JunkBossPro Blog — Crew App

Charging the Card at the Curb: Card-on-File Payment When the Crew Taps Complete

Junk removal is one-and-done work for a lot of customers. They call, you haul, and you may never see them again. That makes getting paid at the end of the job more important than in trades where you see the same customer every week. An invoice that sits unpaid for a month on a one-time customer is an invoice you may end up chasing for a long time.

Complete Creates the Invoice

The arrived text, which tells the homeowner the crew is out front, is covered in The Arrived Text: Telling the Homeowner the Junk Truck Is Out Front. At the other end of the visit is the Complete button, and that is where the money happens.

When the crew taps Complete in the JunkBossPro crew app, the invoice is created from the services on the job, with line items and sales tax. Nobody in the office has to retype the job into an invoice that evening, and nobody on the crew has to write a paper receipt.

Charging the Card on File

If the customer has a card on file, it can be charged when the job is completed, right there at the curb. The truck pulls away from a job that is done and paid. For a one-time customer, that is the cleanest possible ending.

Cards get on file a few ways:

• Your sign-up form. The sign-up form on your website captures the card when the customer books.
• The customer app. Customers can add or update their card themselves.
• The office. When a customer calls to book, the office can help get the card on file before the job.

Getting the card before the truck rolls is the habit that makes charging at the curb possible. It is worth asking for every time someone books.

Charge at Completion or on a Schedule

Card-on-file charges can run on completion or on a schedule. Charging on completion is the simplest choice for most single-item pickups and flat-priced loads: the price is known, the work is done, the card is charged.

Jobs that price with an included weight can be different. The dump ticket comes after the truck leaves the house, and any overage gets added to the invoice once the tons are entered. Charging on a schedule gives that ticket time to reach the job. How the overage line works is covered in Entering the Dump Ticket: Getting the Weight Overage Onto the Invoice.

Customers Without a Card on File

Not every customer will put a card on file, and that is fine. When there is no card, the invoice still gets created at Complete and the customer can see it and pay online from the customer app. Automated reminders and past-due follow-up handle the ones who forget, so the office is not making collection calls on every slow payer.

A crew should not be collecting cash and personal payment app transfers at the curb unless that is a policy you have set up on purpose. Payments through the system end up on the right invoice. Cash handed to a helper may not.

Property Managers and Monthly Accounts

Property managers, realtors and apartment complexes are different. They might send you to five units this month and nine next month, and they do not want nine separate charges. A client set to Monthly gets one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled with the address. The crew still taps Complete at each unit, and the work rolls up into the monthly statement instead of a charge at the curb.

Matching the Invoice to the Truck

Charging at the curb only works if the invoice matches what actually left. If the customer added an old grill and two more bags at the door, those need to be on the invoice before the charge. The crew notes what was added and the office adds the line from your service list, so the price comes from the same list the estimate came from. That is the subject of the next guide.

Paid Before the Truck Pulls Away

A job that is finished, invoiced and paid in the same minute is the best kind of job. To see how payment at completion fits with the rest of the crew's tools, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal app page.