In addition to how much you charge per individual item, based on your product catalog, another critical approach is to consider the cleaning cost at the box level, regardless of what is in the box. Many restoration companies that do not just bill for time and material incorporate two types of billing:
• Billing per line item, and
• Billing per box.
We will refer to the former (billing per line item) as a Regular Box and the latter as a Cleaning Box. Regular Boxes allow you to bill for the line items individually and are more suited for things that are expensive to clean, like electronics and high-value items. Your cleaning price lists likely scope for individual cleaning costs for these items. Example: DSLR Camera, Laptop, Projector, Suit, Dress Shoes
Cleaning Boxes do not allow you to bill for individual items in the box but instead enable you to charge a flat fee for "everything" in the box. Likely, your cleaning price lists scopes for cleaning costs based on the size or type of box and cleaning required. This approach not only makes the billing process easier but also makes the inventory process easier. Example: Children’s Toys, Dishes, Drawer Contents.
iCat works with both box types.
It is recommended that you set up your Cleaning Box Resources at your earliest opportunity; even if you bill by the hour for cleaning, the impact of using "Cleaning Boxes" in your pack-out inventory process will shave hours and days from your time spent on-site.
Create Cleaning Box Resources
First, it's essential to understand the importance of a Cleaning Box and why you need to set this up. Or, skip this video and proceed to set up this critical step.
Here's how:
Add Regular Box Resources
By default, iCat comes stock with 3 Regular Box Types:
• Large Box
• Medium Box
• Small Box
Consider adding more boxes such as Hand Wash Garments, Picture Frame Box, Lamp Box, Electronics Medium Box, and Dry Clean Only Box, where items placed into these boxes will be billed individually for cleaning.
Here's How:
Note: Whenever you change a resource - adding new, modifying, or deleting an existing one - notify the road crews and have them download the catalog after logging into their devices.
Note: As you use iCat more, you will begin using the Pricing View or generate the Third Party Billing Export Report to be used with other estimating platforms. In either case, you will only see listed the line items that must be priced individually. Additionally, items in a "Cleaning box" will not appear in this view. Instead, there will be a line for each Cleaning Box type, the cleaning cost, and the quantity of boxes of that type.