PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Billing & Rental Invoices

Delivery and Pickup Fees on a Porta Potty Invoice

Every rental starts with a truck going out and ends with a truck coming back. Those two trips cost you fuel, driver time and wear on the truck. Whether you charge for them separately or fold them into the rental, the invoice should make it clear the customer paid for them.

Two Trips That Are Easy to Forget

Included Days and Extra Rental Days: Billing Portable Toilets That Stay Out Longer covers the days a unit sits on the site. This article covers the two days a truck has to visit it with no pump work at all: the day it arrives and the day it leaves.

Delivery and pickup are the bookends of a rental, and they are the charges most likely to be left off. Delivery happens before the first invoice is built, so it gets forgotten. Pickup happens after the customer has mentally closed the job, so billing it feels awkward. Both problems go away when the trips are jobs in their own right.

Separate Line or Built Into the Rental

There are two common approaches. One is a separate delivery fee and a separate pickup fee on the invoice. The other is a single all-in rental price that quietly includes both trips. Separate fees make the rental price look lower on a quote, which helps when customers shop around. All-in pricing makes the quote simpler and avoids the "what is this fee?" call.

For homeowners and event customers, a separate delivery and pickup line usually works well because the rental is short and the trips are a big share of the cost. For long-term contractor accounts, many companies charge delivery once and waive pickup, or charge a combined delivery-and-pickup fee on the first invoice. Choose a rule for each kind of customer and use it every time.

Deliveries and Pickups Are Jobs

In PortaPottyBossPro a delivery and a pickup each show up on the Waiting List map like any other job that still needs to go out. Dispatch assigns them to a truck and day on the dispatch board, the driver sees the unit type, quantity, unit numbers and placement notes on their phone, and when they tap Complete the job is done and ready to bill.

Because the delivery and pickup are real jobs with dates, they also drive rental tracking. The delivered date starts the clock on the rental, and the picked-up date stops it. That is what lets the office lists show how long a unit has been out and lets extra rental days land on the invoice automatically.

Distance and Trip Charges

A delivery five minutes from the yard and one an hour out do not cost the same. Some companies set zones with a delivery fee for each one. Others add a mileage or distance charge for anything outside the normal area. Either way, put the rule on your price list so the person taking the call does not invent a number on the spot.

Trip charges are a related problem. When a driver arrives for a delivery or service and cannot get in — locked gate, blocked access, no one on site — that trip cost you money. A trip fee line on the invoice, backed by the driver's photo and notes from the stop, covers it. See Settling Porta Potty Billing Disputes With Service Photos for how photos help when that charge gets questioned.

Relocations Mid-Rental

Construction sites move units around as the job progresses. A unit by the front gate in month one needs to be by the new building in month three. Moving it is a truck trip, and it should bill like one. Treat a relocation as its own job with its own fee, and update the placement notes so the next driver goes to the right spot.

Placement Notes Protect the Fee

A delivery fee is easier to defend when the unit went exactly where the customer asked. Placement notes on the job — "on the gravel pad left of the trailer, door facing the street" — show up on the driver's phone under the address. When the unit lands in the right spot, the customer has nothing to complain about and pays the delivery line without a second look.

Showing It on the Invoice

On the invoice, give delivery and pickup their own lines with dates:

• Delivery, 2 × Standard unit, 10/1
• Rental, 10/1–10/14
• Pickup, 10/14

When the dates are there, the customer can see the whole rental at a glance, from the day it arrived to the day it left.

Bill the Trips You Already Ran

Your trucks already make these trips. The only question is whether the invoice shows it. Set delivery and pickup fees on your price list, treat each trip as a job, and let completed jobs carry their fees to the bill. To see how deliveries and pickups move from the dispatch board to the invoice, visit porta potty billing software.