PlumbingBossPro Blog — Tech App

Charging the Card on File When the Plumber Taps Complete

The most expensive part of a plumbing job is sometimes collecting for it. The plumber fixes the leak, the customer says “send me the bill,” and three weeks later the office is still sending reminders. Multiply that by a few dozen calls a week and a small plumbing company ends up carrying a lot of money it already earned. PlumbingBossPro can charge the card on file the moment the plumber taps Complete.

Complete Is the Billing Moment

Before the plumber taps Complete, the customer already got the arrived text covered in The Arrived Text: Letting the Homeowner Know the Plumber Is at the Door. Complete is the last tap at the address, and it is where billing happens.

When the plumber taps Complete, PlumbingBossPro creates the invoice from the job's line items, with sales tax where it applies. If the customer has a card on file and the company has set up auto-charge on completion, the card is charged right then. The plumber does not handle a card, read numbers aloud or carry a separate card reader. The payment is done before the van leaves the curb.

Getting the Card on File

Charging at completion only works if the card is already there. Cards get on file a few ways:

• Through the sign-up form. Customers who sign up for a service on your website, such as a yearly water heater flush plan, enter a card as part of signing up.
• In the customer app. Customers can add or update their card themselves.
• Through the office. When a new customer books by phone, the office can send them to add a card before the visit.

The easiest time to ask is when the customer books. “We keep a card on file and charge it when the job is done, and you'll get the invoice by email” is a normal thing to say, and most customers prefer it to writing a check.

The Invoice Matches the Work

The invoice comes from the job's line items. For a service call, that might be the $89 service call plus the faucet cartridge the plumber replaced. For a drain call, a $189 drain cleaning. For a yearly flush, a $129 water heater flush. Those are your prices from your service list, so every plumber charges the same thing for the same work.

When the plumber finds something extra on site, such as a corroded supply line that should be replaced, the job notes and photos tell the office what was done, and the line item belongs on the job before the invoice goes out. The cleanest setup is that the plumber lets the office know before tapping Complete, so the charge matches the work the customer saw.

Customers Without a Card on File

Not every customer will put a card on file, and that is fine. For them, Complete still creates the invoice. The customer can see it and pay online in the customer app. If it goes unpaid, PlumbingBossPro handles past-due follow-up so the office is not writing every reminder by hand.

The difference is speed. A charge at completion is paid today. An invoice sent for online payment is paid when the customer gets to it. Most companies find that the more customers have a card on file, the less time the office spends chasing money.

Monthly Accounts

Property managers and restaurants usually do not want a separate charge for every visit. A landlord with a dozen rentals would rather get one bill. In PlumbingBossPro, an account set to Monthly gets one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled with the address the work was done at.

For the plumber, nothing changes. They tap Complete at the restaurant after jetting the grease line, just like at a house. The billing rules on the account decide whether that turns into an immediate charge or a line on the monthly statement.

Why It Matters for a Small Shop

A plumbing company with two or three vans does not have a full-time collections person. Every hour the owner or office manager spends chasing invoices is an hour not spent booking calls. Charging at completion does three things: it gets the money in faster, it cuts the number of unpaid invoices to follow up, and it makes the end of the job cleaner for the customer, who just gets a receipt.

The plumber benefits too. Nobody has to ask the homeowner for money at the kitchen table, which is the part of the job most plumbers like least. The invoice side of this is covered in Invoices From the Job: How the Plumber App Ends the Friday Billing Pile. For the rest of the tech app, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumber app page.