PlumbingBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Monthly Statements for Commercial Plumbing Accounts: One Bill Covering Every Address

Ask a property manager what annoys them most about vendors and billing comes up fast. Thirty invoices a month from one plumber, each arriving separately, each needing to be matched to a property and an owner. Some with the address, some without. A plumbing company that sends one clean statement a month, sorted by address, solves a problem the manager has every single month.

Why Accounts Want One Bill

The flush program in Yearly Water Heater Flushes Across a Landlord's Rental Portfolio is a good example. Twelve houses flushed in a month would mean twelve invoices. For a homeowner, one invoice per job is fine. For an account, it is clutter.

Property managers usually pay vendors on a set schedule, often once a month. They pass costs through to owners by property. Restaurant groups split costs by location. Churches have a treasurer who writes checks once a month. In every case, one statement with clear lines is easier than a pile of invoices.

How Monthly Billing Works

In PlumbingBossPro, billing is set on the client. Set a property manager, landlord or restaurant group to Monthly, and instead of an invoice going out after each job, the account gets one statement each month covering every address.

Each line on the statement is labeled with the address where the work was done. A manager looking at the statement sees:

• 412 Oak St — Drain cleaning, kitchen sink
• 412 Oak St — Water heater flush
• 1180 Birch Ave — Backflow test
• 77 Elm Ct — Toilet repair, flapper and fill valve

Line items come from your own service list, with your own prices, and sales tax is applied as usual. The manager can split the statement across owners without calling you to ask which job was where.

What the Tech Does Differently

Nothing. That is the point. The tech completes jobs the same way on every account: Start, the work, photos, Complete. The billing method on the client decides what happens next. For card-on-file clients, Complete creates the invoice and can charge the card. For monthly clients, the job joins that month's statement.

That keeps the tech's phone simple and keeps billing decisions in the office where they belong.

A Simple Month-End Routine

Monthly billing works best with a short routine in the office. In the last few days of the month:

• Check that every job done for monthly accounts was marked Complete. A job left open will not make the statement.
• Look over each statement for lines that need a note, such as a quote number or a tenant-caused repair the manager will want to bill back.
• Make sure any account that changed billing contacts this month has the new contact saved on the client.

Twenty minutes at month end saves a lot of back-and-forth later. It also means the statement arrives looking like it came from a company that has its act together, which is exactly the impression you want a property manager to have.

Making the Statement Easy to Pay

A statement is only useful if it gets paid. A few habits help:

• Send it on the same day each month. Managers build vendor payments around a routine.
• Make every line match a photo. If the manager questions a line, the job's before-and-after photos and notes answer it.
• Include PO numbers if the account uses them. Store the PO requirement in a custom field on the client so the office never forgets it.
• Let them pay online. Customers can see invoices and pay from the customer app.

If a statement goes unpaid, past-due follow-up handles the reminder. More on that in Collecting From Commercial Plumbing Accounts: Past-Due Follow-Up Without the Awkward Calls.

Not Every Account Needs It

Monthly billing is for accounts that have enough work to make it worthwhile and the trust to pay after the fact. A landlord with two houses and one call a quarter is usually better on card on file. A new restaurant you have never worked with might start on card on file and move to Monthly once they have proven reliable. The choice is covered in Card on File or Monthly Statement: Choosing How Each Commercial Plumbing Account Pays.

A Small Thing That Wins Accounts

One statement a month seems like a back-office detail. To a property manager, it is often the reason they pick one plumber over another. Their accounting gets simpler, their owners get clear pass-through costs, and nobody has to chase down a missing invoice from three weeks ago.

For more on running commercial and property manager accounts, visit the commercial plumbing software page.