Guides
Moving company workflow, from booking to done
Moving company operations from inquiry to claim: the eight handoffs, who owns each, the documents that cross them, and the monthly review that keeps surveys honest.
What to take away
- A move passes through eight handoffs between the first call and the closed file. Every operational failure in this trade is a handoff where the document did not cross with the job.
- The survey is the master record. Dispatch, the crew, the invoice, and the claim all read from it, and when it is wrong every one of them is wrong in the same direction.
- Owners should manage the variance between surveyed and actual hours, not the hours themselves. Variance points at the estimator, the dispatcher, or the crew; raw hours point at nothing.
- Peak season and the end of the month are the operating environment, not exceptions to it. Build the workflow for the stacked day and the quiet day will take care of itself.
The decision this page is for
An owner choosing how to run the yard chooses where handoffs are and who owns each one. In a two-truck operation, the owner surveys, dispatches, and rides along, so one head can carry the handoffs.
The first hire who is not a mover, usually an office person or estimator, is when handoffs need documents. The head is no longer in every meeting.
There is no single right structure because yards differ in what they sell. A labor-only operation has fewer handoffs than a full-service mover with packing and storage; an interstate carrier has more documents at each one. The startup and market guide covers the choice of what to sell; this page assumes that choice is made.
The eight handoffs
| # | Handoff | Document that crosses | Owner | What fails without it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inquiry to discovery | Intake sheet | Office | Access questions never asked |
| 2 | Discovery to survey | Completed intake sheet | Estimator | Estimator arrives blind |
| 3 | Survey to estimate | Survey with cubic feet, inventory, access | Estimator | Price built on a room count |
| 4 | Estimate to acceptance | Signed estimate, valuation selection, contract | Office | Customer unaware of the estimate type |
| 5 | Acceptance to dispatch | Dispatch entry with access notes and building contacts | Dispatcher | Wrong truck, unreserved elevator |
| 6 | Dispatch to crew | Crew sheet without prices | Crew lead | Crew discovers the stairs |
| 7 | Crew to office | Job sheet with actual hours, inventory, change orders | Crew lead | Invoice cannot be explained |
| 8 | Office to close | Invoice, payment, callback, claim file | Office | Claim arrives as a review |
Read down the last column and you have the trade's complaint list. Each one is a document that did not cross a handoff.
Eight handoffs, document, owner
- Inquiry to discovery: intake sheet, office
- Discovery to survey: completed intake sheet, estimator
- Survey to estimate: survey with cubic feet, estimator
- Estimate to acceptance: signed estimate and contract, office
- Acceptance to dispatch: dispatch entry with access notes, dispatcher
- Dispatch to crew: crew sheet without prices, crew lead
- Crew to office: job sheet with actual hours, crew lead
- Office to close: invoice, payment, claim file, office
The survey as master record
Every later document is a view of the survey. Dispatch reads the access notes from it. The crew sheet is its inventory and access notes with the price removed. The invoice is its estimate plus signed change orders. The claim is judged against its inventory and condition notes.
Survey is the master record
- Survey: cubic feet, inventory, access, condition notes
- Dispatch reads the access notes
- Crew sheet is inventory and access, price removed
- Invoice is estimate plus signed change orders
- Claim judged against inventory and condition notes
When the survey is wrong, nothing downstream can be right. That is why the estimator is the most consequential hire in the yard, and why the moving company pricing and profit guide spends most of its length on what the survey has to contain.
Two rules follow. First, no flat figure without a survey. Second, anything the survey did not capture is a change order, signed before the extra work starts, at the rates on the estimate.
Dispatch is a two-day process
Dispatch starts two days before the move: the office reads the survey, confirms building reservations directly with the building, and matches crews to specialty items. It checks the assigned truck fits the street at both addresses.
The day before, the office calls every customer with four questions: packed, elevator or dock reserved, truck location, anything added. On the morning, the crew leaves with a sheet holding everything except the money.
Dispatch runs two days out
- Two days beforeread survey, confirm building reservations
- Two days beforematch crews to specialty items
- Two days beforecheck truck fits both streets
- Day beforeoffice calls customer with four questions
- Morning ofcrew leaves with sheet minus prices
The failure mode is the board filled in on the morning from what is free. A free truck is not a suitable truck; the equipment and setup guide explains why a fleet needs vehicles for the streets it serves and not only for the volume it carries.
The crew's day in five checkpoints
Pre-trip at the yard. Walkthrough at the origin, with the survey inventory in hand and pre-existing damage photographed. Loading, with inventory tags and condition codes. Delivery, with inventory check-off and placement by the room plan. Close-out, with actual hours by phase and every deviation from the survey listed. Each checkpoint is a short list on the crew sheet, and the crew lead signs each with a time.
Crew day, five checkpoints
- Pre-trip at the yard
- Walkthrough at origin, damage photographed
- Loading with inventory tags and condition codes
- Delivery with inventory check-off and room placement
- Close-out with actual hours by phase
The customer-packed carton deserves its own line. At the walkthrough the lead inspects cartons the customer packed and, before loading, points out any that are unsafe to carry. That moment, recorded on the sheet, is what settles the later claim about the contents of a box the crew never opened.
Packing and storage as separate workflows
Packing is a service with its own day, its own materials list, and its own crew skill. When it is sold, the packing day precedes the move day, and the packing crew's inventory becomes the move crew's inventory. When it is declined, the customer-packed flag goes on the survey and the crew sheet.
Packing and storage handoffs
- Packing day precedes move day
- Packing crew inventory becomes move crew inventory
- Declined packing: customer-packed flag on survey
- Storage in: inventory in, location recorded
- Storage out: inventory out, hours and document
Storage-in-transit adds a warehouse handoff: inventory in, location recorded, inventory out. Each direction is a handling event with hours and a document. The services and packages guide defines both services so that the operating workflow and the price agree on what they include.
The monthly review
Once a month the owner reads four items, from the crew lead and the estimator: surveyed versus actual hours, the claims ledger, the ride-along scorecards, and the callback notes.
The output is a short list, in priority order: estimator issues first, since a survey that misses access makes every crew look slow, then crew method, equipment, and dispatch.
The variance figure is the one to manage. Actual hours alone say nothing, because a long job may have been surveyed long. Variance says whether the yard's promise matched the yard's day, and it is the number the estimator's productivity figure is rebuilt from.
Labor is the largest line, and it is regulated
Crew hours are the largest cost in the workflow, and the wage behind them should be set against a published reference. The Bureau of Labor Statistics wage tables publish metropolitan-area wage estimates for movers, drivers, and helpers. That gives the owner one input for checking whether the rate the yard pays reflects the local market.
Which drivers and vehicles fall under federal or state operating rules, and what that means for the length of a crew's day, is a question for the regulator. The licensing and compliance guide explains how to identify which body governs your operation.
Interstate changes the documents, not the handoffs
A move across a state line passes through the same eight handoffs with more paper at several of them. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Protect Your Move materials describe what an interstate customer must receive. Its regulations and enforcement page identifies the consumer-protection rules that govern interstate household-goods carriers.
The operational response is a separate block on the crew sheet and the office checklist for interstate jobs, so that the lead does not have to remember which rules apply to which job.
The job file
Everything above ends in one file per job: intake, survey, estimate, contract, dispatch entry, crew sheet, job sheet, invoice, payment, callback notes, and any claim. The IRS says in what kind of records should I keep that the system is the business's choice, provided it clearly shows income and expenses.
The job file does that. It is also the claims defense, the estimator's training material, and the evidence for the monthly review.
Common questions
Who should own dispatch in a small yard?
Whoever is not on the truck that day and has read every survey on the board. In a two-truck yard that is usually the owner. The first dedicated dispatcher is hired when the owner can no longer read every survey.
Should the crew see the price?
No. The crew sheet carries access, inventory, and flags. Price on the sheet turns every wait into a negotiation at the door.
How do I know the workflow is working?
When the monthly variance is inside the tolerance you set, claims are logged before they are reviewed, and the invoice can be explained from the job file without a phone call.
What changes on a stacked day?
Nothing in the workflow. What changes is the calendar: the stacked days get the jobs whose uncertainties are closed, and the buffer lives mid-month and mid-week.
