JunkBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Sending the Junk Removal Invoice: Email, the Customer App and a Text From the Office

An invoice nobody sees is an invoice nobody pays. For most junk removal jobs, the invoice is paid the moment it is created, because the card on file is charged when the crew taps Complete. But the customer still needs to see it, and for the jobs that are not paid on the spot, how the invoice reaches them decides how fast the money comes in.

Where the Invoice Comes From

Paying from the customer app is covered in Online Payment From the Customer App: Letting Junk Removal Customers Pay Their Own Invoice. This article steps back one step: how the invoice gets in front of the customer in the first place.

In JunkBossPro, the invoice is created from the job when the crew taps Complete. It carries the line items from your service list, the sales tax from your settings, and any dump fee overage from the ticket. Nobody types it up. The question is only where the customer reads it.

Email: The Record They Keep

Email is the invoice the customer files away. It is what they forward to a spouse, a sibling handling an estate, or the accounting person at a property management company. JunkBossPro sends invoices and alerts by email, so the customer has a written record of the job without asking for one.

A good invoice email does three things:

• Says what the job was. “Garage cleanout at 412 Elm St.”
• Shows the lines. Load size, items, any overage, tax and total.
• Says whether it is paid. “Paid by card on file” or a clear way to pay online.

For a paid job, the email is a receipt. For an unpaid job, it is the first nudge.

The Customer App: The Invoice They Can Act On

The customer app is where the customer does something about the invoice. They can see every invoice on their account, pay online and update their card. A customer who reads the email and decides to pay opens the app and pays it in a minute.

The app also keeps a history. A homeowner who has used you three times can see all three jobs and what each cost. A small landlord with several addresses sees every invoice in one place.

A Text From the Office: The Nudge

Email gets buried. Texts get read. When an invoice is sitting unpaid, a short text from the office through two-way texting is often what gets it closed:

• “Thanks again for having us out Tuesday. Your invoice is in the app whenever you're ready.”
• “Looks like the card on file didn't go through. You can update it in the app and the invoice will be there.”
• “The dump ticket came back a little heavy. We added the overage as its own line so you can see the weight.”

Replies come back to the office in the same thread, so if the customer has a question, it gets answered in writing. Texts count toward your plan's monthly allowance (500, 1,000 or 2,000 texts sent and received on Start, Pro or Crew, in the US and Canada), so a short, useful nudge is better than a long one.

What Not to Do

• Don't send a lump total. “$612 due” invites a phone call. Lines invite payment.
• Don't wait until the end of the week. The invoice should arrive while the empty garage is still fresh in the customer's mind.
• Don't retype it. An invoice built from the job is correct. One rewritten from notes often is not.
• Don't send separate invoices to a Monthly account. Property managers set to Monthly get one statement covering every address instead.

The Dump Ticket Timing Question

If the crew completes the job before the dump run, the invoice goes out at the agreed price, and any overage from the ticket follows. Customers handle this fine when they were told up front that weight over the included tons is billed after. The step-by-step is in From Dump Ticket to Invoice: Entering the Tons So the Overage Bills Itself. A short text with the overage line, explaining what it is, keeps it from looking like a surprise charge.

Sending to the Right Person

The person who booked the job is not always the person who pays for it. An adult child books a cleanout for a parent. A tenant calls about a couch, but the landlord is paying. A realtor books a trash-out at a listing. Before the job, ask who the invoice should go to, and make sure that person's email and phone are on the client record. In JunkBossPro, one client can have many addresses, so the landlord or the realtor is the client and each property sits under them. The invoice goes to the person paying, with the job's address on it so they know which property it was for. Getting this right up front saves a round of “I never got it” later.

When It Still Is Not Paid

Email, the app and a text cover most unpaid invoices within a few days. The ones that remain move to past-due follow-up, which is the subject of the next article. To see how sending invoices fits with charging at completion, auto-charge and monthly statements, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal invoicing software page.