GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Online Payment in the Customer App: Letting Garage Door Customers Pay Their Own Invoice

Some customers will never save a card in advance. They want to see the bill first, then pay it. Others are landlords or second-home owners who were not there when the tech came. For all of them, the easiest path is a place where they can open the invoice and pay it themselves, any time, without calling the office and reading a card number out loud.

Where Online Payment Fits

The setting that charges cards automatically is covered in Auto-Charge for Garage Door Companies: On Completion or On a Schedule. Online payment in the customer app covers everyone auto-charge does not: customers without a card on file, and customers who simply prefer to pay on their own.

In GarageDoorBossPro, the customer app is where your customers see their invoices and pay them. It also lets them update their card, request service, sign up for services and pricing such as a yearly tune-up plan, watch today's route on a live map, and rate and refer your company.

What the Customer Sees

When the tech completes a job, the invoice is created from the lines on the job with sales tax added. In the customer app, the customer opens that invoice and sees the same lines: the service call, the springs, the rollers, the opener, whatever was done. They see the tax and the total. If it has not been paid, they can pay it right there.

Because the invoice is built from the job, there is nothing to reconcile. The customer is paying the exact bill the tech's work produced.

Who Uses Online Payment Most

A few kinds of garage door customers lean on online payment:

• Absent owners. A landlord whose tenant called about a broken spring. The landlord was never at the house, but can open the invoice and pay it.
• Careful payers. Customers who want to look over every bill before paying. They get to read it first, then pay in a few taps.
• One-time repair customers. Someone who called once for an off-track door and did not want to save a card for a single visit.
• Install customers. A new door often gets a deposit invoice and a balance invoice. Customers can pay each one in the app when it arrives.

Updating the Card

The customer app is also where customers keep their card current. When a card expires or gets replaced, the customer updates it themselves. The next charge goes through, and the office never handles the number. This is covered in detail in When the Card Expires: Garage Door Customers Updating Their Own Card in the Customer App.

Pointing Customers to the App

A customer app only helps if customers know it is there. A few easy moments to mention it:

• When the call is booked: “You'll get texts when we're on the way, and you can see your invoice and pay it in our customer app.”
• When the tech finishes: “Your invoice will be in the app.”
• In past-due follow-up texts and emails, so the reminder leads straight to the place to pay.
• When a tune-up plan is offered, since customers can sign up for it in the same app.

Customers who use the app for one thing tend to use it for the next. The person who watched the live map to see that the tech was five stops away is the same person who will open the invoice and pay it.

Fewer Payment Phone Calls

Without online payment, small garage door companies spend a surprising amount of time on the phone taking payments. The customer calls, the office stops what it was doing, reads the invoice back, takes the card number, keys it in and confirms. Multiply that by every unpaid invoice in a week.

With online payment, most of those calls disappear. The customer pays when it suits them, the invoice shows paid, and the office answers the phone for new service calls instead of old bills.

Online Payment and Monthly Accounts

Property managers, HOAs and commercial accounts set to Monthly get one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled with the address. Account contacts can see their invoices in the customer app too, which helps when the person paying is not the person who booked the work.

Let Customers Pay Their Way

Card on file and charging at completion handle most invoices. Online payment in the customer app handles the rest without a phone call. To see how all of it fits together, from line items to monthly statements, visit the garage door invoicing software page.