Flat transportation + hourly loading and unloading

Some movers quote long distance as a flat-rate transportation charge, plus hourly labor for loading and unloading. The customer agrees the transportation before the move, and pays the crew by the hour at each end:

Flat-rate transportation + Loading labor + Unloading labor + Packing materials (+ additional services) = Final total

Example: transportation $3,000, labor $150 an hour, 3 hours minimum at the pickup and 3 hours minimum at the delivery. The crew loads in 2½ hours (charged 3 h = $450) and unloads in 4 hours ($600): $3,000 + $450 + $600 + packing materials.

Turn it on

1. Open Settings › Long distance › Flat transportation + hourly.
2. Pick the move type at the top (Residential, Commercial, Military).
3. Tick the services to price this way: Long Distance Interstate, Long Distance Intrastate, or both.
4. For Loading labor (at the pickup) and Unloading labor (at the delivery), each on its own: - Crew (movers) — Use the calculator's crew is ticked to use the calculator's crew for the move size (the box is greyed). Untick it to type your own number of movers. - Hourly rate ($) — Use the hourly rate table is ticked to use your hourly rate for that crew on the move date: your long-distance hourly rates (Settings › Pricing & calculator › Rates › Long-distance hourly), which are your local labor rates unless you untick Use the same hourly rates as local moves there and set a second chart. Untick it here to type your own rate. - Minimum hours — type it for each end; each end is never charged under it. It is required once a service is ticked: Save tells you which end is missing it. Type 0 for no minimum.
5. Transportation price — choose how the flat-rate transportation is priced: - Typed on each order (the start for every company): the office types the agreed amount on each order. - Calculated from your Flat rate long distance settings: new orders get the flat price for the trip's distance and the move size from your active Flat Rate Long Distance tariff (Settings › Long distance › Flat Rate Long Distance — fill in the prices and tick Is Active). The page tells you which tariff it uses, or that there is none yet. - Rate per mile (by distance): the transportation is priced by the trip's miles only, never the move size — a studio and a 4-bedroom going the same distance get the same transportation price (the labor at each end is charged by the hour, as always). Pick it and fill in the Distance bands under it: each row is From miles, To miles and the Rate per mile ($); the last row has no end ("and up"). Press Add band for another row (it starts the mile after the row before ends); the bin removes a row. The transportation is the trip's miles × the rate of the band those miles fall in. Save refuses bands that overlap, leave a gap, or have a rate of $0, and says which band to fix. A company that measures in kilometres reads km.
6. Billing step for loading and unloading — how the loading and unloading hours are rounded before they are charged: - 15 minutes (the default — what every company has unless it changes it): to the nearest quarter hour; up to 5 minutes past a quarter rounds down. 2 h 05 → 2 h; 2 h 06 → 2 h 15. - 30 minutes, rounded up: any time past a half-hour mark bills the next half hour. 2 h 00 → 2 h; 2 h 01 → 2 h 30; 2 h 31 → 3 h. - With 15 minutes, if your branch bills the crew's hours Always round up to the next 15 minutes (Settings › Documents & bill of lading › Bill of lading rules), the hours the crew records at each end round up to the next quarter hour instead (2 h 01 → 2 h 15) on the bill of lading, the closing and invoices; the quote keeps the nearest quarter hour. The order and the bill say 15 minutes, rounded up.
7. Press Save. Save and Cancel only show while something really changed; Save also tells you if a box you unticked is still empty.

Billing step examples

Loading and unloading are each rounded on their own, and the minimum hours come first: when an end worked its minimum or less, the minimum is charged as it is; past the minimum, the hours are rounded by the billing step.

Example with 30 minutes, rounded up, $150 an hour, 2 h minimum at each end: the crew loads in 2 h 01 (charged 2 h 30 = $375) and unloads in 1 h 40 (charged the 2 h minimum = $300).

The same rounding is used everywhere these hours are charged: the quote's calculated hours, the hours the office types, the crew's bill of lading (on the crew's phone too), the closing, invoices and QuickBooks. It only applies to flat transportation + hourly orders — local moves and other long-distance pricing are not touched. Crew pay follows your payroll settings, as before.

Example bands for Rate per mile:

A 300-mile move: 300 × $8.00 = $2,400.00 transportation. A 1,250-mile move: 1,250 × $6.00 = $7,500.00. A 2,800-mile move: 2,800 × $4.50 = $12,600.00. A 150-mile move is below the first band: there is no rate, so the order shows $0.00 and the office types the agreed amount.

Each move type (Residential, Commercial, Military) and each branch keeps its own bands: switch the branch at the top of MoveBoard to set another branch's.

If you saved this page before the tick boxes came, nothing changed: a crew or rate you left blank shows ticked, one you typed shows unticked with your number, and, with a service ticked, a minimum you left blank shows 0 (no minimum).

Nothing changes until you tick a service: long distance is priced by your tariff, exactly as before.

On the order

The Quote card of the long-distance day shows, in place of the line haul:

• Flat-rate transportation — with Typed on each order, type the agreed amount; until you type it, it reads $0.00 with a reminder. With Calculated, it shows the flat price from your Flat Rate Long Distance tariff (grey words "calculated · Flat rate long distance" under it; the ? says which tariff, size and distance band). Type over it to agree another amount: a typed amount is red, with the arrow back to the calculated price, and it is kept. When the tariff has no price for the size and distance it reads $0.00 with "no flat price found — type the agreed amount". With Rate per mile, it shows the trip's miles × the rate of their band (grey words "calculated · rate per mile" under it; the ? says the miles, the rate and the band, e.g. "312 mi × $8.00/mi (200–499 mi band)"); the miles are the Distance shown on the order's Addresses — the road miles from the pickup address to the delivery address — the same miles the bill of lading shows, rounded to whole miles (355.0 mi is 355; 499.5 mi counts as 500, and the ? says so: "500 mi × $7.00/mi (500–999 mi band; 499.5 mi rounded)"). When the miles are below your first band it reads $0.00 with "no rate for 150 miles — type the agreed amount". Typing over it works the same: red, with the arrow back to the calculated price. The calculated price follows when the addresses, the size or the move date change and you press SAVE. It is fixed once agreed unless the scope changes. A move made into two days charges it once, on its first long-distance day.
• Loading labor and Unloading labor — the hours × the hourly rate, never under the minimum, rounded by your Billing step. The hours come from the calculator for the move size and the crew (loading and unloading speeds, stairs, the walk, packing). Press the label to see the crew, the minimum, the hours and what they are Billed in (15 minutes, or 30 minutes rounded up). Type your own Hours or Hourly rate there: a typed figure is red, and the arrow puts the calculator's back.

No long-distance extra fees (stairs, long carry, elevator, shuttle, extra stops) are added to these orders: the hourly labor pays for the work at each end. Fuel, valuation, packing materials, additional services, discounts and taxes work as on every long-distance order; the long-distance fuel is worked out on what the day charges (transportation plus labor) and follows your changes on screen before you press SAVE. The labor is taxed at your labor tax rate, the transportation at your long-distance line haul rate.

When you press SAVE, Order Updates and the order's history list what changed: the Flat-rate transportation (from $0.00 when it was not typed yet), typed Loading/Unloading labor hours and labor rates, and the hours recorded by the crew.

Changing Transportation price, the Billing step or the long-distance hourly rates does not change an order that is already priced, until its addresses, size or long-distance price change. An order that was already priced by a tariff keeps its price when you turn this on, until its addresses, size or long-distance price change; new orders use it at once.

What the customer sees

The client portal, the estimate and your emails show the flat-rate transportation (one amount — never how it was worked out, nor the rate per mile), and for each end the hourly rate and the minimum hours — never the estimated labor hours or job time.

Message and document variables: [[$ORDER_LD_FLAT_TRANSPORTATION]], [[$ORDER_LD_LOADING_LABOR]], [[$ORDER_LD_UNLOADING_LABOR]], [[$ORDER_LD_LOADING_RATE]], [[$ORDER_LD_UNLOADING_RATE]], [[$ORDER_LD_LOADING_MINIMUM_HOURS]], [[$ORDER_LD_UNLOADING_MINIMUM_HOURS]]. [[$ORDER_LD_QUOTE_DETAILS]] lists them too.

On the bill of lading and the closing

The crew records the start and end of each stop on the bill of lading, as on any job. The hours at the pickup are the loading hours and the hours at the delivery the unloading hours, and the bill charges them (never under the minimum), rounded by the order's billing step — the one it was priced with. For the split, the bill should sign the stops one by one; with one box for the whole day, the hours are filed as loading.

The bill's labor time is the loading hours plus the unloading hours — never the drive between the two addresses, which the flat-rate transportation already pays for. Example: loading 8:00–11:15 and unloading 12:00–15:15 reads 6h 30m of labor, not 7h 15m. The labor block shows no Travel Time row unless travel is really charged, so its Total hourly charge time is those same hours. While the job runs, the closing side of the order window follows the crew's recorded hours at once, so it charges what the bill charges before the bill is submitted. How your movers are paid for that drive doesn't change — see Crew pay time.

The bill, the closing, the invoices and QuickBooks show separate lines (whichever Transportation price you chose): Flat-rate transportation, Loading labor hours (hourly), Unloading labor hours (hourly), packing materials, additional services, and the total. With Rate per mile, the bill of lading's Flat-rate transportation line says the miles, the rate and the band it was priced with (for example "355 mi × $8.00/mi (200–499 mi band)"), and its Distance is those same miles — the ones on the order. An amount you typed over the calculated one reads "Agreed before the move". On the closing side of the order window, press a labor row to type the Hours recorded.

Your long-distance bill of lading template

When your long-distance jobs use your own bill of lading (Settings › Documents › Bill of lading), its built-in blocks show the lines on their own:

• Order summary of charges (@summaryOfCharges) lists, above the grand total: Flat-rate transportation and its amount, then Loading labor and Unloading labor, each as the hours billed × the hourly rate (for example "3 h × $150.00/h") and the amount. Under each labor line it says where the hours come from and how they are billed, for example "Estimated 2 h 30 min · 3 h minimum applied · 15-minute steps" or "Actual 4 h 20 min · 3 h minimum · 15-minute steps".
• Order flat rate or long distance linehaul charge (@orderFlatRateOrLongDistanceLinehaulChargeTable) shows Flat transportation + hourly charges: the same three lines and their total, in place of the cubic-feet table (which read "Cu/Ft @ $0.00" on these orders).
• Order moving charge (@orderMovingCharge) is the flat-rate transportation.

Before the move the labor lines use the estimated hours (the hours you typed on the order, else the calculator's). Once the crew enters the start and end times of each stop, they use the real hours, rounded by the billing step and never under the minimum — the same amounts the closing and the invoice charge. The crew's phone, the customer's portal and the PDF show the same lines. Orders priced by a tariff look exactly as before.

To place the figures yourself, the block editor's variables offer (blank on any other order):

The [[$ORDER_LD_…]] variables above are for messages and order documents; the bill of lading uses these @ variables.

MoveBoard's federal long-distance bill of lading (if your company uses it) prints the same lines in place of a weight-rated line haul; a scale weight does not change them.

Payroll and commission read the labor and the total of the job as they do for every job. The drive between the pickup and the delivery is paid the way it always was, or as a payroll line of its own when you choose so in Crew pay time.