TrashCanBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Moving Trash Can Cleaning Billing Off Paper and Spreadsheets

Almost every bin cleaning business starts the same way: a spreadsheet of customers, a notebook in the truck and invoices sent one at a time. It works for the first fifty customers. Somewhere past that, the spreadsheet starts to run the owner instead of the other way around. Here is how to move off it without losing a month of revenue in the switch.

Know What You Are Replacing

The reports in Billing Reports Every Bin Cleaning Owner Should Read are hard to produce from a spreadsheet, and that is usually what pushes owners to switch. Before you move, write down everything your current system does, even the parts that live in your head:

• Who your customers are and what they pay
• How many cans each one has and what day their trash goes out
• Who pays by card, who pays by check, who is on a monthly bill
• Who owes money right now
• Any special deals or discounts you promised

That list is your checklist for the move. If something is not on it, it will get lost.

Step 1: Import Your Customer List

TrashCanBossPro can import your existing customer list from a CSV file, which any spreadsheet can save as. Clean the spreadsheet first: one row per address, consistent column names, no merged cells, phone numbers and emails in their own columns.

After the import, check a handful of customers by hand. Make sure addresses came over correctly and each one has the right plan. Then fill in what the import could not: number of trash, recycling and yard waste cans, trash day, and can location notes.

Step 2: Group Your Billing Accounts

If an HOA or property manager has many addresses, set them up as one client with every address under it and set billing to Monthly. Use tags like Monthly, Every-Other-Week, HOA and Commercial so each billing group is easy to find. This is the step that turns forty separate rows in your spreadsheet into one HOA account with one statement.

Step 3: Collect Cards

This is the big one. Your existing customers probably do not have a card on file with you. Plan a short campaign to collect them:

• Text or email every customer explaining the change: you are moving to a new system with a customer app where they can see invoices, pay online and keep a card on file.
• Point them to the customer app to add their card.
• Follow up with anyone who has not added one after a week or two.

Some customers will keep paying the old way for a while. That is fine. Their invoices are in the customer app for them to pay online. New customers coming through your website sign-up form will have a card from day one.

Step 4: Pick a Switch Date

Do not run two billing systems for long. Pick a date, ideally the start of a month, and from that date forward, every cleaning is completed in the tech app and invoiced in TrashCanBossPro. Anything before that date stays in the old system until it is paid.

Carry over open balances carefully. If a customer owed you from the old system, note it on their client record or bill it as a separate line so it is not forgotten. Do not mix old and new without a clear note; that is how balances get billed twice or not at all.

Step 5: Train the Crew

Paper billing depends on the office. Automatic billing depends on the tech tapping the right button. Before the switch date, walk every tech through the tech app: Start, Skip with a reason, Complete, and before and after photos. Make sure they understand that Complete creates the invoice. For more on that, read Auto-Charge on Completion: Getting Paid Before the Trailer Leaves the Street.

Step 6: Review the First Month Closely

The first month after a switch deserves a careful month-end review. Check that every customer got billed, that Monthly accounts got one statement each, that cans match what techs saw, and that old balances were carried over correctly. After the first clean month, the monthly review gets much shorter.

Keep the Old Records

Do not delete your spreadsheet or throw out your old invoices after the switch. Save a copy somewhere safe and label it with the date you stopped using it. You may need it for taxes, for a customer who disputes an old charge, or simply to compare this year's numbers to last year's. Old records cost nothing to keep and can save a lot of trouble later.

The Short Version

List what your paper system does, import customers by CSV, group HOAs and managers into Monthly accounts, collect cards through the customer app, pick one switch date and train the crew on Complete. For more billing guides, go back to the trash can cleaning billing software page.