DumpsterBossPro Blog — Billing & Overages

Billing Relocations, Swaps and Dump & Return Trips

A dumpster rental is not always one delivery and one pickup. A busy remodel might need the box swapped twice. A contractor might need the same container hauled, dumped and brought back. A homeowner might call on day two to move the can from the driveway to the side yard. Each of those is a truck trip, and each truck trip costs you fuel, driver time and wear.

If those trips are not billed, a profitable rental can quietly turn into a loss. Here is how to keep them straight.

Know Your Job Types

DumpsterBossPro tracks five job types: Delivery, Pickup, Swap, Dump & Return and Relocate. Each one is a separate trip on the dispatch board and a separate record on the rental. That matters for billing, because every trip can carry its own charge, and it matters for dispatch, because the driver knows exactly what to do when they arrive. The surcharges in Prohibited Items, Mattresses and Tires: Billing Surcharges as Line Items are about what goes into the box; this guide is about how many times the truck shows up.

Billing Swaps

A Swap means the driver drops an empty container and takes the full one in one trip. For billing, a swap usually means a new rental period starts or a swap fee applies, plus the weight of the full box that was hauled. Decide which you do, write it in your terms, and apply it every time.

Each full box that goes to the scale has its own weight. If you bill weight per load, enter each scale ticket so each load's overage is calculated against its own included weight.

Swaps are also a good moment to check the extra-day clock. If a contractor has been swapping every week, their rental may never run past the included days. If swaps have slowed down, the box on site may now be running extra days that nobody noticed. Looking at the dates on each swap job tells you which.

Billing Dump & Return

Dump & Return means the driver takes the container to the disposal site, empties it and brings the same container back. It is common for contractors who want to keep their unit number on site, or for areas where there is room for only one container. The billing is similar to a swap: a trip charge plus the weight of the load.

Because the same container goes back, record the ticket carefully. A dump-and-return job with no weight on it is an overage you will never bill.

Billing Relocations

A Relocate job moves the container from one spot to another, on the same property or to a new address. Relocation charges are easy to forget because no dumping happens and nothing changes on the scale. But it is still a truck, a driver and a trip.

Put relocation fees on your price list and on the quote, then add them to the invoice as their own line item, such as "Container relocation." A customer who asked for the move will rarely be surprised by the charge if it was quoted.

A relocation can also change the weight math if the container already has debris in it. Moving a half-full box is more work than moving an empty one, and some companies charge more for it. Whatever your rule, write it down before the first time a customer asks.

Keeping Trips Tied to One Rental

The biggest risk with multi-trip rentals is that the trips scatter. A swap gets billed as a new rental, a relocation never gets billed at all, or the extra-day clock resets when it should not. Keep every trip on the same customer and the same job history, and look at the full history before the final invoice goes out.

For contractor accounts billed monthly, every Delivery, Swap, Dump & Return and Relocate for the month should appear on their one monthly invoice, each with its own charges.

DumpsterBossPro keeps each trip as its own job with its own job type, on the dispatch board and on the customer's history, so the office can see the full story of a rental before the invoice is built.

A Pre-Invoice Trip Check

Before invoicing a rental, ask three questions: How many trips did the truck make? Is each trip on the invoice? Is each load's weight entered? If the answers line up, you have billed the work you did. For how DumpsterBossPro handles job types, dispatch and billing together, visit the DumpsterBossPro dumpster rental billing software page. Next, we cover wasted trips: blocked containers and trip charges.