Water damage invoice,

[KevinL]

Can any of you guys that do wdr show me how you write up a final invoice?? I've done a few and never had a problem from adjusters but I'd like them to be more professional and get the most $$ possible. Why don't they teach this in wdr or asd class?

 

[AJR]

Xactimate. i know it sucks to pay for it, but it gets you more money and the adjusters usually just pay the bill when in that format.

 

[Hoody]

Can any of you guys that do wdr show me how you write up a final invoice?? I've done a few and never had a problem from adjusters but I'd like them to be more professional and get the most $$ possible. Why don't they teach this in wdr or asd class?

I have a neat little thing I'm working on to hopefully correct that.

 

[KevinL]

I got a free trial of exactimate and couldn't even get it to open. I can't imagine how hard it is to use or costly if you only do a few wdr a year.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Kevin if you want send me over the particulars and I'll have one of the guys put it together for you in the AM.

 

[SMRBAP]

Without Xactimate, format everything in detail one line item per service, give them (adjusters) all the line items; the line item, its unit price, and its respective qty then a subtotal.

Include a dimensioned sketch noting affected areas / materials
Keep a drying log from day 1 through to dry
Keep 1'x1' trim, carpet/flooring/pad samples if anything is torn out

Other than that it's just dressing that info up on an invoice

That's the bare minimum - if you want to go further;

Test your dehu/s rH drop daily and log it - adjusters will sometimes want justication of why something took 5 or 6 days to dry, even with logs, you can get the "must be your equipment, i'm only paying for...." If you measure your dehu's drop daily, you can show them your gear was working as it should, sorry, pay my bill.

Make sure you have a well written work auth, we are finding - for whatever reason - more and more adjusters asking for it.

If you want to PM me your e-mail, I'll shoot over a few Xactimate pdf files.

Where you are missing the boat by not using Xactimate;

Base service costs, recouping materials sales taxes, O&P (which is a free 20% of gross of the entire job handed back to you where there are more than 3 trades happening), figuring out "better" line item selections, for example, if you took out 2' up from bottom of drywall on 100' LF of wall, (200sq ft) instead of charging 200x0.73 or $146, you know to use the up to 2' per LF line item @ 2.43 which fetches $243, charging for things like PPE, equipment decontam, knowing you can charge $350 to fix 1 square foot of drywall, then $170 to paint that 1 square foot, (minimums) and 1001 other ways to wring $$$ out of every job.

You can always get by with the 2000 pages of line items Xactimate has - but you can do a $30k invoice in 20 minutes with Xactimate and probably not have a single one of the line items ever questioned. If you do more than 15 a year, it's worth the $135/mo. You'll make it back x2 not counting your time saved.

And if you ever get to a point where you are doing more water losses - you are one huge step ahead of the curve to keep growing it.

 

[AJR]

indyallpro you said it perfectly. play thier game and win win win .

 

[Warren Wallace]

I pay $ 500 to a water restoration guy to do all my reports. I get a lot more out of my jobs.

 

[Jeremy N]

I use a pretty nifty program that I modified. I input all of the xactimate pricing and not have a data base. Writing estimates is very easy and professional.

Send me a PM with your info and I'll hook you up. Or you can get with Chavez.

If you don't want to pay a monthly fee I'd be glad to let you know about the program and how to make in work for you. It's kind of a pain but it's great once you get everything in the data base.

 

[dealtimeman]

If you do not want to get xactimate, then check out www.nares.us. They do all your paperwork for 1.5 percent pre tax.

 

[Hoody]

Can any of you guys that do wdr show me how you write up a final invoice?? I've done a few and never had a problem from adjusters but I'd like them to be more professional and get the most $$ possible. Why don't they teach this in wdr or asd class?

I have a neat little thing I'm working on to hopefully correct that.

I created this working excel spreadsheet, and I'm still designing it. But, I can take this estimate form shown above and make it not calculate the automated stuff I've designed, and allow you to place in all of the quantities manually and it will calculate the total. There is some space below it to add in custom line items if need-be. I've sized it correctly to print off on normal paper.

There are plans to for the whole workbook to be sold/distributed so I won't give you the whole thing, but this is an early stage of what it looks like.

Enter the basic information

It auto calculates some stuff, still some information that needs to manually put in like total sq ft affected.

Beings calculating the estimate

Allows you to offer a discount, add over head and profit if you need to or 10 and 10 as some call it, and produces a total WITHOUT tax.

Shoot me a private message or an email stevenhoodlebrink at gmail.com if you're interested in having just the estimate form.

 

[Steve Toburen]

Kevin if you want send me over the particulars and I'll have one of the guys put it together for you in the AM.

That is a pretty generous offer, Kevin. (Of course, I don't know why Chavez doesn't DO IT HIMSELF! I mean, what else does he do all day other than LURK on the Internet!)

Steve Toburen
www.SFS.JonDon.com

PS Kevin, the folks above pretty much have it nailed. At the end of the day adjusters don't really care how much you charge ... IF you can justify it. And the easiest way to justify it is with a nice detailed report and billing in a format they are used to which means ... EXACTIMATE! Adjusters deal with so much paperwork you want them to glance at the first page and then check the number on the last page and then have them stamp it "Approved"! (Once the insurance company "notices you" and starts to dig you are in trouble.)

 

[AJR]

If you are going to be in the biz you would be better off learning the easiest path to your dough and that would be xactimate. xactimate updates it price list monthly according to the part of the state, county and city. your adjuster is updating his xactimate price list before doing his estimate. if your estimate is off then thats where the headache begins. trust me learn to use xactimate and you will be amazed how much more cash you will put in your pocket. its just like the big truck argument. the big truck is not about the machine inside off the truck its about the marketing aspect off it. where xactimate is about looking like you know what your doing when dealing with an adjuster thus going with the path of least resistance to your cash. Yes you could try other methodes to present your bill to the insurance company but you will almost always end up with the adjuster questioning your invoice, why, because he knows you havnt a clue and prob thinks your new into the biz and is going to mess with you. i have been there and done that lol. when i present my bill the only argument i usaully have to deal with is P/O wich i usaully take off just because i know they never pay it. I just put p/o in so i have something to give in to for them. They usually leave the rest alone lol.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Hooty that's pretty nice setup you have there! We used an Excel spread sheet for years, it was much simpler but it worked and we got paid.

That is a pretty generous offer, Kevin. (Of course, I don't know why Chavez doesn't DO IT HIMSELF! I mean, what else does he do all day other than LURK on the Internet!)

:mrgreen:

I can do it, I can whip through water billing, it's fire I work at a snails pace. Plus I took the software off this old PC and have not setup my new PC yet. I hate changing machines, seems like I always forget to move something to the server and then I don't have it when I need it.

 

[steve g]

my xactimate is good for 2 computers, if anyone wants to I would be happy to split my subscription with someone. I only need it on one computer.

the problem with using a spreadsheet is every job is different, I know that sounds cliche but the secret to making money is putting in the little line items, like detach and reset of a vent cover, detach reset doors etc. and 100's of different things. this really comes into play on a fire restoration or rebuild job. if you have a job over 10k I think xactimate would just about pay for itself for a year in the extra money you can get by using it. could it be done with a spreadsheet or something else, yeah it could but the extra time would not be worth it and it would be next to impossible to come up with all the prices for the little things, believe me I HATE paying $130/mo to those guys, but there is a reason why they have a monopoly.

the guys who are estimators in my area, I know at least for the biggest company around here are making 100k/year. the reason for that is a guy who is good with the program and knows what they are doing with the repairs, knows what adjusters pay what, are easily capable of pulling off an extra 4 or 5 grand on a 20k job, if the job is larger it could be much more. whenever I can I always have customers send me the OTHER guys estimate. just to give you an idea, the largest company in my area sent out and adjuster to bid a loss. without seeing his first I bid the loss. later I was able to see what he had, our scopes where pretty much identical, it was surprising how close we were in what needed to be done on this smoke damage job. however I was 4k more than he was, and that was without me even really trying to massage it. this was on a 15k job. imagine if this guy is loosing 4k on 6 or 7 jobs in a month, you can easily see why good estimators get paid 100k. because they can easily pay for themselves. knowing which companies will pay 10-10 on mitigation or knowing the particulars of a certain company and adjusting the breakdown for them is valuable.

 

[Hoody]

Already sent 5 of these out.

This is just a mock example.

 

[Desk Jockey]

That looks nice, a good alternative for those that don't want to rent Xactimate. Easy to read and justify your bill, nice job Hooty! 8)

 

[steve g]

if you ONLY estimate dryouts one could probably get by without xactimate, but even with hoodies spreadsheet, he has extraction after hours and during ours.

xactimate has a price for

extraction, extraction heavy, CAT 1, 2, 3 and after hours and during hours for each that is a potential of 12 different rates for extraction. that is the secret to recouping the cost of the program and then some, there is simply too many things that can be added in as a charge, to make it more profitable to use the program than not.

 

[Hoody]

I would prefer to use Xactimate also. Like I said I've now sent 7 out, FREE. Its not to replace Xactimate, but its an alternative for some who don't have to $$$ right now to purchase it or who are just getting into WDR.

We had a small pinhole leak on our dishwasher a month or so ago. It ruined our pergo floor, and drywall behind our cabinets. The cabinets were able to be dried. Drywall was already toast.

I ripped out the pergo floor myself, and detached my cabinets and ripped out the drywall, took pictures first of course. When our adjuster showed up I handed him my invoice, and pictures. We took part of it and applied it to our deductible... no money out of pocket for the loss, plus we got cut a check right there for the work I did. He called out a preferred vendor and they finished the drying, and rebuild for us. I had them tent our cabinets with an E-TES they dried just fine as well as the wall behind/sill plate, they were a pretty stand up company, and had all the meters, a FLIR, and a lazer thermometer.

I showed the adjuster my whole spreadsheet. He was impressed, even with it not totally finished yet.

 

[KevinL]

Thanks for the offer guys, and Richard. Steve G. is gonna do it on exactimate. So if I buy exactimate, can I teach myself how to use it or do they teach you or what?

 

[Hoody]

Thanks for the offer guys, and Richard. Steve G. is gonna do it on exactimate. So if I buy exactimate, can I teach myself how to use it or do they teach you or what?

They have classes you can attend, a basic, and advanced. But there are plenty of help videos and tutorials on their site. www.xactware.com

 

[sunnysandiego]

Anyone want to write up a mitigation invoice for me? Would need to be verifiable I guess as its for an adjuster. don't know what you would need but I'm willing to pay.

 

[FredC]

Anyone want to write up a mitigation invoice for me? Would need to be verifiable I guess as its for an adjuster. don't know what you would need but I'm willing to pay.

@BIG WOOD didn't you have a guy

 

[BIG WOOD]

Anyone want to write up a mitigation invoice for me? Would need to be verifiable I guess as its for an adjuster. don't know what you would need but I'm willing to pay.

Mitchell Estimating Services is in the process of doing 2 jobs for me as I'm typing. I highly recommend him
2027806761

Mitchell Estimating Services

Get help with Xactimate estimates and Xactimate billing by having a seasoned Xactimate estimate writer review your damages and scope of work, and place them in an industry standard format.

www.mitchellestimatingservices.com