PestBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Re-Service Visits at No Charge: How to Invoice a Pest Control Callback

“If they come back between visits, so do we.” Some version of that line is in the pitch of most residential pest control companies. It is a strong promise, and customers remember it. The billing side has to remember it too, because a free re-service that shows up as a charge breaks the promise in the most visible way possible.

The Promise Behind the Plan

How a plan is billed, per visit or monthly, is laid out in Per-Visit Billing or Monthly Billing for Pest Control Plans. Re-services sit in between those scheduled visits, and they need their own handling.

A re-service guarantee is a policy decision, not a software feature. You decide what it covers, how often a customer can ask for one, and what is excluded. The software's job is to make sure the visit happens, goes on the record, and does not bill the customer.

Write the Policy Down First

Before worrying about invoices, make sure the policy itself is clear. A good re-service policy answers a few questions:

• Who qualifies? Usually customers on an active recurring plan, current on their payments.
• Which pests? Commonly the pests covered by the plan. Many companies exclude things like bed bugs, termites or rodents unless the customer is on a program for them.
• How soon? Some companies set a minimum time after a treatment, since products need time to work.
• What does the visit include? Typically a targeted treatment of the problem area, not a full service.

Put the policy on your website, your estimates and your sign-up page. When a customer calls about ants two weeks after a visit, the office should be able to say yes or no in one sentence.

Recording the Re-Service Without a Charge

In PestBossPro, schedule the re-service as a visit on the customer's account like any other job, with a no-charge re-service line from your service list. The tech sees it in route order in the tech app, with the service and access notes, and the past notes from previous visits. When the tech taps Complete:

• The visit goes on the account's history, so the next tech knows ants came back in the kitchen in July.
• What was applied is recorded for the chemical application record, the same as any treatment.
• No amount is charged to the card on file.

Set up a dedicated re-service line on your service list, named something like “Re-Service Visit — No Charge.” The customer sees that you came back like you said you would, and nobody gets a bill.

Why Not Just Skip the Invoice?

It is tempting to treat a re-service as off the books: the tech drops by, sprays, and nothing is recorded. That saves a few clicks and costs you in three ways.

First, the application record. A treatment is a treatment, and the product applied needs to be recorded like any other visit. Many states require records of pesticide applications, so check your state's lead agency rules and the product label.

Second, the history. A customer who needs re-services every month is telling you something: the plan interval may be too long, the property may need a different approach, or there is a conducive condition nobody has fixed. You only see that pattern if re-services are recorded.

Third, the cost. Re-services are not free to you. They cost a truck stop, product and a tech's time. Recording them lets you see how many you do and on which accounts.

When a Callback Is Not a Re-Service

Not every callback qualifies. A customer on a general pest plan who calls about mice, or a quarterly customer who wants a wasp nest knocked down, may be asking for a different service. Treat those as their own jobs with their own line items, and tell the customer the price before the tech goes out. If the account is past due, many companies hold re-services until it is current, which is one more reason to keep billing tidy. The past-due routine is in Past-Due Pest Control Accounts: A Follow-Up Routine That Gets You Paid.

The worst case is the tech deciding on the spot. Give the tech the policy, and let the office handle anything outside it.

Keeping the Promise on Paper

A re-service guarantee helps sell plans, but only if it is applied the same way every time: a written policy, a scheduled visit, a no-charge line on the record and a full application record. To see how re-services fit with the rest of PestBossPro's billing, visit the pest control invoicing software page.