Your biggest account is rarely your best
The problem
“I can’t tell which broker is worth keeping.”
“I don’t know if brokers paid me right, or what I left unbilled.”
Accounts get judged on volume, because volume is the number you see without looking for it. Score them on profit instead and the ranking often changes. One row per account, whether a broker, a facility or your private-pay riders, once a quarter:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Trips per week | The volume you are trading everything else against |
| Revenue | What the relationship looks like before costs, which is how it is usually judged |
| Profit per trip | Revenue minus direct cost. This is the column that changes minds |
| Denial rate | Trips you ran and were not paid for, which is margin leaving twice |
| Days to payment | How much of your cash this account is holding, and for how long |
| Paid against expected | What reached the bank against what the rate card and your trip records say you were owed. Underpayments and unbilled extras only show up here |
Profit per trip does the work, and it needs your cost per mile from Fleet and tools. Long-distance contracts are where the two rankings usually split: good revenue per trip, poor profit per mile.
Paid against expected is the column almost nobody fills in. Price each account’s trips at its rate card plus the extras you are owed (waiting time, extra miles, no-show fees) and set that against what they deposited. Anything short is money to chase. Any extra they do pay is one you can bill on every trip.
None of this means dropping an account. It means the next rate conversation happens with a number in front of you.
Facilities are the relationships you own
The problem
“My private accounts quietly stop calling.”
Split last month’s revenue three ways. The three differ in who sets the price and how fast the money arrives:
| Where it comes from | Who sets the price | Who the rider deals with | How you get paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broker trips | They set it | The broker | Slowest, and denials come back weeks later |
| Facility contracts | You negotiate it | The facility | Better, and cancellations are rarer |
| Private pay | You set it | You | At the time of service, or weekly from a card or account on file |
If almost all of it is broker trips, someone else sets the price of your work. Brokers still fill vans. The goal is to move the proportion on purpose.
Start with a facility you already serve several times a week, whether on broker trips or your own: a dialysis center, a day program, a nursing facility. Your drivers know the building and the staff know your vans. Find whoever owns transport there and bring your on-time record from the Scoreboard. A direct agreement pays better, cancels less, and belongs to you. One a quarter moves a real slice of revenue out of the broker row within a year.
Then keep them. A facility rarely tells you it has moved its trips; the calls just get fewer. Count trips per account every week against its normal week, and call the week it drops, while the reason is still recent.
Set up private pay
The problem
“I don’t know what to charge private pay.”
A private trip is the best one on your board. You set the price, there is no claim to submit, and the money arrives on the day. It stays small in most companies because nothing is set up to take it.
Build the rate from two numbers you already have: cost per mile from Fleet and tools and the margin floor from Vision. Price every mile the trip takes, including the empty miles to reach the rider, and check the result clears the floor. Then publish it, so a price exists before the phone rings.
02
The cost of the trip
Every mile it takes, including the empty miles to reach the rider.
04
Publish the rate
So whoever answers the phone can quote it.
Give whoever answers the phone permission to quote that rate, and a way to take a card so drivers are not handling cash. Without both, the call becomes a message for you, and you call back after the ride was needed.
Facilities that book private trips for their residents will want an invoice, and invoices drift. Set terms when the account opens: a card or bank account on file, charged weekly. Same terms from the first trip, even on a trial. Ask for direct deposit rather than checks. At Ride Well we learned that a check still has to clear at the bank after it arrives, and that wait comes straight out of cash flow.