The Edge September/October 2025

complicated on the accounting side. “It gets weird when I did the work, but I didn’t collect the money,” Leahy says. “So, is that a bad debt I can now take off my taxes? But what is it next year?” Leahy says while monthly billing isn’t something you can change to at the flip of a switch, it is a worthwhile billing option that can help decrease cancellations. TE

“Our bad debts we’ve never collected are still less than what it used to be,” Leahy says. On the flipside, the customers who receive money back when they cancel are delighted. Whether the client gets a refund or owes the company money all depends on when they cancel their service. Leahy recommends zeroing out accounts by the end of the year so these balances never get too high. Additionally, using a rolling 12-month plan can get

Leahy advises if you’re going to use monthly billing to bundle services, you need to invest in training your team to exe cute the work well. Make sure your people and trucks are set up for success. The key is promoting this change and getting your entire team bought in. Explain the reasons you’re changing to monthly billing and the benefits as every depart ment will be affected. “The entire company needs to be on board because it helps everybody, but it will change responsibilities somewhat mainly when people cancel,”Leahy says. Leahy says it is critical to convince your sales team to sell this payment option. “Your sales team has to be well-trained and motivated to sell it that way, because they’ll fall back real easy too, and it’s based on how you pay commission,”Leahy says. Blades of Green only pays commission based on when the service is completed, not when money is collected. “You definitely want to look at how your commission works, and if this is going to be a problem,”Leahy says. “We just did promotions and contests on who can sell the most of this billing type.” CHALLENGES TO BE AWARE OF Leahy stresses that while this payment model sounds basically like a subscription, you shouldn’t refer to it as that with customers, as each state has different legal ramifications for true subscriptions’ renewal and cancellation policies. When a customer cancels, Blades of Green will balance the account at the time, so any money that is owed is collected. Leahy says this is the biggest challenge they face with this payment model. “All our bad reviews are on this,”Leahy says. “Because they forgot. It was five years ago, three years ago, a year ago, or the husband signed up and the wife is canceling. It’s some sort of communication breakdown where they forgot they signed up for this, and they call in and go, ‘We’re moving, had a great service. Love you guys.’And when we say you owe us $350, it changes to, ‘What? You guys suck. I hate your service.’” Blades of Green addresses these negative reviews by calmly informing the individual they agreed to the payment method. Leahy says not only do they have signed paperwork, they also have recordings where the salesperson went over the pay ment process and received the customer’s verbal agreement, obligating them to pay the money that is owed.

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