Dumpster rental
What your customer is told about a weight charge
When a load comes back over weight, HaulHQ tells the customer by email or by text: which message, what it says, and the one case you have to handle yourself.
This is part of the Dumpster rental workflow
Doing junk removal? Start with the quote workflow.A weight charge is billed from the scale ticket, after the haul, sometimes days after the customer booked. You do not write or send the message that tells them. HaulHQ does, the moment the weight is confirmed. This page is what that message says, so the customer is never the first to tell you.
When the message goes
After the scale, when the weight is confirmed and the charge settles. Not at pickup: picking the container up is a step, and the rental is settled at the dump. Every trip to the dump is weighed and settled on its own job, so a rental with a swap and a pickup can produce two messages, one per haul.
| Trip weighed | Message | Sent when |
|---|---|---|
| A swap or a dump & return (the rental carries on) | Mid-rental weight charge | Only when the haul billed something. A load within the included weight, or a charge you waived, sends nothing. |
| The pickup (the rental ends) | Final rental receipt | Once, whether or not anything was charged. It also carries any extra days kept past the term. |
What each message says
The mid-rental weight charge names the haul that was weighed, the weight terms the customer booked under, and the amount. It ends with: "Your rental is still open and the container is still yours. Nothing about your return date has changed." A charge in the middle of a rental reads like the end of one without that line.
The final rental receipt gives the weight, whether the load came in within the included weight, over it, or billed on the full weight, and what is left to pay. It does not carry the still-open line, because that message is the end of the rental. The email links the scale ticket photo.
Charged, or owed
A card on file that was charged and a balance the customer still owes are two different messages. The charged one never says the amount is due, and the owed one never says it was charged.
| What happened | Mid-rental weight charge says | Final rental receipt says |
|---|---|---|
| The card on file was charged | The amount "was charged to your card on file, so there is nothing for you to pay." No payment link. | "That is paid in full, so nothing further is owed." |
| No card on file, or the charge did not go through | The amount "has been added to your invoice and is now due", with a payment link. | The balance, with a payment link. |
| Nothing was charged | Nothing is sent. | "Your rental is closed and nothing is owed." |
No card on file never blocks the rental
The rental still completes at the dump. The charge becomes a balance on the invoice and the customer gets the payment link. The paid-in-full line deliberately does not say "charged to your card": the balance may have been settled in cash, by check or by a payment app.
Email or text, and HaulHQ chooses
One message, never both: by email when the customer has an email address, by text when they do not. About one customer in six has a phone and no email address (18 of 108 across real HaulHQ customers, October 2026), so a cash-and-phone customer base is still told. The email carries the itemised lines and the scale ticket; the text carries the amount and a link.
Your switches do not silence it. A customer charged after their booking is always told, even with Payment receipt texts turned off under Settings > Notifications. That switch only covers ordinary receipts: a final rental receipt with no charge after the booking on it follows it. If texting is turned off for your whole account (Settings > Features), no text goes at all.
A customer who replied STOP is not told. You have to tell them.
A customer who replied STOP to your texts is never texted again, not even about a charge. That is the law on text messages and you cannot override it. If that customer has no email address, HaulHQ cannot tell them about the charge. Check the trip's job after the weight is confirmed: if Communications shows no Mid-rental weight charge or Final rental receipt, call or email the customer yourself.
What you can see, and what you cannot do
- Each message appears under Communications on the job page of the trip that was weighed: its name, email or text, who it went to and when. A text shows whether it was delivered; an email shows Sent.
- You cannot preview, edit or resend either message. They go once, from the weight confirmation.
- The receipt button on an invoice sends a payment receipt, a different document. See Invoices and receipts.
How the weight is entered and when a trip settles is on Work orders and trips.
Common mistakes
Common mistakes
"My customer has no email address, so nobody told them about the weight charge."
They got a text. The only customer HaulHQ cannot reach is one with no email address who replied STOP, and that one is yours to call.
"I turned off receipt texts, so customers are not texted about weight charges."
A charge after the booking is always disclosed. The switch covers ordinary receipts only.
"The final receipt tells the customer their rental is still open."
Only the mid-rental message says that. The final receipt is the end of the rental and says so.
"There was no card on file, so the rental could not complete."
It completes. The charge becomes a balance due and the customer gets a payment link.
"I will resend the weight-charge message from the job."
There is no resend. If the customer lost it, the invoice and its payment link are what you can send them.