Advice adding the credit card service fee to invoices
Hello Jobber Community! I'm an operations contractor for a Denver-based tree care company, and I'm hoping to crowdsource some insight... Does anyone have advice on how to best navigate charging clients for credit card processing fees? I actually just discovered today that it is not illegal in the state of Colorado (as well as many other states) to add that 2ish% credit card service fee to invoices, and I’m hoping to hear your experiences or strategies. Currently, Jobber doesn’t have a feature to automatically apply a designated service fee when clients choose to pay with a credit card through the digital invoices we send. This creates a few challenges: We’d need to ask the client ahead of time how they plan to pay so we can manually add the service fee to their invoice. Totally fine.. except... If they tell us they want to pay by credit, but decide to pay by debit after they've been invoiced, it creates an administrative mess—we’d have to issue a refund, send a new invoice, reverse transactions in QuickBooks, and add weeks to securing that revenue once and for all. Woof. How do you all manage this in your business? Do you: Absorb the cost of credit card fees as a business expense and increase the cost of your services? Offer a “cash discount” instead of a service fee? Use another tool or workaround to handle these situations? My goal is to make sure we're being as transparent as possible with our clients, continue offering competitive bids, protect our revenue, and keep our administrative overhead as lean as possible. Any advice or insights would be super helpful! Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!Do you utilize battery-powered tools?
Handheld battery-powered tools have come a long way from their first iterations, especially over the past few years. I've started making the switch away from gas-powered equipment throughout the last few seasons for my business and have found the switch to be positive for my workflow and bottom line. This is a trend I believe will continue as batteries become more powerful and long-lasting. Are you utilizing any battery-powered equipment and, if so, do you have any favorites you'd like to share??How Much Should You Really Be Charging?
The number one question I receive is tied directly to the fact, most contractors are still guessing when it comes to pricing. Overhead. Profit. Labor rate. Trip fees. They think just because they throw a number they hear their competitors use, thats all that they need. It may work, but how and what do you divide these funds is just as important for your business health. If you don’t know how to do the math, you’re not building a business. You’re surviving check to check and think you need more work, when you do not. So here’s the plan: This Tuesday & Thursday on IG, I’m walking you through our Contractor Price Builder Worksheet FREE on instagram live. We will cover: - How to calculate your real hourly rate - The difference between markup and margin - Why profit is a non-negotiable - And how to price with confidence Join the session. Bring your numbers.How do you utilize reports in your business?
I am curious to hear which reports you consider most valuable in your business and what actions are taken based on those reports if anyone is willing to share. Are there reports that you use regularly in Jobber or reports that you wish were part of Jobber? If so how do you utilize the information that the reports provide? Are changes made based on the reports? Is the data used to create the reports monitored internally for consistency? Thanks for sharing all input is helpful!How to back up job photos and files from Jobber?
Hey all, just wondering if this is something others have run into. A few of our clients have been talking about how they handle long-term storage of job photos and documents, especially when staff leave, or when they want to organize files outside of Jobber. Some mentioned wanting to move things to Google Drive or DropBox automatically, but I’m not sure how common that need really is. Just curious, have you or your team thought about this? Is keeping a backup of Jobber media files part of your process, or not really a concern? Appreciate any thoughts! JoshDo You Train Your Team to Think or Just Work?
Every Monday, we hold a short training session with our team. We train on communication. leadership. & mindset. The reason being most tradespeople aren’t struggling because they can’t do the work. They’re struggling because they were never taught how to: Speak with clarity Handle conflict Lead a crew Represent the business professionally These tend to be the issues I see bottling up, either from our exit interviews or customer feed back or when things are misunderstood. Thats why I'm curious: Do you train soft skills with your crew?Sales are down
Recently I had a lot of major breakdowns, two motors, and a truck and chipper flipped and totaled. We had a tough few months trying to get going and now I feel like my sales are down and the money is becoming overwhelming with low income compared to our normal.. im need to amp up my sales and call volume. I’ve tried all I know to be possible. What’s your alls advice?
