PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Construction Site Accounts

Commercial Builders and Big Job Sites: Porta Potty Service at Scale

When One Site Needs a Fleet

A commercial builder on a hospital, warehouse, school or office building can need more units on one site than a home builder needs across a whole subdivision. The crew count climbs and falls with each phase, there may be several gates, and the units can be spread across a site the size of a few city blocks.

This is the far end of the range that started with the short roofing jobs in Roofers and Short Construction Jobs: Fast Porta Potty Drops and Quick Pickups. Small jobs test your speed. Big commercial jobs test your organization. Everything in this article is about keeping a large site straight so that every unit gets serviced and every unit gets billed.

Organizing a Large Site

Set the commercial builder up as a client with a Contractor tag, and add the project as a job site. If the site is so large that it has distinct areas with their own entrances, consider whether separate sites make more sense, such as "North Gate, Building A" and "South Gate, Parking Structure." Each would then carry its own access notes and placement notes.

On every delivery, record unit type, quantity, unit numbers and placement notes. On a large site, unit numbers are what keep the count honest. When a driver services fourteen units, the list on the phone says which fourteen and where each group sits.

Mixed Unit Types

Commercial sites use a mix of units. Standards for the general crew, ADA Accessible units, Hand Wash Stations near the break area, Deluxe Flushing units or a Restroom Trailer for the site office, and High-Rise / Crane units on upper floors once the structure goes up. Each type shows on the job, so the driver knows which units need which service.

High-rise units have their own scheduling needs because they depend on the crane. High-Rise and Crane Porta Potty Units: Scheduling Lifts on Tall Construction Projects covers how to note crane time and lift requirements on the job so the driver is not waiting on a crane operator who never got the message.

Contacts and Access on a Big Site

Commercial sites have more people and more rules. There is the general superintendent, assistant supers, a safety manager, and sometimes a gate guard who checks every vehicle. Add the people your driver actually deals with as site contacts, and put the rules in the access notes: required gate, check-in procedure, safety gear, hours the truck can enter, and where the truck can stage.

When a rule changes, update the site, not a sticky note. The next driver on the route reads it from the phone before pulling in.

Large sites also change shape as the work moves. The area where the units sat during excavation may become a foundation pour a month later. When the super asks you to move a group of units, schedule it as its own job on the site with new placement notes, so the driver knows where they are going and the office has a record that the move happened. Relocating Porta Potties Between Construction Phases covers moving units between phases.

Scheduling Service on a Large Site

A large site can be most of a truck's morning. On the Scheduled List, the dispatcher can place the site's service visit at the start or end of a route depending on gate hours, and auto-route the remaining stops around it. The board totals stops and dollars per service, which shows how much of a day's revenue sits on one site.

Weekly service comes due on its own from the minimum days between visits. As the crew grows, raise the frequency or add units, and the visits follow. When a super asks for an extra pump-out before an inspection or a big pour, it goes on the Waiting List like any other job.

Driver photos give you a record of each visit. On a site with a safety manager who checks everything, a dated photo of a clean, stocked unit is useful when someone asks whether service actually happened.

On a site this size, the office should also know who signs off on changes. A foreman may ask a driver to move a group of units, but the general super may want them left alone. Note on the site who can approve moves and additions, and have drivers send any request from someone else back to the office before acting on it.

Billing the Commercial Builder

Commercial builders almost always want a monthly statement. Set the account to Monthly, and they get one statement each month covering every job at every site, each line labeled with the site address. Sales tax is set per site, so a builder with projects in different tax areas gets correct tax on each line.

Rental tracking counts the days each delivery has been out, and extra days past the days included are added to the invoice automatically. Reports by account show what each commercial builder is worth. To see how one account handles every site and every unit, go to PortaPottyBossPro construction porta potty rental software.