TowingBossPro Blog — Invoicing & Payments

Invoicing Roadside Calls: Jump Starts, Lockouts, Tire Changes and Fuel

Roadside calls are small tickets, and small tickets are the easiest to forget. A jump start takes ten minutes. If nobody collects at the scene and the invoice doesn't go out that day, it often never gets paid at all.

Across a month, those forgotten small calls add up to real money. Here's how to keep them from leaking.

Treat Roadside as Its Own Category

Where Billing Winch Time and Recovery Work Without Arguments dealt with the biggest jobs, this one deals with the smallest. In TowingBossPro, Roadside is its own category next to Light-Duty and Heavy-Duty Tows. That keeps jump starts, lockouts, tire changes and fuel deliveries from getting mixed in with tows in your reports.

It also tells you something useful: how much of your volume is roadside, and whether those calls actually get paid. Many operators are surprised by how many open roadside invoices are sitting there.

Seeing roadside as a separate line in reports also helps with staffing decisions. If roadside makes up a large share of calls but a small share of revenue, you'll know which trucks and drivers should be handling it.

Simple Services, Simple Lines

Each roadside service gets a clear name and a price structure you've decided on ahead of time: service call, jump start, lockout, tire change, fuel delivery plus the fuel itself. Keep fuel as its own line so customers see what they are paying for the gas versus the trip.

Because the services are set up ahead of time, the office isn't guessing at prices or retyping descriptions. The invoice can go out minutes after the driver completes the call.

Decide ahead of time whether a lockout or tire change includes a service call charge or whether the service price covers the trip. Either works, but switching between the two from call to call confuses customers and makes reports harder to read.

Collect Before the Driver Leaves

For private-pay roadside calls, payment at the scene is the norm customers expect. A pay-online link sent right after the driver taps complete lets the customer pay from their phone before they pull away. For regulars, a card on file means the call is charged when it's done.

If the customer drives off without paying, the invoice is already in their inbox. Automated follow-ups by text and email remind them, each with a link to pay.

Many roadside customers are travelers you'll never see again. That makes the scene the only realistic time to collect. If your drivers don't handle payment, the office needs to send that link while the driver is still on site.

When a Roadside Call Becomes a Tow

The jump start doesn't take, or the spare is flat too. Now it's a tow. Don't create a messy second record from memory; update the call so it has a drop-off address and the right service, and invoice it as what it became.

Customers usually understand the upgrade if the driver explains it on the spot. Note it in the call so the office knows why the invoice is larger than the original quote.

Tell the customer before you hook the car that the price is changing. A short "this one needs a tow, here's how that's priced" keeps the conversation clean, and the call notes record that it was said.

Account Roadside Calls

Many roadside calls come through accounts: a fleet, a dealer program, a property manager. Keep those calls under the account so the invoices are grouped where the account expects them. If an account has a negotiated roadside price, note it on the account so every call bills the same way.

Whether a call came from a motor club or a direct customer, track it under the right account in your own books. TowingBossPro does not connect to motor club systems, so this is your own record of what was done and what you're owed.

Review account roadside calls at month end against what the account expects. Small calls are easy to miss on both sides, and an account that sees every call listed under its name has fewer reasons to question the invoices.

Small Calls, Fast Billing

The rule for roadside is speed: invoice the same day, collect at the scene when you can and let follow-ups handle the rest. Review open roadside invoices weekly; a stack of small balances is easy to ignore and adds up quickly.

Look for patterns too: if most unpaid roadside invoices came from calls where nobody collected at the scene, that tells you where to fix the process. Usually it's one shift, one driver or one type of call.

To see roadside calls billed side by side with tows, storage and transports, take a look at towing invoicing software from TowingBossPro.