DumpsterBossPro Blog — Pickups & Swaps

Pickup and Swap Reports: Finding Out What Your Truck Runs Earn

Most roll-off owners know roughly what a delivery earns. Ask what a swap earns, or what a dump & return costs in truck time, and the answer gets vague. Reports turn that hunch into numbers you can act on.

What to Look At

DumpsterBossPro includes reports on jobs and revenue. Because every job is a specific type — Delivery, Pickup, Swap, Dump & Return or Relocate — you can look at your work by type, not just as one big pile.

The weekly planning habits covered in The Friday Pickup Rush: Scheduling Around the Weekend tell you what is coming. Reports tell you how it went.

Extra Days: Are You Collecting Them?

Every rental tracks the delivery date, pickup date, days included and daily rate, and extra days are added to the invoice automatically when the pickup happens. Look at how much extra-day revenue you collect over a month. If it is close to zero, either every customer finishes on time (unlikely) or rentals are not being set up with their days included and daily rate.

If it is high, that is good money, but it may also be a sign that cans are sitting longer than they should. Those cans could be earning new rentals. A regular check of rentals past their included days balances the two.

Overweight: Are the Tons Getting Entered?

Tons over the included weight are billed per ton on the invoice, from the scale-ticket weight entered on the job. If your overweight revenue is lower than you would expect for the amount of roofing and concrete you haul, some tickets are probably not making it onto jobs.

Look for pickups and swaps with no weight entered. Every one of them is a possible missed charge. Make "no pickup closed without a weight" a firm rule.

Swaps vs Pickups vs Dump & Returns

Compare the job types. How many swaps did you do, and what did they earn compared with pickups? Do dump & returns take up a lot of truck time for what they earn, especially to far sites? Do relocates happen more often than you thought, and are you charging for them?

These numbers help with pricing. If dump & returns to the far side of your area are eating mornings, a price adjustment or a policy of offering swaps there might make sense.

Look at the mix over the seasons as well. In spring, deliveries often outnumber pickups as projects start. By late summer, pickups catch up and swaps for contractors peak. Knowing that pattern from last year's numbers helps you plan drivers and trucks for this year instead of reacting once the Waiting List is already long.

And compare trucks. If one truck consistently completes more pickups per day than another on similar work, find out why. It may be the driver, the area, or simply how the runs were built. The answer is usually something the other trucks can copy.

Customers and Accounts

Look at revenue by customer, too. Contractor and commercial accounts with multiple job sites often make up a large share of the work. Which ones are growing? Which are slow to pay? Which generate lots of dry runs or overweight disputes?

Customers who pay late are easier to manage with a card on file, auto-billing and payment follow-ups. Customers who regularly overload cans might need a conversation about sizes or debris types.

Do not forget the one-time customers. If most of your homeowners rent once and never come back, look at what their experience was: how long they waited for a pickup, whether they got on-the-way texts, whether their invoice was clear. A smooth pickup is the last thing they remember about you, and it decides whether they recommend you to a neighbor.

Turning Reports Into Changes

Reports only help if they change something. Pick one thing a month: tighten scale-ticket entry, follow up on overdue rentals every morning, adjust the price of dump & returns, or talk to the contractor who causes the most dry runs.

Small fixes add up. To see how reports connect to the Waiting List, dispatch board, rental tracking and invoicing, visit DumpsterBossPro dumpster pickup and swap scheduling software.