Guides
Corporate accounts want moving services bundled by unit, not by job
Packaging moving services for corporate, property manager, and relocation accounts: the scoping interview, the four terms they ask for, and what to refuse.
What to take away
- An account is not a large customer. It is a customer who buys on terms: response time, reporting, invoicing, and liability, and those terms are the product you are selling as much as the crew hours.
- Scope the account before pricing it. The questions below take one meeting and decide whether the work is profitable or a subsidy.
- Accounts arrive with volume at the same peak everyone else wants. A rate agreed in a quiet month binds you on the last Saturday of the month too, unless you write otherwise.
- Two terms are worth refusing outrightan unlimited liability clause, and a rate that holds regardless of access. Both transfer risk you cannot survey in advance.
The three account types, and what each actually buys
Property managers and building owners. They buy predictability and reduced complaints from residents. Volume arrives at lease turnover, which means it stacks at month end. What they value most is a crew that follows building rules, protects common areas, and does not create a problem for the manager.
What Each Account Type Buys
Property managers
- Buys
- Predictability
- Volume timing
- Lease turnover
- Key risk
- Resident complaints
- Margin driver
- Crew rules
Employers
- Buys
- Clean process
- Volume timing
- Staff moves
- Key risk
- Employee reachability
- Margin driver
- Single invoice
Relocation admins
- Buys
- Process compliance
- Volume timing
- Per their process
- Key risk
- Admin hours
- Margin driver
- Admin work per job
Employers with relocating staff. They buy a clean process and a single invoice. The person moving is not the person paying, which changes the discovery call entirely: someone has to survey the home, and the employee has to be reachable.
Relocation and third-party administrators. They buy compliance with their own process: their forms, their reporting, their payment terms. Margin here depends almost entirely on how much administrative work their process adds per job.
The scoping interview
Ask these before quoting. Each answer changes the price or rules the account out.
Scoping Interview Questions
- How many moves, and when in month and year?
- What are the origins and destinations?
- Who surveys, and when?
- What is included by default?
- Who is liable, and under which terms?
- What reporting must you produce?
- What are the payment terms?
- How many moves, and when do they occur in the month and the year?Volume concentrated on the days you are already full is worth less than the same volume spread out.
- What are the origins and destinations?Building type, elevator or dock, and street access decide the crew size and the truck, and the equipment and setup guide explains why the largest truck you own may not be the one you can send.
- Who surveys, and when?No fixed rate without a survey. If the account wants a rate card, the rate card prices units you can measure, not whole jobs you have not seen.
- What is included by default?Packing, materials, disassembly, debris removal, and storage each need a yes or a no in writing, using the definitions in the moving company services and packages guide rather than the account's shorthand.
- Who is liable, and under which terms?The valuation the account selects, or that its own contract imposes, is a cost line. Read it before the rate is agreed.
- What reporting do you have to produce?Per-move reports, monthly summaries, and portal entry are administrative hours nobody prices and everybody pays.
- What are the payment terms?Thirty days on an account is thirty days of payroll you fund. That is a working capital cost, and it belongs in the rate.
- What happens on a short-notice request?Accounts value response. Say what you will guarantee and what you will not, and price the guarantee.
Build the package from units, not from jobs
The mistake is quoting an account a per-move price. Quote units the survey measures:
Units to Price Instead of Jobs
Unit
- Crew-hour
- Loaded cost plus margin
- Access unit
- Per unit and quantity
- Materials
- Per item, by type
- Packing
- Per crew-hour, own day
- Storage handling
- Per event, in and out
- Admin reporting
- Per move or month
Priced on
- Crew-hour
- Scales with job
- Access unit
- Buildings differ
- Materials
- Account controls use
- Packing
- Separate service
- Storage handling
- Two events, two costs
- Admin reporting
- Makes ask visible
Why honest
- Crew-hour
- Access unit
- Materials
- Packing
- Storage handling
- Admin reporting
Build the package from units
| Unit | Priced on | Why it stays honest |
|---|---|---|
| Crew-hour, by crew size | Your loaded cost plus margin | Scales with the actual job |
| Access unit: flight, long carry, elevator wait | Per unit and quantity | The account's buildings differ from each other |
| Materials | Per item, by type | The account can control its own consumption |
| Packing | Per crew-hour, on its own day | Keeps a separate service separate |
| Storage handling | Per event, in and out | Two handling events are two costs |
| Administrative reporting | Per move or per month | Makes visible what the account is asking for |
A unit rate card with a stated survey requirement gives the account the predictability it wants without asking you to price a home you have not seen. Which units earn best in your own yard is a question the most profitable moving company services method answers from your job sheets.
The four terms accounts ask for, and how to answer
Volume discount. Reasonable, and it should be tied to something you can bank: guaranteed minimum volume, or scheduling flexibility that lets you place their work off peak. A discount for volume that arrives entirely on the last two days of the month costs you more than it wins.
Four Account Terms: Accept or Refuse
Volume discount?
Tie to guaranteed volume or off-peak flexibility
A discount on month-end volume costs more than it wins
Rate held for a period. Reasonable with a review clause tied to labor cost. Your largest cost is crew hours, and it moves.
Uniform pricing across buildings. Refuse, or price to the worst access in the portfolio. A rate averaged across a dock building and a fifth-floor walk-up will be wrong for both and unprofitable on one.
Unlimited or unspecified liability. Refuse. Liability for household goods runs through the valuation options the governing rules provide, and an account contract that overrides them with an open-ended promise is a risk you cannot survey, price, or insure with confidence. Have the insurer read the clause before you sign it.
The crew has to know it is an account job
Account work fails operationally more often than commercially. The building rules, reporting, and named contact must reach the crew sheet. Otherwise the crew runs the job as an ordinary move, and the account hears about it.
Add an account block to the crew sheet and train against it. That is what the hiring and training guide means by training to a written method rather than to experience.
Compliance does not soften for an account
An account cannot waive the rules that govern the move. If any of its work crosses a state line, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Protect Your Move materials describe the documents and information the individual customer must receive. That obligation runs to the person whose goods are moving, not to the company paying the invoice.
Where an account operates across several states, confirm what each state requires before agreeing to serve it, and treat the answer as part of the pricing. The expansion and market guide covers what changes when an account pulls you into a second market.
What you may promise in the proposal
Service-level language is a claim. Guaranteed windows, all-inclusive pricing, and dedicated crews are supportable if you deliver them, unsupportable otherwise.
The Federal Trade Commission's advertising FAQs for small businesses set the standard that claims be truthful and substantiated. An account proposal is where over-promising costs most, because it repeats across every job for a year.
Invoicing and the record
Account work multiplies documents: a survey and a job sheet per move, plus a monthly reconciliation. Keep them under both a job number and an account number so a disputed invoice is answered from the file, not from memory.
The Internal Revenue Service's guidance on what kind of records should I keep leaves the system to the business provided it clearly shows income and expenses. An account ledger that ties each invoice to its job sheets does that and settles arguments.
Common questions
Should I discount to win an account?
Only against something you receive: guaranteed volume, off-peak scheduling, faster payment, or a simpler process. A discount given for the promise of future work is a rate cut.
What if the account insists on a flat rate per move?
Offer it only for a defined move type you have surveyed repeatedly in that portfolio, and state the access assumptions on which it holds.
How do I handle their peak colliding with mine?
Decide the split before the season, in writing. Reserve a stated number of crew-days for the account and quote the rest at your ordinary terms.
Is one large account safer than many small customers?
No. It is more efficient and more fragile. Price it knowing that its loss removes a block of your capacity at once.
