not your pricing tier, and the three apps that make up the platform.
The Core Engine
The Core Engine is the capability set every Auditmark organization shares. The code is the same for every industry. It covers:
- form definition and rendering
- multi-participant real-time inspection completion
- configurable report layouts and scoring
- photo, video, and GPS capture
- offline sync with auto-resume
- multi-tenant client account management
- a white-labeled client portal
- webhooks and integrations
- role-based access control
This code does not change between industries. What changes is the shell on top of it.
The shell
The shell is a configuration layer on top of the Core Engine. It is not a code fork or a separate product, and one codebase runs every shell at once. In the admin app the shell is labeled your vertical or industry.
A shell sets:
- the terminology used throughout the app, for example whether you call a job an inspection or an audit
- which navigation entries appear and which are hidden
- which capabilities are switched on, such as multi-participant completion or configurable layout
- the default templates that load when you start
Auditmark ships with two shells. You pick one when you create your organization, on the "Choose your industry" step. You can change it later in Settings under Vertical: the Change vertical dialog warns that changing it relabels the entire app for everyone in your organization. Changing the shell never changes your data, only the labels and defaults on top of it.
| Shell | What it fits |
|---|---|
| Food Safety & Compliance | Audits for food chains and their branches, covering HACCP, hygiene, and BRC |
| Site & Energy Inspection | Field inspections for project sites, covering solar, electrical, and structural |
Shell is not a pricing tier
Your shell and your pricing tier are independent. The shell sets terminology and onboarding defaults. The pricing tier sets which capabilities your organization can access. Changing your shell does not change your plan, and upgrading your plan does not change your shell. A shell can switch a capability on by default, such as multi-participant completion, but your plan still governs whether that capability is available to you.
Configurable terminology
Because the shell sets the labels, the same underlying concept can carry different names depending on which shell you run. The data, the API, and the workflows are identical; only the words on screen change. The table below shows each configurable term, the default, and how each shipped shell renames it. Where a cell shows the default term, that shell does not override it.
| Concept | Default | Food Safety & Compliance | Site & Energy Inspection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client account | Client | Customer | — |
| Location | Location | Branch | Site |
| Inspection | Inspection | Audit | Inspection |
| Inspector | Inspector | Inspector | Engineer |
| Template | Template | Checklist | Template |
| Finding | Finding | Non-conformance | Defect |
These guides use the default terms throughout: client account, location, inspection, inspector, template, and finding. Where your shell uses a different word, read yours in its place. A shell can also hide the client layer entirely, in which case the Clients entry does not appear in your navigation. Of the two shipped shells, Food Safety & Compliance keeps the client layer (renamed Customers), while Site & Energy Inspection hides it, since sites belong directly to your organization.
The three surfaces
Every Auditmark deployment exposes three distinct apps, each with its own audience and a strict boundary between them.
Admin
The admin app at app.auditmark.io is where the inspection company runs the platform. Admins build templates, schedule inspections, manage the team, configure client accounts, set up integrations, customize the portal, and review analytics across all clients. These guides cover the admin app. See the admin overview for each area.
Inspector
The inspector app is the mobile-first, offline-capable app field workers use to complete inspections. Inspectors see only the work assigned to them. Several inspectors can complete different sections of the same form at the same time, with no merge step and no duplicate submissions. Changes sync automatically when connectivity returns. These guides are admin-focused and do not cover the inspector app.
Client portal
The portal is the white-labeled view your clients use to track their inspection results. It is read-only, with limited write access only for corrective-action acknowledgment and sign-off where your workflow requires it. Clients see only their own organization's data, never another client's, which is a hard security boundary rather than a display filter. The portal carries your brand and logo, never Auditmark's, and portal users are never charged.
What to read next
- Admin overview: the sections of the admin app and the roles that use it.
- Developer reference: public API, authentication, and webhooks.