What is conditional visibility?

Conditional visibility is the audit feature that shows different questions at different sites based on attributes recorded on the location. For car wash operations, the deciding attribute is the wash format.

If a site has a conveyor tunnel, the tunnel questions appear. If it does not, they do not. This is deterministic site-attribute branching, not AI guessing the format. The site record decides.

Conditional visibility pairs with a second feature called nullify scoring.

The two work together but do different jobs. Conditional visibility hides the irrelevant question groups. Nullify scoring makes the hidden items count for nothing, so a self-serve site can still reach a true 100 percent instead of getting dragged down by tunnel questions it could never satisfy.

Nullify scoring lets N/A items count for nothing, so the score reflects only what a site is actually responsible for. C-store chains with mixed formats can run one audit and hide irrelevant questions per location group, and a self-serve site is never marked down for missing tunnel equipment.

One conditional template covers every wash format this chain runs from a single build. The wash-format question groups are what competitors do not organize this way:

The three formats run on genuinely different hardware, which is why one flat checklist never fits all of them.

| Format | How it works | Throughput | Typical staffing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conveyor tunnel | Vehicle pulled through fixed stages: chemical arch, friction rollers and cloth, high-pressure rinse, blowers | 40 to 180 cars per hour | Staffed |
| In-bay automatic | Vehicle stationary, gantry moves around it, touchless or soft-touch | 10 to 15 cars per hour | Often unattended, open 24/7 |
| Self-serve | Customer washes with high-pressure wand and foam brush, pays by time | 3 to 6 cars per hour per bay | Unattended |

For a deeper primer on the equipment behind each format, see this explainer on the different types of car washes. The shared safety and signage group also maps to municipal rules.

The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection car wash inspection checklist covers licensing, signage, and safety items that every site should pass regardless of format. To go deeper on the feature itself, read the full conditional visibility breakdown and how nullify scoring pairs with conditional visibility.

Worked example, conditional visibility in action

Here is the pattern in practice. A 70-site fuel-and-car-wash operator runs one wash-and-forecourt audit carrying 38 questions, but the wash format on each site record decides which groups appear.

The wash-format attribute, not the auditor's memory, decides the question set. Nullify scoring keeps the self-serve site from being marked down on the tunnel group it could never satisfy, so it can still reach a true 100 percent. An area manager put it plainly: if a site has a tunnel, the track and mitter questions show up. If it is just self-serve wands, they do not. The auditor does not have to remember which is which.

Here is what actually renders per format:

| Question group | Tunnel | In-bay automatic | Self-serve coin bay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conveyor track, rollers, mitters, wheel-blaster, dryers | Shows | Hidden | Hidden |
| Gantry, spray-arc, bay-door safety stops | Hidden | Shows | Hidden |
| Wand pressure, foam brush, vacuum islands, coin meter | Hidden | Hidden | Shows |
| Chemical levels, reclaim and RO, signage, lot, lighting | Shows | Shows | Shows |

The audit does not stop at rendering the right questions. On a failure path, a follow-up question fires and requires a photo at the moment of failure. A fuel price mismatch triggers a root-cause question plus a photo of the corrected price label.

A wash failure works the same way. If chemical dilution reads out of range or a dryer does not fire, the auditor answers what they found and attaches a photo before moving on. That evidence is captured at the point of failure, not reconstructed later.

The failure then creates a tracked corrective task with a deadline and escalation, so the finding drives to closure instead of sitting in a report. This is the same weighting logic covered in weighted audit scoring with critical-item thresholds, applied to a mixed-format wash portfolio. It also mirrors the tap-system versus fuel-only audit split, only the deciding attribute here is the wash format, not the food-service setup.

How does conditional visibility differ from static audits?

A static audit shows every question at every site. A conditional audit shows only the questions that match the site. That difference sounds small until you run it at scale.

With a static car wash checklist, a self-serve site either fails or gets marked N/A on 15 or more tunnel questions it does not have.

That either tanks the score or teaches the auditor to ignore the form. Neither outcome is useful. With a conditional audit, those questions never render, so the score means something. Fuel-only and self-serve sites are not penalized for equipment they were never built to run.

| Attribute | Static per-type checklists | One conditional template (Xenia) |
|---|---|---|
| Templates to maintain | One per wash format, plus a fuel and forecourt one | One template for the whole chain |
| Self-serve site scored on tunnel questions | Yes, N/A drag or false fail | No, group hidden with nullify scoring |
| New site setup | Pick and assign the right PDF | Set wash-format attribute, questions follow |
| Site converts format | Swap to a different template | Change one attribute on the site record |
| Auditor experience | Scroll past non-applicable questions | Sees only the questions for that site |
| Score meaning | Diluted by N/A items | Reflects only what the site runs |

Every competitor on the search results page ships static, per-type templates. SafetyCulture, Popprobe, MaintainX, Inspectly360, and Professional Carwashing all publish separate checklists split by wash type or by cadence.

None branches on the wash format from a single template, which is exactly why this is an open slot. This is the same gap that pushes operators off checklist-only tools. If you are weighing that move, the Zenput alternatives comparison covers where per-location question branching changes the math. For back-of-house format variation instead of wash formats, see equipment-attribute conditional audits.

How to set up conditional visibility in Xenia

Setting up wash-format branching takes six steps. The AI Template Agent can convert an existing wash SOP PDF into the starting form, so you do not build from a blank page. It reads the SOP and produces a digital form with conditional questions, it does not decide any site's format.

1. Add a wash format attribute to each site record. The options are tunnel, in-bay automatic, self-serve, or none.
2. Build one wash-and-forecourt audit template with the shared group plus one group per wash format.
3. Set each format group to show only when the site's wash-format attribute matches. The tunnel group shows when wash format equals tunnel, and so on for the others.
4. Turn on nullify scoring so hidden groups count for nothing and every site is scored only on what it runs.
5. Add follow-up questions with required photo capture on the failure paths, such as out-of-range chemical dilution, a dryer not firing, or low wand pressure, so the evidence lands at the moment of failure.
6. Test on one site of each format, then roll out to all sites. Keep the wash-format attribute current when a site converts, for example when a self-serve bay is upgraded to in-bay automatic, so the right questions follow the change.

The whole thing lives inside the same platform as the fuel, forecourt, and food-service audits. A new site inherits the correct question set the moment its wash format is set. For the audit-hub view of how these branching templates fit the broader inspection program, see the conditional audits overview.

Where do operators see results?

Operators see fewer false failures, cleaner scores, and faster audits, because auditors stop scrolling past questions that do not apply. One template replaces the folder of per-format checklists, so a new site inherits the right question set the moment its wash format is set. The score stops being diluted by N/A items and starts reflecting what each site actually runs.

Two multi-format C-store operators show why the pattern holds at scale:

The C-store framing matters because the wash bay is a profit center attached to the forecourt, not a standalone business. Convenience stores sell an estimated 80 percent of the fuel purchased in the United States, and foodservice drove 28.7 percent of in-store sales in 2024, per NACS State of the Industry data reported by CSP Daily News.

The same chain runs fuel-only, food-service, and car-wash sites, so its audit program has to flex across all three formats from one system. That is the wedge conditional visibility fills. For C-store operators building this out, the convenience store operations software hub covers the full picture, and the live OnCue customer story shows a C-store operator running structured site audits at scale.