Storage Billing
How storage billing starts on the job, how owed storage is flagged before a delivery, and where to read every storage balance in the Storage report.
Storage is billed from the booked estimate, separate from the move: storage charges stay in storage accounting and never reduce what the customer owes on the moving estimate. Every storage figure (date in, free days, rate, cube) is read from the estimate, and every balance comes from the job's one storage statement.
How billing starts
- Once the warehouse records a job (In Storage, a storage spot, or a lot number or Long Term Storage once the goods are picked up), it shows in Reports → Storage, on the Storage queue tab, as Waiting for approval. It owes nothing yet. The queue groups jobs into Picked up this morning, Picked up yesterday and Waiting longer.
- Click Open storage details to open the job's Storage & Job Details tab in a new tab.
- On the job, someone with the Approve storage release privilege (or an administrator) sees the Waiting for storage approval banner with the Storage start date (filled in with the date in), the free days, the first charge date and the 30-day amount. They click Approve storage start date, which starts billing from that date plus the job's free days. If the customer should not be charged for storage, they use the Customer RFD – no storage charge switch on the Billing tab instead; the banner's No storage charge? link opens it. Everyone else sees the banner without the button.
The decision is always made on the job. The Storage report is view only.
A job nothing was recorded for is not in storage, whatever its pick-up date. A lot sticker printed ahead, or Long Term Storage set when the job was sold, doesn't count until the goods are picked up.
The date in
There is no date-in field to type: the pick-up date starts storage. When a job is set In Storage, or placed in a storage spot, and has no date in, its date in is filled with the pick-up date (or today, when the pick-up date is missing or still ahead). The date in can't be a future date. Until storage is approved, moving the pick-up date moves a date in that came from it.
No storage charge
A waiting job moved to Ready for Delivery on the day its goods came in is marked No storage charge in that same save, with who did it and when, so it shows on the job. Moved to Ready for Delivery on a later day, it keeps waiting for approval until someone approves it or marks it No storage charge. Any change saved on a waiting job after its intake day keeps it waiting for approval from then on. Until storage is approved, the customer's storage statement shows nothing owed.
The Customer RFD – no storage charge switch on the job's Storage & Job Details → Billing tab is the one place to mark a job No storage charge, and only someone with the Approve storage release privilege (or an administrator) can flip it. Turning it on stops the storage charges and, for a booked job whose goods are picked up or recorded in the warehouse, moves the job to Ready for Delivery in the same step. A job not picked up yet with nothing recorded in the warehouse, a job that is Dispatched or On Hold, and one already out for delivery or delivered keep their status. To turn it off, click Customer RFD – no storage charge: On, pick the date in Storage billing starts on (never before the date in), then click Turn off and start billing: storage is billed again from that date.
Owed storage is a flag, never a block
A stored job that owes storage, is still waiting for approval, or has storage figures missing shows the red flag This job owes storage – cannot be dispatched out. on Ready for Delivery, the Operations Calendar, the Daily Board, the estimate's Dispatch tab and closing sheets. Nothing is refused because of it: you can still assign a carrier or crew, place the job on the Daily Board, add it to and sign a closing sheet, and move it to In Transit or Delivered. Staff decide. The flag clears once the storage is approved with nothing owed, paid, discounted or marked No storage charge.
What still needs the storage settled, or an approver:
- Unbooking a job that owes storage or is waiting for approval is refused.
- Only an administrator or someone with the Approve storage release privilege can clear the last storage record of a job waiting for approval (In Storage, the date in, the lot or Long Term Storage), take the last storage spot off a job that owes or is waiting, release such a job from storage, give a storage discount, or void a storage late fee.
Once storage is approved, the job's storage terms (free days, rate, monthly fee, date in, billing start date and cube, and its pick-up date when it has no date in) can only be changed by an administrator or someone with the Approve storage release privilege, on the estimate, in the estimate builder, with Confirm cube on the Revision tab or by editing items.
Collect before delivery
At the top of the Storage queue tab, Collect before delivery lists every stored job that owes storage and already has a local delivery date or a delivery carrier, soonest first. Each row shows the delivery (or load-out) date, whether our crew or a carrier takes it, the job, the customer, a phone number you can click to call, the storage owed from the job's statement, and Open storage details. A job leaves the list as soon as its storage no longer owes. The tab itself says how many are waiting, for example "2 to collect".
The Collect storage before delivery alert puts a job in your notification bell when it lands on the list. It is On by default only for Dispatchers; an administrator turns it on for anyone else in Settings → Notifications (see Your Notifications). The alert comes once per job per delivery date or carrier.
Reading storage billing
The Storage report's Billing tab lists every job in storage, and old storage accounts with no job. Narrow it with the Status drop-down (All, Overdue, Due soon, Paid, Waiting for approval, No charge, Missing figures, Waiting for release and No job (old accounts), each with its count), the Warehouse drop-down, a Date choice (Next charge, Date in, Ready for delivery or Last payment) with From and To dates, and a search by name or job number. Export CSV downloads the filtered list.
- List — each account with its status, next charge, monthly charge, paid to date, what is owed and the last payment.
- Calendar — the 30-day cycle dates of every approved job: status tiles for the month, color-coded days with today highlighted, and on the right Payments today (or the day you click), each job with its amount and Open storage details.
The colors are the same across the whole report: yellow is waiting (storage needs to be added or approved), purple is No storage charge, green is good standing (paid, or the next charge isn't due yet) and red owes storage. On the calendar a cycle is green when nothing is owed and red when it is.
Jobs waiting for approval and jobs with no storage charge count $0 in every total.
Taking a storage payment
Storage payments are recorded on the job, never in the report. On the job's Storage & Job Details → Billing tab, click Record storage payment: it opens the job's Payments tab, where you either choose Payment Type → Storage (the whole amount goes to storage) or enter the storage part in the Storage Payment field beside Move Payment. To have the customer pay by card, send a Storage Payment link from the Send Center: the customer signs a card authorization, and you then charge the card from the Payments tab. Either way the money is kept in storage accounting and never reduces the moving balance.
People who handle storage billing also see the job's storage statement on the Billing tab, with Give discount (approvers only) and Add late fee.