A disposal invoice nobody can check
At the start of the month the transfer station's invoice arrives. It lists dozens of loads, each with a ticket number, date, vehicle registration, waste type and weight, and a total that is one of your biggest costs. Your accounts assistant checks the total looks roughly right and pays it.
She cannot check it properly. The tip tickets are in a drawer, some in drivers' pockets, a few lost. Even if she had them all, she could not say which customers' waste was on each load. A skip lorry might tip three builders' skips in a morning. A rear-end loader might carry thirty businesses' general waste.
Meanwhile, customer prices were set from estimates of what each bin or skip weighs. Nobody knows whether they still cover what you pay at the gate.
Why the numbers never meet
Disposal cost is incurred per load. Revenue is earned per lift or per skip. Without a link between the load and the work in it, you cannot compare the two.
- Tip tickets are paper and are not collected reliably.
- The disposal site's invoice is checked against a total, not ticket by ticket.
- Loads carry waste from many customers and cannot be split without the round or job data.
- Skip prices include an assumed weight, and heavy loads like soil or rubble are charged at the same rate unless someone notices.
- Gate fees change during the year, but customer prices lag behind.
What the gap costs
Paying for loads you did not tip, or at the wrong rate, is a direct loss that only a ticket-by-ticket check catches. Customers whose waste is heavier than their price assumes quietly cost you money every week, and without data you cannot tell who they are.
Heavy skips are the sharpest case. A skip that goes out for mixed waste and comes back full of rubble may cost far more to tip than the hire price assumed, and in many firms that difference is never charged on, even where the terms allow it.
How we reconcile gate fees to the work
What we build links every tip ticket to the load and every load to the work it carried.
- Drivers photograph each tip ticket in their app. The ticket number, weight, waste type and time are read from the image and checked by a person when unclear.
- Each ticket is linked to the vehicle's work since its last tip: the lifts on that round or the skips on that lorry.
- The disposal site's invoice, received as a PDF or file, is matched line by line to your tickets. Missing tickets, duplicate lines and rate differences are listed.
- For skips, the tipped weight of each skip is recorded against the booking. Skips over the weight your terms allow are flagged for an extra charge, which a person approves.
- For rounds, the tipped weight is shared across the lifts on that load, weighted by container size, to estimate disposal cost per customer and stream.
- A monthly report shows disposal cost against revenue per customer, stream and skip size, so pricing decisions are based on what you actually pay.
| Check | What it catches |
|---|---|
| Invoice line vs tip ticket | Loads you did not tip, duplicates, wrong rates |
| Skip weight vs terms | Heavy loads to charge on |
| Round weight vs lifts | Customers whose price no longer covers disposal |
| Rate vs contract with site | Gate fee changes not applied as agreed |
The allocation method for shared loads is a choice you make, and the report shows it openly. Pricing decisions remain yours.
The first week of the month, differently
The transfer station invoice arrives. Instead of checking a total, the accounts assistant opens the reconciliation. Almost every line matches a ticket. Two lines have no ticket in your records and one is charged at the wrong rate for the waste type; she queries all three with the site.
The skip report shows four skips from last month that came back well over the weight in your terms, all with photos from the tip. The office approves extra charges on three and waives the fourth for a regular customer. The monthly margin report shows two restaurants whose price has not kept pace with the gate fee, and the sales manager plans conversations with both.
Are gate fees a black box?
- Disposal invoices are paid after checking the total only.
- Tip tickets are paper and some go missing.
- Heavy skips are rarely charged extra, even when terms allow.
- You cannot say which customers cost more to dispose of than they pay.
- Gate fee rises take months to reach customer prices.