PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Billing & Rental Invoices

Online Payment From the Customer App: Letting Porta Potty Customers Pay Without Calling

Not every customer wants auto-charge. Some want to see the invoice first. Some want to pay with a different card each time. Some just like to click "pay" themselves. For all of them, the easiest payment is one they can make from their phone without calling your office.

Paying Should Not Need a Phone Call

Auto-Charge for Portable Toilet Rentals: On Completion or On a Schedule covers charging cards automatically. This article covers the customers who would rather pay on their own terms.

In a lot of porta potty offices, "paying online" still means the customer calls, someone reads a card number back to them, and it gets typed into a terminal. That takes time from both sides and means card numbers are being said out loud. When customers can pay from an app, the office phone gets quieter and payments come in faster.

What the Customer App Shows

PortaPottyBossPro includes a customer app for your customers. In it they can:

• See their invoices
• Pay online
• Update the card on file
• Request service, such as an extra pump-out or a pickup
• Sign up for services and see pricing
• Rate the service and refer a friend

They can also see today's route on a live map — "You're stop 12 of 20, the crew is 5 stops away" — and choose which alerts they want: the night before, when they are next, and when the tech arrives. Billing is one part of an app they already have reasons to open.

Why Customers Pay Faster

People pay bills when it is easy and they remember. A text with an invoice and a link to pay catches them at a moment when paying takes thirty seconds. A paper invoice in the mail waits for the weekend, and then the next weekend. When the app has the invoice, the amount and the pay button in one place, most customers simply pay.

Fewer Billing Questions

Many billing calls are really lookup calls: "What was this charge?" "Did my payment go through?" "How much do I owe?" When customers can open their invoices and see each line, with dates and the site address, most of those questions answer themselves. That is one more reason to write line items customers understand — see Porta Potty Invoice Line Items Customers Actually Understand.

Updating the Card Without the Office

A declined card is one of the most common billing problems. When a customer can update their card in the app, a decline turns into a quick fix instead of a phone tag. Send a short text — "Your card on file was declined, you can update it in the app" — and most customers handle it the same day.

Getting Customers Into the App

Mention the app everywhere: on the sign-up form, in the first confirmation text, at the bottom of every invoice. The service alerts give customers a reason to install it early, so by the time the first invoice arrives they already know where to find it. Customers who are already watching the route on the live map are one tap away from their invoices.

Contractors and Online Payment

Contractors on monthly account billing often still pay by check, but many will pay online when it is offered. One monthly statement plus a pay button is easier for a small contractor's bookkeeper than writing and mailing a check. Offer it, and let them choose.

What the Office Gets Back

Every payment made in the app is a payment the office did not have to take by phone. That time adds up quickly in a busy season, when the phones are already full of delivery requests and service questions. The office can spend its time scheduling, quoting and following up on the few invoices that really need attention, instead of reading card numbers and confirming payments one call at a time.

Payments made online also land on the invoice directly, so nobody has to match a check to the right bill or type a payment in from a note. The invoice shows paid, the customer sees it in the app, and the books stay current without anyone touching them.

It also helps on the weekend. A customer who remembers the invoice on a Sunday night can pay it right then, instead of waiting until Monday to call an office that is closed.

Make Paying the Easy Part

The less effort it takes to pay you, the sooner you get paid. Give customers their invoices, a pay button and a way to update their card, all in the app they already use for route alerts. See how the customer app fits into billing on the porta potty billing software page.