What Is an Audio Typist? A Guide for Property Professionals

An audio typist is a specialist who converts spoken dictation into professionally formatted written documents.

While the role may sound straightforward, a skilled audio typist does far more than simply type what they hear.

For property professionals and chartered surveyors, an experienced audio typist plays a key role in producing accurate, structured and client-ready reports.

What Does an Audio Typist Do?

An audio typist listens to recorded dictation and types it into a clear, formatted document.

This typically includes:

The process involves listening through headphones while controlling audio playback using a foot pedal, allowing for continuous and efficient typing.

How Audio Typing Works

Professional audio typists use specialist transcription software and equipment.

The setup usually includes:

This allows the typist to maintain a steady flow of dictation while typing accurately and efficiently.  It is a skill that takes time to develop and refine.

Why Use a Professional Audio Typist?

Accuracy and Understanding

An experienced audio typist does not just type words.  They understand context, terminology and meaning.  This is particularly important in the property industry, where technical language must be accurate.

Speed and Efficiency

A professional audio typist can work significantly faster than someone typing their own documents.  This allows reports and documents to be produced quickly without compromising quality.

Professional Formatting

Audio typists ensure documents are:

This removes the need for additional formatting later.

Reduced Admin Workload

By outsourcing audio typing, professionals can focus on inspections, clients and fee-earning work instead of administrative tasks.  If you are currently typing your own reports, it is worth considering whether that time could be better spent.  See our article on fee earner or typist for a practical breakdown.

Audio Typist vs Speech-to-Text

Speech-to-text technology is often seen as an alternative, but it works differently.

Speech-to-text:

A professional audio typist:

For client-facing documents, accuracy and presentation are critical.

Why Industry Experience Matters

Not all audio typists are the same.

A typist with experience in the property sector will:

This reduces errors and improves turnaround time.

At BackupTyping, our team has extensive experience working within the property industry, allowing us to produce high-quality documents without the need for explanation or correction.

How Audio Typing Fits into Your Workflow

A typical workflow looks like this:

  1. Dictate your notes or report
  2. Send the audio file
  3. Receive a fully formatted document

This process removes the need for any property professional to type, format or rework documents.

For a broader overview of how this works, read our guide to audio transcription for chartered surveyors.

Conclusion

An audio typist is not just someone who types.

They are a skilled professional who:

For property professionals, this can significantly improve efficiency and reduce administrative workload.

We are a team who are always here – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – ready and waiting to provide you with the efficient service you need when you need it.

BackupTyping provides a fast, accurate and experienced transcription for property professionals - saving you time and money. Call us on 020 7096 1663 to find out how we can help you.

How to Dictate Well – Your Typist Will Thank You!

How to dictate for business is rarely taught but is a real skill and just takes a little practice for great rewards.

Once it is mastered you will love it.

It can make your life easier and free up time wasted doing tasks that can be done for you (no doubt quicker and maybe even better).

Your typist should be an expert at Word and Excel as a minimum – you don’t have to be!

Benefits of dictating well

A ‘pick and peck’ typist will achieve (on average) 20 words per minute.

A professional typist can exceed 100wpm – meaning it can be up to 5 times faster than trying to type yourself.

At around 20wpm, a 3,000 word or roughly 6 page word report will take a minimum of 2.5 hours.  Dictating this will take 30 minutes.

The faster you can create a document, the more you can do in a day.

See our article on Why dictate? I can just type it myself!

How to dictate for your audio typist

Make sure your dictation machine is charged and you are familiar with the record and pause buttons (pop some spare batteries in your briefcase too).

Know how to download your speech file once you have finished dictating so it can be typed.

1. Ensure ‘rec’ has started before speaking.

2. Take care when pressing Pause and Record so you do not 'clip' the first or last words of a sentence.
This is a common problem and can mean you don't get accurate documents back! Try taking a short breath after pressing record and before starting to talk.

3. Use the pause not stop button – this will just pause the file you are working on while you consider what to say next.  Stop may well start another file which is going to be annoying later.

4. Hold the dictation machine about two inches away from mouth to get the clearest speech.

5. Don't turn your head away from the microphone while speaking as your voice will fade in and out.

6. Don't rustle through papers while speaking – it’s just harder to hear exactly what you are saying.

7. Speak clearly but don’t change your normal speech pattern – just speak at a normal pace and level.  Fast dictation won't get your typing done any quicker (and could slow it down) and it may make your typist shed a tear or two.

8. Enunciate numbers clearly – 13 and 30 are very different numbers – say “thirteen one three” or “thirty-three zero”.

9. Spell any unusual names/words - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch "L for Lima, L for Lima, A for Apple, N for November, you get the point.

10. Do speak with emotion in your voice. A monotone voice tends to put typists to sleep.

11. Remember to pause recording when thinking for a while or taking a telephone call.

12. Heavy wind can drown out your dictation - consider using a specialist dictation machine with a microphone facility that removes this (contact BackupTyping for advice on this). Or turn your back to the wind. 

13. Consider background noise so you get the best-typed document back. A professional typist can handle a lot though - you definitely don't have to sit in silence.

14. Please do not eat while dictating. Just no, it’s not nice.

15. Do not dictate while driving. It's dangerous and the sound quality is usually poor.

Practice on your own in a quiet room until you feel confident with your recording machine.  Don’t feel like you have to whisper, just talk as if you were on the telephone.

While you get comfortable with dictating consider before you start talking about what you would like to cover in your document.  It’s nice and easy to start by dictating the name and address of the recipient and “Dear Whoever”, “subject line”, “thank you for your letter of…” and then you are on your way.

Whether you have an in-house typist or work with a company like BackupTyping providing a transcription service, remember there is a real person who will be doing your typing, so it’s kind of nice to start your dictation with ‘Hello, Mark here, dictating on Monday’.  It is easier to imagine you are talking to ‘somebody’ rather than a machine.

BackupTyping provides a fast, accurate and experienced transcription for property professionals - saving time and money. Call us on 020 7096 1663 to find out how we can help you.