A Year-End Review for Your Porta Potty Business
The slow weeks at the end of the year are the best time to step back. The trucks are quieter, events are done, and next season has not started. A few hours spent looking at the past year will make the next one easier. This is the review that ties the rest of this series together.
Why Do a Year-End Review
The mistakes in Mistakes Porta Potty Business Owners Make When They Grow are easier to fix once a year than to discover in the middle of a busy season. A year-end review is a structured way to spot them. Set aside an afternoon, pull up your reports and your weekly log, and work through the questions below. Bring your office person and your most experienced tech if you can. They see things you do not.
Customers
Start with who you served and who paid.
- Which construction accounts brought in the most work, and which paid on time?
- Which event customers booked, and which are likely to book again?
- Which customers took the most time for the least money?
- Did you lose any accounts, and do you know why?
Tag notes on each client help next year: Contractor, Events, Homeowner, and anything else you want to sort by. Reach out to your best annual event customers now to hold their dates for next year.
Routes and Service
Look back at your weekly reviews. How often were sites overdue on the Waiting List? Were the same areas or trucks behind? How many stops were skipped, and why? If weekly service slipped during event season, plan now how to keep it on track next summer, whether that is hiring weekend help, booking event deliveries earlier or adding capacity.
Pricing
Your costs went up this year. Fuel, dump fees, wages, insurance and parts usually do. Did your prices? Review your rates for monthly rentals, events, extra pump-outs, extra rental days and specialty units. If you plan to raise prices, decide now and give customers notice before the new season. Pricing Porta Potty Rentals: How Operators Set Monthly and Event Rates walks through building rates from your own costs.
Billing and Collections
Look at the money side:
- How much is still past due, and how old is it?
- How many customers now have a card on file, compared to the start of the year?
- Are your contractors on monthly account billing where it makes sense?
- Were extra rental days and extra services billed consistently?
Chase old balances now, while customers are closing out their own year. Set a goal for next year, like getting more small customers onto card on file.
People
Talk to each tech and each office person. What worked this year? What made the job harder than it needed to be? Update your written procedures with what you learned. Decide whether you need to hire for next season, and start looking early so new people can be trained before it gets busy.
Trucks and Units
Plan maintenance for the slow weeks. Check which units need repair or replacement. Look at which unit types customers asked for that you did not have enough of: ADA accessible units, hand wash stations, deluxe flushing units or restroom trailers. Buy for the work you can see coming, not for a guess.
The Owner's Job
Finally, look at your own year. How many hours did you spend in the truck? How many in the office at night? Did you have time to sell, plan and watch the numbers? If not, pick one thing to hand off next year. Getting out of the truck a little at a time is still progress.
Set the Plan for Next Year
End the review with a short list: one growth goal, three things to fix, and dates to check progress each quarter. Write it down and keep it where you will see it. Next year's review starts with this list.
Clean Up the Records
The slow weeks are also the time to tidy your system. Merge duplicate clients. Close out sites for finished jobs. Check that every active site has current site contacts, gate and access notes, unit details and placement notes. Make sure weekly service schedules match what customers are actually paying for. Remove office users and employees who have left, and make sure every current tech has a working PIN and truck assignment.
Clean records make next year's reports honest and next year's new hires productive faster. It is boring work, but an hour of it in December saves many hours of confusion in May.
For the tools behind every part of the business, from the first delivery to the year-end review, visit the Porta Potty Business Software page.
Start Next Year Organized
Clients and sites, the Waiting List, the dispatch board, the driver app and billing in one place. Try PortaPottyBossPro free for 14 days.
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