GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

After-Hours and Emergency Charges as Line Items on Garage Door Invoices

Garage doors break at bad times. A spring goes at 6am when someone is trying to leave for work. A cable snaps on a Sunday evening with the car inside. A commercial rolling door jams shut at closing time on a Friday. Many garage door companies run emergency and after-hours calls, and charge more for them. The question is how that extra charge shows up on the invoice.

Its Own Line, Not a Bigger Number

Install deposits were covered in Deposits on New Garage Door Installs: Billing the Deposit as Its Own Invoice or Line Item. After-hours charges follow the same rule as deposits: make them visible lines.

The tempting shortcut is to raise the price of the repair itself on an emergency call. The spring replacement that is $295 on a Tuesday becomes a bigger number on a Sunday. The trouble is that the customer cannot see why. If they compare with a neighbor who had the same repair on a weekday, it looks like they were overcharged.

In GarageDoorBossPro, the after-hours or emergency charge is set up as its own service on your list, with your price. On an emergency call, it goes on the job next to the repair. The invoice then reads clearly: service call, after-hours emergency service, torsion spring replacement, sales tax. The repair is the same price as always, and the extra cost for coming out at night has its own name.

Setting Up After-Hours Services

How you structure after-hours pricing is your business decision. Some common setups:

• One after-hours emergency charge for any call outside normal hours.
• Separate charges for evenings, weekends and holidays.
• An emergency service call that replaces the normal service call on after-hours visits.
• A separate charge for commercial emergency calls, which often involve rolling doors or docks.

Whatever you choose, set it up once in your service list. Then it shows the same name and price every time, no matter who books the call.

Telling the Customer Before the Van Rolls

An emergency charge should never be a surprise. When the call comes in after hours, whoever answers should mention the charge before dispatching a tech: “Our after-hours emergency charge is added to the usual service call. Would you like us to come out tonight, or first thing tomorrow?” Some customers will happily wait for morning, and that is fine too.

A follow-up text using two-way texting puts it in writing, so there is a record of what the customer agreed to. The automatic on-the-way and arrived texts let them know when the tech is pulling up.

The Tech Side of an Emergency Call

On an emergency call, the tech app works the same way as any other job. The job card shows the equipment saved on the house, if it is an existing customer, with door size, spring type and opener details, plus any access notes. Springs and cables are work for a trained tech, and the customer should be told to keep clear of the door and wait for the tech rather than trying to force it.

When the door is working again, the tech takes the after photos and taps Complete. The invoice is created from the job, including the after-hours line, and the card on file can be charged on the spot. If there is no card on file, the customer can pay online in the customer app.

Emergency Calls for Commercial Accounts

Commercial customers often need after-hours help the most, because a stuck rolling door or loading dock door can stop their business. For commercial accounts set to Monthly, after-hours visits still get their own lines but roll into the monthly statement, labeled with the address. The account's bookkeeper sees exactly which night the emergency happened and what it cost.

Routing After-Hours Work

A lot of companies keep one van on repairs and emergency spring calls and another on installs and tune-ups. That makes it easier to see who is on call and keeps the install schedule from being blown up by an emergency. Crew GPS on the office map shows which van is closest when a call comes in. The dispatch side of a two-van setup is covered in Adding a Second Van Without Doubling the Billing Work at a Garage Door Company.

Clear Lines, Fair Bills

Putting the after-hours charge on its own line makes emergency billing fair and easy to explain. The repair costs what it always costs, and the extra for showing up at night has a name. For the rest of the billing system, visit the garage door invoicing software page.