The Reports to Watch Every Week in a Porta Potty Business
Owners of small portable toilet companies often know their business by feel. They know which customers are good, which weeks are busy, and roughly how much is in the bank. Feel is useful, but it misses slow leaks. A weekly look at a handful of numbers catches problems while they are still small.
Who Looks, and When
If you have office help, as covered in Hiring Office Help for a Porta Potty Business, and What Each Role Does, the billing person can pull these together. The owner should still read them. Pick one time each week, such as Friday afternoon or Monday morning, and keep it. Thirty minutes is usually enough.
Overdue Services
Start with the Waiting List. Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, and overdue past the 7-day grace. Weekly service sites come due on their own based on each service's minimum days between visits. Ask:
- How many sites are overdue right now?
- Are the same sites overdue every week?
- Is one truck or one area falling behind?
A few overdue sites in a bad-weather week is normal. The same sites overdue week after week is a route problem, a truck problem or a staffing problem, and it will turn into a lost account if nobody fixes it. Missed Services: What They Cost a Portable Toilet Business and How to Stop Them covers this in depth.
Rentals Past Their Included Days
Next, look at units that are out past their rental period. The lists show how long each unit has been out, for example "Out since 10/3 (12 days, 4 extra)." Extra rental days are added to the invoice automatically, so the question is not whether they get billed but whether the units should still be there. A unit on a finished job is a unit you could rent to someone else. Call the customer and ask whether they want a pickup.
Past-Due Invoices
Then look at what customers owe. How much is past due, and how old is it? Which customers are on the list every week? Past-due follow-up goes out on its own, but some accounts need a personal call. The oldest balances are the hardest to collect, so give them attention first. See Collecting Unpaid Invoices in a Porta Potty Business.
Work Per Truck
The dispatch board shows totals of stops and dollars per service. Look at each truck's week. Is one truck full and another light? Is a truck doing lots of stops for little money because its route is spread out? Balancing work between trucks is cheaper than buying a new one.
Skipped Stops
Look at the stops techs skipped and the reasons they gave. Locked gates, blocked units and closed sites happen. But if one tech skips far more than the others, or one site is skipped every week, there is something to fix. Skipped stops stay on the Waiting List until they are rescheduled, so check that none have been sitting.
New Requests and Sign-Ups
Finally, look at what came in. How many website requests and sign-ups landed in Form Responses this week, and how many became clients? How many estimates were sent and approved? If requests are coming in but few turn into work, the problem may be response time or pricing. If few requests are coming in at all, look at your website and your referrals.
Keep a Simple Log
Write the key numbers in one place each week: overdue sites, units past their included days, past-due total, revenue per truck, new clients. You do not need a fancy chart. After a few months the log shows trends you would never see day to day, like a slow creep in past-due balances or one truck quietly falling behind.
Act on One Thing
A weekly review is only useful if something changes. Each week, pick one thing to fix: move work between trucks, call the three oldest past-due accounts, ask a contractor about units on a finished site, retrain a tech on skips. One fix a week adds up to a much better business by the end of the year.
Do not let the review turn into a blame session with the crew. The numbers point at problems in routes, notes and schedules far more often than at people. When a tech is involved, ask first what got in the way. A tech who skips the same site every week may be dealing with a gate that is never open when the route gets there, and the answer is moving the site to a different time of day, not a lecture.
Share a few numbers with the team too. Techs who see that overdue sites dropped to zero this week, or that every unit on a finished site got picked up, know their work is noticed.
For the tools that produce these numbers, see the Porta Potty Business Software page.
See the Week at a Glance
Overdue pins on the Waiting List, extra days on every rental, totals per service on the dispatch board, and past-due invoices. Free for 14 days.
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