The Billing section at the top of your Dumpster Management settings is where you’ll set up your primary billing method, any fees you may charge, and your rental agreement (also known as “Terms & Conditions” or “T&Cs”).
Before You Start
Here are a few things to know before you continue:
- We recommend that only the Account Owner(s) or Admins(s) set up or change the settings covered in this article.
- Depending on how your permissions are set up, you may not be able to access some or all of these settings. Please reach out to your Account Owner if additional access is needed.
- Some of the settings covered in this article have dependencies, meaning other settings have to be enabled and set up in order for the settings under the Billing section to appear.
Dumpster Management: Billing Directory
Billing Options
This setting controls how you’ll track charges that need to be paid and when you’ll create invoices to send to your customers.
First, decide whether you want to bill by Invoices or Charges. To help decide, ask yourself this question: “Do I (want to) bill my customers in advance or in arrears?”
In Advance
If you require payment from your customers in advance, or upon drop-off, choose Invoice. This option lets you create a task and send an invoice right away, and if you have the customer's credit card on file you can collect payment immediately.
In Arrears
If you collect payment in arrears, upon or after pick-up, you have a few choices:
- You can still select Invoice, create the task, create the invoice, and wait to send it to your customer until after the rental period ends.
- You can still select Invoice, create the task, and wait to create/send the invoice until after the rental period ends.
- Select Charge so Docket tracks everything automatically for you until you’re ready to send an invoice to your customer.
We highly recommend selecting Charge if you bill in arrears. Docket will automatically keep track of all costs this customer incurs, similar to an open bar tab.
After the rental period ends, you’ll create one single invoice with all the necessary charges and send it to your customer for payment.
Please Note: You should only select one option, either Invoice or Charge.
Once you’ve decided on Invoice versus Charge, decide when you’d like Docket to track a charge or create an invoice.
This is done by selecting the types of tasks you bill for. You can select all of the task types or just a few; it just depends on how your business operates.
For example, let’s say we bill $400 for a 15 yard dumpster rental and we select both the Drop Off and Pick Up task types in this setting. Moving forward, Docket will prompt us to create an invoice for $400 after a Drop Off task is created for our 15 yard dumpster and Docket will prompt us to create another $400 invoice once the Pick Up task is created.
Billing Options By Client Type
This setting allows you to set up a different billing method based on the types of customers you use in Docket.
Please Note: This setting will only appear once you’ve added Client Types to your Docket account.
The main Billing Options setting (covered above) is your default billing method. Any and all tasks you create in Docket will generate either an Invoice or have Charges tracked automatically for later invoicing.
However, if you bill certain types of customers differently from your normal process you can set up that using this setting.
For example, let’s say that you normally bill in advance, but have a special arrangement for trusted Commercial types of customers. Those customers might be billed in arrears on a monthly basis because they usually have dumpsters for longer periods of time and require frequent servicing.
To do this, you’ll create a “Commercial” client type in Docket and set up their default billing method as Charge instead of Invoice for the specific task types you bill for.
Delivery Fees
This setting allows you to set up any delivery fees you may charge your customers for.
Turning on Show Delivery Fee will bring up all the related subsettings, listed below.
This is the main setting that must be turned on in order for you and your team to be able to add a delivery fee to any Drop Off, Exchange, Dump and Return, or Live Load invoices.
Default Apply Delivery Fee:
Turning this on tells Docket to automatically apply your chosen fee amount to a newly created invoice.
Default Delivery Fee Amount:
This is where you’ll add the default dollar amount for your delivery fee.
Delivery Fee Name:
This is the name of your delivery fee that appears on your invoices. Customers will be able to see this when they receive the invoice you send them.
Tax Delivery Fee:
Turning this setting on tells Docket to apply your tax rate to the delivery fee amount.
Apply on Exchange:
By default, Docket will apply your default delivery fee to Exchange tasks. You can turn this off, however, if you don’t want to charge delivery fees for Exchanges.
Apply on Dump and Return:
By default, Docket will apply your default delivery fee to Dump and Return tasks. You can turn this off, however, if you don’t want to charge delivery fees for D&Rs.
Apply on Live Load:
By default, Docket will apply your default delivery fee to Live Load tasks. You can turn this off, however, if you don’t want to charge delivery fees for Live Loads.
Extra Day Fee Name
If you charge a fee for extra days (also known as “day overages”), this setting allows you to customize the name that appears on the invoice for customers to see.
Fuel Surcharges
This setting contains two of the three fuel surcharge options available in Docket. The third option exists in the Billing Settings.
Show Fuel Surcharge:
Turning this option on will bring up all the related subsettings, listed below. If you decide to use one of the two options available in this Fuel Surcharge setting, this toggle must be turned on.
Default Apply Fuel Surcharge:
Turning this on tells Docket to automatically apply your chosen surcharge amount to a newly created invoice.
Calculation Type:
Here, you can choose between charging a fixed amount or base your fuel surcharge on the distance from a specific location, like your yard, to your customer’s location.
Depending on which option you choose (Fixed or Distance) you’ll see different settings appear.
Fixed
If you charge a single amount for fuel surcharges regardless of distance traveled, select this option and enter your default dollar amount.
Default Fuel Surcharge Amount: This is the default dollar amount for your fuel surcharge.
Distance
If you charge varying fuel surcharges based on distance traveled, select this option, select the starting address, enter the number of miles Docket should start calculating a surcharge from, and enter your default dollar amount per mile.
Starting Distance:
Here, you can enter the mile mark where the selected surcharge starts to accumulate.
Default Fuel Surcharge Amount Per Mile:
This is where you’ll decide whether you want Docket to calculate fuel surcharges based on the distance your driver travels or based on a fixed amount.
Fuel Surcharge Name:
This is the name of your surcharge that appears on your invoices. Customers will be able to see this when they receive the invoice you send them.
Tax Fuel Surcharge:
Turning this setting on tells Docket to apply your tax rate to the surcharge amount.
Apply on Exchange:
By default, Docket will apply your default fuel surcharge to Exchange tasks. You can turn this off, however, if you don’t want to charge delivery surcharges for Exchanges.
Apply on Dump and Return
By default, Docket will apply your default fuel surcharge to Dump and Return tasks. You can turn this off, however, if you don’t want to charge surcharges for D&Rs.
Relocation Fee Amount
This setting allows you to set up a default relocation fee amount that’ll be automatically applied to invoices or charges related to Relocation tasks.
Tax Relocation Fee:
By default, Docket won’t apply your default tax rate to a relocation fee, but you can turn this setting on to automatically apply taxes to your relocation fee on an invoice.
Rental Agreement
This setting allows you to send your rental agreement, or terms and conditions, as a separate document to your customers for review and signature, if required.
Please Note: In order to use this setting you must first upload your rental agreement into the Documents section of Docket.
After your rental agreement is added to your Docket account, you’ll be able to select the document from this drop-down list. This acts as your default rental agreement that you and your team can then send to customers for review and signature, if required.
Include Rental Agreement with New Rental:
By default, Docket will send your rental agreement to customers once a new Drop Off or Live Load task is created, but you can turn it off if you don’t want it automatically sent for these types of tasks.
Apply on Dump and Return:
By default, Docket won’t send your rental agreement to customers once a Dump and Return task is created, but you can turn this setting on to automatically send it for those types of tasks.
Apply on Exchange:
By default, Docket won’t send your rental agreement to customers once an Exchange task is created, but you can turn this setting on to automatically send it for those types of tasks.
TIP: You only need to set up this Rental Agreement option or the Terms & Conditions option, not both. You can if you’d like, but your customers will end up receiving the information twice.
Sales Rep
If your business uses sales reps to bring in new customers, this setting allows you to show which sales rep is associated with a customer on tasks you and your team create for that customer.
For example, let’s say that John Smith was the sales rep that brought us Greenhouse Construction as a customer. Turning on Show Sales Rep will add John Smith as the sales rep for every task we create for Greenhouse Construction.
Assign to Logged In Employee:
By default, Docket won’t assume who the sales rep is for customers, but you can turn this setting on if you want Docket to assume that the employee who created the task is the sales rep.
Set Invoice Date as Service Date
This setting allows you to choose what date you want your invoice to default to. You can select Drop Off or Pick Up as the type of task you want Docket to use on your invoice.
If you bill in advance, we suggest selecting Drop Off so that the scheduled date of your drop-off task is what appears on the invoice you send to your customer.
If you bill in arrears, we suggest selecting Pick Up so that the scheduled date of your pick-up task is what appears on the invoice you send to your customer.
Terms & Conditions
This setting allows you to send your terms and conditions, or rental agreement, as part of the estimate or invoice you send to your customer. It appears at the bottom of every estimate and invoice you send.
This is different from the Rental Agreement setting (covered above) because it’s automatically included in every estimate or invoice you send to your customers and isn’t sent as a separate document.
TIP: You only need to set up the Rental Agreement option or this Terms & Conditions option, not both. You can if you’d like, but your customers will end up receiving the information twice.
In order to set this up, just copy your existing T&Cs and paste it into this field. You can also type straight into the field if you don’t have any existing T&Cs to copy.
Please Note: At this time, there isn’t a way to include links in this field for customers to click on from their invoice.
If you have any questions, please reach out to our Support team through the blue chat widget on the bottom right of this page or by sending an email to support@yourdocket.com!