How to Charge for Chemical Dosages

To learn how to customize settings to charge for chemical dosages, see the video below. Or, if you prefer, scroll past the video to view our step-by-step text instructions.

Wistia video thumbnail

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Step-by-step instructions . . .

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Here’s how to customize which chemicals you want to charge for, and which you want to include in your service price. On the Customers screen, start by clicking the Service Rates button in the top right corner. This will take you to a screen where you can apply service rate settings in bulk to your customers. You can also change these settings individually, both here and on a customer’s profile screen.
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For this tutorial, we’ll focus on Rate Type. Rate is, of course, what you’re charging for weekly service, and there’s a box for you to enter the dollar amount. But when it comes to setting up how you charge for chemical dosages, Rate Type is key. Click the dropdown box and you’ll see four options. Your first option is to choose between Per Stop and Per Month, which tells Skimmer whether you want to charge a set rate for each completed route stop or for monthly service.

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Now note the second option, a choice between Plus Chemicals and With Chemicals. If you select Plus Chemicals, you’re telling Skimmer that you want to charge the customer for every chemical dosage you record. So when it’s time to bill, the generated invoice will show the rate for service as well as the price you’ve set for each chemical dosage.

If you select With Chemicals, you’re telling Skimmer that you want to include at least some chemical dosages in the service price, meaning you don’t want to charge extra for them. Skimmer would still keep track of them, but not charge for them.

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So, how do you set up which chemicals to include in the service price? For that, go to Settings > Readings and Dosages. Choose any dosage category, and then click its name or the edit button. On the edit screen, you can set the values to choose from, the unit of measurement, your cost per unit, and a price to the customer per unit.

The key setting to focus on is the box labeled “Can include with service.” When you set a customer’s rate type as With Chemicals, then Skimmer looks at this box. If you’ve checked the box, then for every customer set to With Chemicals, Skimmer will still track the dosage but will not charge for this chemical specifically. You’ll need to check this box for every dosage category you want to include in the service price. If you leave this box unchecked, even if a customer’s rate type is With Chemicals, Skimmer will charge for it.

This allows you to set for each customer exactly which chems you want to charge for, and which you want to include in the service price.