DumpsterBossPro Blog — Running a Dumpster Business

Knowing Your Numbers: The Reports Every Dumpster Rental Business Should Check

Most roll-off owners know their business by feel. You know when the phone is busy, when the cans are all out and when the bank account looks thin. Feel is useful, but it is late. By the time you feel a problem, it has usually been going on for weeks. Numbers show you the same problems earlier, while they are still cheap to fix.

This guide follows Pricing Your Dumpster Rentals: Days Included, Extra Days and Overage per Ton. Here are the reports worth checking and how to read them without becoming an accountant.

Jobs by Type

Start with how many jobs you ran, broken out by type: Delivery, Pickup, Swap, Dump & Return and Relocate. The mix tells you a lot about your business. A lot of swaps usually means steady contractor work. Mostly single deliveries and pickups means you are leaning on one-time residential customers, who need constant marketing to replace.

Watch the trend, not just the total. If deliveries are rising but pickups are lagging, cans are staying out longer, and you should check whether extra days are being billed. If swaps drop, a contractor may have gone quiet or gone to someone else, and it is worth a call.

Look at job types by truck as well. If one truck runs mostly Dump & Return work and the other mostly deliveries, their days will look very different, and comparing them on job count alone will mislead you. Compare like with like before you decide a driver is slow.

Revenue Over Time

Revenue by week and by month shows the shape of your year. Most roll-off companies see a clear seasonal curve. Knowing yours lets you plan hiring, can purchases and cash for the slow months. Compare each month to the same month last year rather than to the month before, so the season does not fool you.

If revenue is flat while jobs are up, your average job is getting smaller. Maybe you have been discounting, or maybe more of your work is smaller cans. Either way, it is worth knowing.

Unpaid Invoices

This is the report that matters most for cash. How much is owed to you right now, and how old is it? An invoice a week old is normal. An invoice three months old is a problem, and the longer it waits, the less likely you are to collect it.

Check unpaid invoices every week. Turn on payment follow-ups so reminders go out automatically, collect cards on file from customers who pay late, and set up auto-billing for regulars. For contractors with a large balance, a phone call from the owner still works better than any reminder.

Extra Days and Overage

Extra rental days and weight overage are two lines that can quietly make or break a month. If your invoices rarely show extra days, either your customers are unusually quick or the days are not being counted. If they rarely show overage, either loads are light or weights are not being entered.

In DumpsterBossPro, extra days are invoiced automatically from the days included and the daily rate after, and overage per ton is billed from the scale-ticket weight entered on the job. Spot-check a few completed jobs each week to make sure the weight is there. A missing weight is an overage that will never be billed.

A Weekly Fifteen-Minute Routine

Reports are only useful if you look at them. Pick a time each week — Friday afternoon or Monday morning — and spend fifteen minutes. Look at jobs this week by type, revenue this week compared to last year, unpaid invoices and their age, and a handful of completed jobs to check weights and photos.

Write down one thing to act on. Call a slow-paying contractor. Ask why pickups are lagging. Check why one truck ran fewer jobs. One action a week, every week, adds up to a much better run business by the end of the year.

Numbers That Guide Big Decisions

The same reports answer the big questions. Is it time for a second truck? Look at jobs per truck and how far pickups lag behind requests. Do you need more cans? Look at deliveries by size. Is a contractor worth a better rate? Look at his jobs and payments over the year.

Decisions made from numbers are calmer and usually better than decisions made after a stressful week. The next guide looks at where money leaks out of a dumpster business and how to plug the holes. For an overview of reports and billing, see the dumpster rental business software page.