What is skip hire software?
What it covers, who it is for, and what to check before you choose one.
Skip hire software is a management tool built for companies that deliver, exchange and collect skips. It holds customer orders, the daily driver schedule, the price list, invoicing and payment tracking in one place. Each hire becomes a single record the whole office can see, instead of being spread across a spreadsheet, a paper planner and phone messages.
What it handles day to day
It always starts with a customer order: a skip of a given size, for a type of waste, at a site address, on a date. The software keeps that order open until the skip comes back, with every job attached to it: the delivery, any exchanges, then the collection.
Everything else in the office hangs off that order. The day's schedule shows which driver is doing what and when. The price list fills in the price from the skip size and the waste type. The invoice is built from completed orders, and the payment is marked off when it arrives.
The point is not a tidy screen. It is that nobody has to ask again where a customer's skip is, or check in three places whether a hire was ever invoiced.
What to expect from one
Software written for the trade usually covers the points below. Anything missing falls back onto a spreadsheet.
Orders and jobs
One order per hire, holding the delivery, the exchanges and the collection. Each job has its own date, driver and status.
Driver scheduling
The day's jobs with a driver against each one, filtered by period, by driver or by status.
Customers and sites
Customers, their contacts and their site addresses, findable by name, phone number or address.
Price list
A price per waste type and per skip size, applied as the order is entered so two people in the office cannot quote differently.
Invoicing and payments
An invoice raised from completed orders, with extras, the total excluding VAT, the VAT and the total including VAT, then payments and outstanding balances tracked against it.
Documents for the customer
An order form signed online before the work starts, a PDF invoice, and a statement grouping a period's invoices.
History
A record of who changed what and when, on an order and on a job.
What makes this trade different
A skip hire is not a sale. It lasts, it moves, and it sometimes ends weeks after it began. In between, the skip may be exchanged two or three times, the customer may keep it longer than agreed, and the real tonnage may not match what was quoted.
That is where the money usually leaks: a skip left on a site that nobody is tracking, extra hire days never billed, a driver sent out with the wrong size. A general purpose tool treats each visit as an isolated line, which is exactly how those situations go unnoticed.
Software written for the trade works by hire instead: the order stays open until the skip is back, and it stays in the list to invoice until the invoice exists.
What to check before you choose
How long an order takes to enter
It is the most repeated action of the day. Ask to see it live, and time it.
What happens when a skip overstays
Check that live hires and uninvoiced orders show up in a list, without anyone having to go looking.
How prices are worked out
A list by waste type and size stops two people in the office quoting different numbers.
How it works on a phone
Part of the job happens in the cab or on site. Try it on a phone before you decide.
Who moves your data across
Ask who transfers your customers and prices, how long it takes, and whether it costs extra.
The real cost
Check whether the price depends on the number of users, whether there is a setup fee, and whether every feature is included.
How you get out
Check you can export your customers, orders and invoices whenever you want, without asking permission.
Common questions
- How much does skip hire software cost?
- For a small firm, the market runs from a few tens of euros to over a hundred a month, depending on how many drivers you run. BenneCRM is €30 a month excluding VAT for up to 2 drivers and €80 a month for up to 10, with every feature included in each plan.
- Is there anything to install?
- Not with BenneCRM. It opens in a browser, on a computer or a phone. There is nothing to install and no server to look after.
- How many lorries before it is worth it?
- From one, if you lose time hunting for information or redoing invoices. It becomes obvious as soon as more than one person touches the schedule.
- Is a spreadsheet not enough?
- A spreadsheet holds a list, but it will not tell you a skip has been on site for three weeks, or that a completed order was never invoiced. That watching is what goes missing as volumes grow.
- Does it handle waste regulations?
- BenneCRM covers operations and the commercial side: orders, scheduling, prices, invoices and payments. It does not produce waste transfer notes or other regulatory waste paperwork, which belong in the tools built for that.
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