IceBossPro Blog — Ice Delivery Invoicing

Onboarding Accounts in Ice Invoicing Software

Every billing problem you will ever have with an ice account traces back to how it was set up. If the per-bag price is wrong, the tax flag is missing, or the billing term was never chosen, the software will happily generate a wrong invoice at high speed — automation only amplifies a bad setup. Getting accounts onboarded correctly is the highest-leverage hour you will spend in any ice delivery invoicing software, because a clean account bills itself correctly forever. This post walks through onboarding an ice account so the very first invoice comes out right.

Capture the account and its billing identity first

Start with who you are billing and how they want to receive it. That means the legal account name, the billing contact separate from the delivery contact, and the email or address where invoices and statements actually get read — the bar owner is rarely the person who pays the bill. For chains, decide up front whether each location is its own account or a child of a parent that gets one consolidated statement, because changing that structure later means untangling months of invoices. IceBossPro lets you model parent accounts with child stops so a convenience-store chain bills to one AP department while each store keeps its own delivery history. Nailing this identity layer first is what makes statements, aging, and collections work cleanly down the line rather than after a painful cleanup.

Set pricing so invoices build themselves

The heart of onboarding is pricing, because this is what turns a delivery into a dollar figure with no human in the loop. For each account, set the per-item rate — per bag by size, per block, or per case — and apply any wholesale or volume tier the customer negotiated. A high-volume chain might get a lower per-bag rate than a single restaurant, and the software should hold that difference so the driver never has to remember it. Set the sales-tax treatment here too; many ice sales are taxable and a missing flag means you eat the tax or bill a correction later. In IceBossPro, once an account's pricing is configured, every future delivery to that stop prices itself automatically, which is the entire point — the driver records quantity, the software supplies the money.

Choose the billing term and cadence

Next, tell the system how this account pays. Is it billed per delivery, on a recurring restock schedule, on consignment where you invoice only what sold from their freezer, or on net terms with a monthly statement? This single choice drives everything downstream — when invoices generate, when reminders fire, and how the account shows up in aging. A gas station on consignment needs a very different billing rhythm than a hotel that wants a clean net-30 statement each month. Set the payment terms explicitly (due on receipt, net 15, net 30) so the software knows when a balance becomes past-due and starts the collections clock. Getting the term right at onboarding means the account slots into your billing routine automatically instead of becoming a manual exception you handle by memory every cycle.

Get payment on file before the first delivery

The best time to collect a payment method is at signup, before you have delivered anything. Capturing a card-on-file or ACH authorization during onboarding means recurring and per-delivery accounts pay automatically, and you never chase a first invoice that the customer “forgot” about. IceBossPro lets you send a secure card-capture link during onboarding so the account stores its own payment method through Stripe before the truck ever rolls. For net-terms accounts that will pay by check, at least record the AP contact and the expected payment method so the statement goes to the right place. An account that arrives with payment already on file is an account that essentially collects itself — the invoice generates from the delivery and the charge follows without a phone call.

Verify with a test invoice, then go live

Before you turn an account loose, run one delivery through it and look at the invoice it produces. Is the per-bag price right? Is tax applied correctly? Did it route to the billing contact with the right terms? Two minutes of verification on the first stop catches the setup mistakes that would otherwise repeat on every invoice for months. Onboard your accounts in waves rather than all at once — do a handful, confirm the invoices are clean, then bring on the next batch — so any pattern of error surfaces while it is still small. Once an account passes its test invoice, it is genuinely done: the software will bill it correctly and automatically for as long as it stays on your route.

Model wholesale tiers and consignment terms up front

The accounts that cause the most billing pain later are the ones with non-standard pricing that never got captured cleanly at setup. If a distributor buys enough volume to earn a wholesale tier, store that tier on the account rather than leaving the driver or the office to remember a discount at invoice time — a tier that lives in someone's head eventually gets applied to the wrong stop or forgotten entirely. Consignment accounts need even more care: define that you own the ice in their freezer, that only the sold count gets billed, and how often you reconcile that count, so the software invoices the movement rather than the drop. For a chain that spans both models, set the parent statement to net terms while each child store carries its own consignment or per-delivery rule. IceBossPro holds per-bag tiers, wholesale rates, and consignment terms at the account level, so once they are entered at onboarding, every future invoice honors the exact deal you struck without anyone re-deciding it at the door.

Decide how statements and reminders will run

Onboarding is also where you set the rhythm of getting paid, not just the price. Choose whether the account receives an invoice per delivery or a single rolled-up statement at month-end, and confirm it lands with the AP contact who actually cuts checks. Decide the reminder cadence and whether a late fee applies once a net-terms balance ages past due, so the collections clock starts on its own instead of waiting for someone to notice. Set these rules now and the account folds into your batch-invoicing and statement runs automatically from its first cycle, rather than becoming a manual exception your office works from memory.

If you are still weighing platforms, our companion piece Choosing Ice Delivery Invoicing Software covers what to look for first.