How to get your data out of Horizon before the shutdown

If you've been running your inspection business on Horizon, you already know the news: Carson Dunlop is retiring the platform, and the clock is ticking. Whether you've been putting off the migration or you're just starting to think about it, the most important thing you can do right now is get your data out — safely, completely, and well before the lights go off.

This guide walks through why Horizon is closing, exactly what you need to export, how to do it, and what your options are once you're free to choose a new platform.

Why Horizon is shutting down

Horizon is the home inspection reporting software built by Carson Dunlop, a company best known in the industry for its home inspector training programs — particularly in Canada, where a large share of inspectors learned the trade through Carson Dunlop courses and adopted Horizon as their reporting tool afterward.

In mid-2026, Carson Dunlop announced that Horizon is being retired, with a full shutdown taking place in December 2026. Rather than continuing to invest in building and maintaining its own reporting software, Carson Dunlop has named Spectora as its recommended migration partner, offering a "one-click" import path for Horizon users who want to move their data there.

It's worth being clear about one thing: Carson Dunlop's recommendation is not a requirement. You are free to take your data anywhere you want. Spectora simply happens to be the destination they built a shortcut for — we'll walk through your options later in this guide.

What to export before the deadline

Before you touch any export button, make a checklist. It's easy to grab your recent reports and forget the things you'll actually miss six months from now — like a comment you wrote once for an unusual foundation issue, or a client's contact info from two years ago. Here's what to go after, and why each one matters.

• Completed inspection reports. Every PDF or report file you've generated, not just the last year's worth. These have their own separate "Request Export" option elsewhere in Horizon (outside the six-item account export), which bulk-downloads all your report PDFs at once.
• Your comment library and templates (Horizon's Company Templates export). The narrative descriptions, defect language, section order, and standards-of-practice framework (ASHI, InterNACHI, or state-specific) you've built up over years. This is often the single most time-consuming thing to rebuild from scratch, so it's worth capturing in full.
• Client contact records (Horizon's CRM Clients export). Names, emails, phone numbers, property addresses, and any notes tied to them. This is your referral network — losing it costs you more than losing old reports.
• Agent and referral partner records (Horizon's CRM Agents export). The real estate agents and other business contacts you work with regularly.
• Booking and scheduling history (Horizon's Inspection Bookings Data export). Useful for taxes, resolving disputes, and identifying past clients worth reaching out to for referrals.
• Invoices and payment records (Horizon's Tax Reporting Data export). Your billing history, for bookkeeping, tax records, and proof of income if you ever need it.
• Business metrics and stats (Horizon's Dashboard Data export). Worth grabbing for your own records, even if you don't end up using it day-to-day.
• Photos. Open a few completed reports and check whether your photos are embedded directly in the PDF or stored in a separate media library. If it's the latter, that library needs its own export.

Step-by-step: how to export your data

Here's the exact path inside Horizon, plus what to do with each item once you're there. (Carson Dunlop could still adjust menus as it winds the platform down, so double-check with Horizon support if something looks different.)

1. Log in to your Horizon account now. Don't wait for a reminder. Confirm your login still works.
2. Go to Profile → Export My Account Data. This opens a checklist of six separate exports. Go through each one and click "Request Export":
   • CRM Agents (xlsx) — your list of referring real estate agents and other business contacts.
   • CRM Clients (xlsx) — your homeowner and buyer contact records: names, emails, phone numbers, and property addresses.
   • Inspection Bookings Data (xlsx) — your full appointment and job history, one row per booking.
   • Company Templates (json) — your report structure and comment library as they're set up inside Horizon.
   • Dashboard Data (xlsx) — the business metrics and stats Horizon has tracked for your account.
   • Tax Reporting Data (xlsx) — your invoicing and tax-related financial records.
3. Confirm your registered email before you request anything. Horizon sends every download link to the email on file for your account's primary holder. If that inbox isn't one you check regularly, update it from the link on this same screen first.
4. Watch your inbox as each export finishes. Some are ready immediately; others are prepared in the background and arrive later as a secure download link by email. As each one lands, click Confirm received on the checklist to track what's actually done, and use Email again if a link goes missing.
5. Download every file within 14 days. Horizon's download links expire after two weeks, so don't request everything and then let it sit — save each file as soon as it arrives.
6. Separately request your report PDFs. The six-item account export covers your structured business data — clients, agents, bookings, templates, and financials — but not your completed inspection reports themselves. Find the separate "Request Export" option for your reports elsewhere in Horizon to bulk-download every report PDF at once, and check whether photos are embedded in the PDFs or need their own export.
7. Organize everything into labeled folders as you go — separate folders for report PDFs, the Company Templates export, CRM data, and financial records. Name report files with the client's last name and inspection date so anything is searchable later.
8. Back up everything in two places. A cloud drive (Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud) plus a local copy on your computer. Don't rely on a single backup — drives fail and accounts get locked.
9. Double-check before the cutoff. Open the Company Templates file and a sample of report PDFs to confirm everything is complete and readable. Don't assume an export worked until you've verified it yourself.

Where to go once you're off Horizon

Once your data is safely backed up, you'll need to decide where your business goes next. You have options beyond Carson Dunlop's default recommendation.

Spectora is the path Carson Dunlop built a one-click import for. Worth knowing before you take it: that "one-click" migration moves your data over, but it drops you into Spectora's own default report template — not a custom rebuild of the one you've spent years refining. Your comment library and report structure don't come with it automatically, and Spectora's AI features are an add-on to an existing menu-driven workflow, not something built into the core experience.

InspectionX takes a different approach. Instead of asking you to manually rebuild your comment library and templates from scratch, our team reviews your most recent Horizon reports and rebuilds your setup for you — matching your language, your report structure, and the way you already inspect. Most inspectors are up and running within 1–3 days, and it's all included at no additional cost.

We're also currently offering Horizon users 6 months free on InspectionX — full platform access, AI-first reporting, unlimited reports, and 1-on-1 onboarding, with no strings attached regardless of where you are in your Horizon billing cycle. And unlike some platforms, InspectionX never sells your data — we make money from software you want to pay for, not from what you put into it.

Want to see it side by side first? Here's a video comparing Horizon, Spectora, and InspectionX, including what an actual migration looks like. If you want software that reads your reports, builds a fully customizable template around them, and is simply better across the board, it's worth the ten minutes.

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