TowingBossPro Blog — Accounts & Customers

Police and Municipal Tow Accounts: Records That Hold Up When Someone Asks

Police and municipal tows are different from every other kind of account work. The person who called you is not the person who owns the vehicle. The vehicle may be evidence, may be going to impound or may be blocking traffic after a crash. And months later, someone — the owner, an attorney, an agency auditor — may ask exactly what happened.

In Keeping Motor Club Calls Organized Under One Tow Account, we organized high-volume motor club work. Police and municipal accounts usually bring fewer calls, but each one deserves more careful records.

Set Up Each Agency as an Account

Each department, sheriff's office, city or agency you tow for should be its own account. If you work for the city police and the county sheriff, those are two accounts with their own call histories. If a city has several divisions that call you separately — patrol, code enforcement, public works — decide whether they bill together. If they do, keep them as one account and use tags or custom fields to show which division called.

Agency contracts, rotation lists and required procedures vary a great deal by location. TowingBossPro does not connect to police rotation systems; calls are entered by your dispatcher. Always check your local and state requirements for what must be recorded, how long to keep it and how notices must be sent.

Vehicle Details Are Not Optional

On an agency tow, the vehicle details are the heart of the record. TowingBossPro stores year, make, model, color, plate and VIN on each call. Get them all, every time, even when the scene is chaotic. Plates get swapped, colors get misremembered, and the VIN is what settles who the vehicle belongs to.

Train dispatchers to read the VIN back to the driver and confirm it before the call is closed. A single transposed character turns a clean record into a research project, and on agency work the record is often read by people outside your company.

Add a custom field for the agency's case or incident number if they provide one. When an officer or records clerk calls weeks later, the case number is what they will ask about.

Photos From the Scene

Driver photos from the driver app attach to the call. On agency work, photos at the scene and at your yard document the vehicle's condition and contents as you received it. If an owner later says the vehicle was damaged in your care, those photos are your answer.

Set a standard for agency calls: all four sides, close-ups of existing damage, the interior if visible, and the odometer if you can safely get it. Photos are cheap; disputes are expensive.

Impound and Storage Under the Account

Many police tows end in impound or storage. TowingBossPro tracks impound and storage with a daily rate, so storage charges are based on the days the vehicle actually sat in your yard instead of someone's estimate when the owner shows up.

The vehicle owner is usually the one who pays for release, not the agency. Keep the call under the agency account for history and reporting, and invoice the owner when they come to claim it. Card on file and online payments make release smoother, and sales tax is applied where it applies. Release procedures and fee limits are set by local rules in many places, so check them.

Dealing With the Vehicle Owner

The owner of a police-towed vehicle is often frustrated, sometimes embarrassed and occasionally angry. Clear communication helps. When you have their phone number, a text with your yard address, hours and what they need to bring answers the questions they would otherwise call about.

• Your yard address and hours for release
• What documents your local rules require for release
• How storage charges accrue by the day
• How to pay, including online payment if you offer it

Two-way texting keeps their replies on the record, which matters if there is a complaint later.

Reporting to and About Agencies

Agencies sometimes ask for a summary of tows performed, and you will want your own view of how much agency work you do. Reports by account show calls and invoices per agency. Tags let you group all government work together and compare it with commercial and retail.

Watch response times on agency calls too. Many agencies judge their tow providers on how quickly a truck arrives, and the dispatch board plus the call history give you a clear account of when each call came in and when the driver arrived.

Agency work is rarely the most profitable, but a clean record with the police department is a reputation asset. Organized, complete records are how you keep it. For more on how agencies fit alongside every other account type, see the towing account management software overview. Next, we look at the account that often becomes the most loyal of all: the body shop.