SepticBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Monthly Billing for Commercial Septic and Holding-Tank Accounts

Commercial accounts are a different billing world. A restaurant with a grease trap, a business with a holding tank, a mobile home park with several systems, a campground with seasonal pumping — these customers may get service multiple times a month, and their accounts payable departments do not want a separate invoice for every visit. They want one clear monthly invoice that lists every service. Following Following Up on Septic Estimates That Haven't Been Approved, which covered winning residential repair work, this article is about keeping your best recurring commercial customers happy on billing.

Why Commercial Customers Want Monthly Invoices

Businesses pay bills on a cycle. A bookkeeper or AP clerk processes vendor invoices on a set schedule, and a stack of small invoices from one vendor is a nuisance that slows payment down. One monthly invoice with every visit listed is easier for them to approve, easier to match to their records, and more likely to be paid on time.

It is better for you too. Fewer invoices means fewer chances for one to get lost in a corporate inbox.

Some commercial customers will ask for a purchase order number or a specific reference on every invoice. Find that out at setup and note it on the customer record. An invoice missing a required reference can sit in an AP queue for weeks while nobody tells you why. Getting the paperwork details right up front is often the difference between net-30 actually meaning thirty days and it meaning ninety.

Rolling Up Completed Visits

SepticBossPro can invoice completed jobs per visit or roll them up monthly. For a commercial account set up for monthly billing, each completed visit is collected through the month and invoiced together at the end. The invoice lists each service date and line item, so the customer can match visits to their own logs.

Recurring jobs make the scheduling side easy as well. Set up the commercial account's service frequency once, and the jobs appear on the schedule and dispatch board without anyone rebooking them.

Line Items That Match the Customer's Records

Commercial invoices need detail. List each visit with its date, the service performed, gallons where relevant, and any disposal charges. If a site has multiple tanks or traps, keep each property separate so the customer can allocate costs to the right location. SepticBossPro property records keep each address distinct under the same customer, which is exactly what multi-site businesses need.

Apply sales tax where it belongs. Line items make it possible to tax some charges and not others, depending on your jurisdiction's rules.

Paying by Card on File or Online

Many smaller commercial customers — a single restaurant, a small business — are happy to keep a card on file and have the monthly invoice charged automatically. Larger organizations often prefer to receive the invoice and pay it through their own process. SepticBossPro supports both: card on file with auto-billing through Stripe, and invoices customers can pay online.

Ask each commercial customer at setup how they want to be billed and paid. Getting this right at the start prevents months of chasing.

Following Up Without Damaging the Relationship

Commercial invoices sometimes stall in an approval process. Payment reminders and follow-ups keep them moving without the owner having to call a good customer about money. Keep the tone professional and factual. If an invoice ages past what is normal for that customer, a personal call to the person who manages the account is usually the fastest fix — often the invoice simply went to someone who left the company.

Keep the billing contact current on the customer record. Most commercial collection problems are really address problems.

It also pays to know your commercial customer's own calendar. A school, a seasonal campground, or a restaurant that closes for a few weeks in winter will have months with no visits and months with extra ones. Talk through that pattern at the start of the year so the monthly invoice amounts do not catch their bookkeeper off guard. Predictable invoices get approved faster than surprising ones, even when the work is exactly what was agreed.

Reporting on Your Commercial Book

Commercial accounts are often your steadiest revenue. Reports and the payments list show how much each account bills, how quickly they pay, and what is outstanding. QuickBooks export gets the invoices and payments into your books without re-typing. Reviewing commercial accounts monthly tells you which ones are worth growing and which ones are costing more in follow-up than they are worth.

For an overview of per-visit and monthly billing, card on file, and reports together, see the SepticBossPro septic billing software page. The next article compares per-visit and monthly invoicing in more detail.