GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Billing Garage Door Customers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK in Their Own Currency

Garage doors are not an American invention, and neither are broken springs. Garage door companies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK run the same kind of day: repair calls, opener installs, new doors, maintenance on commercial roller doors and shutters. They need the same billing tools, in their own currency, without invoices that look like they were written for someone else.

Where GarageDoorBossPro Works

Moving off paper billing is covered in Moving Off the Paper Invoice Book: Garage Door Billing Without the End-of-Day Pile. Everything in that guide applies outside the US as well.

GarageDoorBossPro works in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and bills customers in their own currency. A company in Ontario bills in Canadian dollars. A company in Brisbane bills in Australian dollars. A company in Auckland bills in New Zealand dollars, and a company in Manchester bills in pounds. Your customers see prices they recognize.

Same Billing Tools, Local Money

Everything covered in this section works the same way wherever you are:

• Invoices built from the job, with line items from your service list and your own prices.
• Your local sales or goods-and-services tax added on invoices, at the rate your accountant tells you to charge.
• Card on file, saved through your website sign-up form or the customer app.
• The card charged when the tech taps Complete, or auto-charged on completion or on a schedule.
• Online payment in the customer app.
• Past-due follow-up for invoices left open.
• Monthly statements for property managers, strata or body corporate style accounts and commercial customers, with each line labeled with its address.

Tax Is Local

Tax rules differ a great deal between countries, and between provinces or states within them. The software applies the rate you set up on every invoice. Which services are taxable, and at what rate, is a question for your accountant. Setting it once and letting every invoice carry it is covered in Sales Tax on Garage Door Invoices: Set It Once and Let Every Invoice Carry It.

Words Change, the Work Does Not

The words on your invoices are up to you, because the service list is yours. If your customers say “roller door” or “sectional door” rather than “garage door,” name your services that way. If you call a tune-up a “service” or a “maintenance visit,” use that. Customers read invoices in their own words, which means fewer questions and faster payment.

Equipment saved on the house works the same everywhere: door, opener, springs, cables and drums, keypad, remotes, safety sensors, and commercial rolling and sectional doors, each with brand, model, serial, year installed, size and material.

Monthly Accounts Abroad

Property managers, apartment and townhome associations and commercial customers exist everywhere, and they all prefer one bill a month. Set the account to Monthly and they get one statement covering every address, with each line labeled with the address, in their own currency.

The same applies to recurring commercial work. Maintenance on a warehouse's roller doors every 90 days comes due on its own on the Waiting List, gets scheduled with the rest of the route and rolls onto that account's monthly statement once the tech completes it. The account contact sees every visit on one page, labeled by site, and approves one bill instead of a handful.

Texting and Reminders

Plans include a monthly text allowance for texts sent and received in the US and Canada. Canadian companies get the same on-the-way and arrived texts, two-way texting and past-due text reminders as US companies. Email reminders and the customer app, where customers see invoices, pay online and update their card, work for customers everywhere the software runs.

Try It in Your Own Market

The live demo is a fully stocked sample garage door company you can click around with no signup. The 14-day free trial needs no credit card, so you can set up your own service list, your own tax and your own currency, and see how invoices look to your customers before committing. Plans are Start at $59, Pro at $89 and Crew at $199 per month.

Garage Door Billing, Wherever You Work

Garage door companies outside the US need the same billing tools as everyone else, in their own currency and their own words. For the full billing system, visit the garage door invoicing software page.