TowingBossPro Blog — Invoicing & Payments

Keeping Motor Club Calls Straight on Your Own Books

Motor club work can keep trucks busy, but it's easy to lose track of. Calls come through the club's own process, payments arrive on the club's schedule, and the details you need to reconcile them end up scattered between texts, paper tickets and memory.

Even if the club pays through its own system, you need your own record of every call.

Why Your Own Record Matters

Commercial accounts in Billing Commercial Tow Accounts: Body Shops, Dealers and Property Managers are billed directly. Motor club calls often aren't; the club has its own process for dispatching and paying. TowingBossPro doesn't connect to motor club dispatch or billing systems, so it isn't a replacement for whatever process the club requires.

What it does is give you a complete, independent record. Every club call is logged in your system with its pickup, drop-off, vehicle and what was done. When the payment comes in, you can check it against what you actually did.

Without your own record, you're trusting the club's numbers entirely. Most of the time that's fine. When it isn't, you need proof.

Your own record also helps with things outside of payment: tracking which drivers handle club calls, how long they take and whether club work is crowding out your direct customers at peak times.

Set Up Each Club as an Account

Create each motor club as a commercial account. Every call that comes through that club gets logged under the account. That way, you can see at a glance how many calls each club sent this month and what they were worth.

Record the club's reference or job number in the call notes. That number is how you'll match your record to the club's payment later.

If you work with several clubs, keeping each one separate makes it easy to compare which ones are worth the work.

Set the services and expected amounts for each club in the account notes, based on your agreement. When a payment comes in, the office can compare it to the expected amount without hunting for the rate sheet.

Capture the Details the Club Will Ask For

Clubs often have specific requirements: the vehicle information, the locations, sometimes photos. Your driver app already captures pickup and drop-off addresses, vehicle details, notes and photos, so the record is complete even if the club asks for proof later.

Have drivers note anything that changes the job, like a different drop-off, extra miles or a roadside call that became a tow. Those changes usually affect what you're owed.

Photos are worth taking on every club call. If there's a question about vehicle condition, you'll have them.

Reconciling Payments

When the club pays, match each payment to the calls in your system. Mark the calls paid. Anything left open is either still in the club's process or something you need to follow up on.

Do this regularly, not once a year. A monthly reconciliation catches missing payments while the calls are still recent enough to dispute.

Keep a simple note of discrepancies: the call, what you expected, what was paid and why. Patterns in that list tell you a lot about which clubs are worth working with.

Assign one person to own reconciliation. When everyone is responsible for checking club payments, nobody does it, and small shortfalls quietly turn into large ones over a year.

When the Customer Owes Something Too

Sometimes the club covers part of a call and the motorist owes the rest, such as extra miles beyond what the club covers. In that case, invoice the motorist for their portion and collect it on scene or with a pay-online link.

Make sure the driver explains it at the scene so it's not a surprise. Note it in the call so the office knows the customer was told.

Keep the motorist's invoice tied to the same call so the full picture of the job stays together.

Collect the motorist's portion before the vehicle leaves the hook whenever possible. Once the car is at the shop and the motorist is gone, that small balance becomes one of the hardest invoices to collect.

Is Club Work Worth It?

With every club call logged under its account, your reports can show how much club work you do and how much you're actually collecting from it. Compare that to the truck time it takes.

Some operators find club work fills slow hours nicely; others find it crowds out better-paying direct calls. You can only make that decision with good records. See how calls, accounts and reports work together on the towing invoicing software page for TowingBossPro.