Hauler Hero Glossary: Key Terms & Concepts

Tenant — A tenant is your company's dedicated environment within Hauler Hero. All your data (customers, routes, billing, etc.) lives within your tenant. Each hauling company operates as its own tenant.

Account — An account is what we call a customer record in Hauler Hero. An account represents a person or business you provide service to. Accounts hold contact info, service addresses, billing details, and service history.

Site / Service Location — Site or Service Location is a specific physical address tied to an account where service is performed. One account can have multiple sites (e.g., a property management company with several locations).

Account Tags — Account tags are labels you can apply to accounts for filtering and organization (e.g., "VIP," "Delinquent," "Municipal"). Tags appear across all tabs in the customer detail view.

Configured Service — Configured service is the core building block of ongoing service in Hauler Hero. A configured service defines what you're providing to a customer: the container type/size, material stream, pickup frequency, pricing, and route assignment. Think of it as the "service subscription" for a specific customer at a specific site.

Service Code aka Priced Service — A service code, or priced service, is a standardized code that categorizes the type of service being performed (e.g., "RES-TRASH-96GAL" for residential 96-gallon trash). Service codes feed into reporting and billing.

Service Day / Cadence — The service day or cadence is the scheduled day(s) and frequency of service. Common cadences include: weekly, every-other-week (EOW/biweekly), monthly, or on-call. These determine when work orders (WOs) are generated.

Pricebook (Price Book) — A pricebook is a master catalog of your standard service offerings and their prices. Used to quickly apply consistent pricing when setting up new configured services. You can have different pricebooks for residential vs. commercial, or by service area.

Service Agreement — A service agreement is a formal agreement defining the terms of service between you and a customer, often referencing the configured services, pricing, and contract duration.

Container — A container is any physical receptacle used for waste collection: carts, polycarts, dumpsters, roll-off boxes, compactors, etc. Containers in Hauler Hero can be tracked by serial number and assigned to specific customer sites.

Container Inventory — A container inventory is the system for tracking your fleet of containers — where they are, who has them, their condition, and serial numbers. This supports bulk import for initial setup.

Polycart / Toter — A polycart, or toter, is a wheeled residential cart, typically 35, 65, or 96 gallons. This is the standard container for curbside residential service.

Roll-Off (Container) — A roll-off is a large open-top container (typically 10–40 cubic yards) that is "rolled off" a truck at a customer site. These are used for construction, demolition, and commercial waste. Roll-off service often involves delivery, swap, pickup, and rental billing.

Yard (Size) — a cubic yard is the common measurement for container capacity. Common sizes: 2-yard, 4-yard, 6-yard, 8-yard (commercial dumpsters); 10, 15, 20, 30, 40-yard (roll-off containers).

Route — A route is the defined collection path that a driver follows on a given day. Routes contain an ordered list of stops and are assigned to a driver and truck.

Route Manager — Route Manager is Hauler Hero's interactive map-based tool for building, viewing, and managing routes. It displays stops on a map, allows drag-and-drop re-sequencing, and provides optimization tools. This is one of Hauler Hero's flagship features.

Stop — A stop is a single service point, typically one customer site, on a route. Each stop represents a place where the driver needs to perform a pickup or service action.

Stop Sequence / Sequence Number — A stop sequence, or sequence number, is the order in which stops appear on a route. Drivers follow stops in sequence order, and this order can be resequenced manually or via optimization.

Route Optimization — Route Optimization is the process of reordering stops on a route to minimize drive time and distance. This can be done manually in Route Manager or with various optimization tools.

Permanent Route — A permanent route is a standing route that repeats on its scheduled day(s) each week. The default stops on a permanent route recur automatically.

Master Route — A master route is the underlying sequence of stops on a recurring permanent route.

Daily Route — A daily route is the specific list of stops a driver sees for a given day, including any temporary additions or removals from the permanent route.

Dispatch — Dispatch is the process of assigning and sending routes to drivers. Once dispatched, routes will appear on the driver's mobile device.

Work Order (WO) — A work order is a discrete unit of work to be performed. Work orders are generated automatically from configured services (recurring) or created manually for one-time jobs. They capture the who, what, when, and where of a service event.

Work Order Review — A work order review is a workflow for reviewing completed work orders before invoicing. It allows office staff to verify service completion, add notes, and approve for billing.

One-Time Work Order — A one-time work order is a work order for a non-recurring service (e.g., a special pickup, bulky item removal, or roll-off delivery).

Recurring Work Order — Recurring work orders are work orders that auto-generated based on a configured service's cadence (e.g., every Tuesday for weekly trash pickup).

Billing Profile — A billing profile is what defines how a customer is billed: billing frequency (monthly, quarterly, annually), payment terms, billing address, and whether they're billed in advance or in arrears. An account can have one or more billing profiles.

Billing Cycle — The recurring period for generating invoices (e.g., monthly on the 1st, quarterly). Tied to the billing profile.

Invoice — A generated bill sent to a customer for services rendered or upcoming (depending on advance vs. arrears billing). Created through the billing engine from work orders and configured services.

Proration — Adjusting charges proportionally when a service starts or stops mid-billing cycle. Hauler Hero's billing engine handles this automatically.

Surcharge — An additional fee applied on top of base service pricing (e.g., fuel surcharge, environmental fee). Can be set as a flat rate or percentage.

Assessment / Fee — A one-time or recurring charge added to an account (e.g., late fee, extra bag fee, overage charge, cart delivery fee).

Disposal Fee — A charge passed through to the customer for landfill/transfer station tipping fees, often calculated based on tonnage.

Accounts Receivable (AR) — Outstanding balances owed by customers. Hauler Hero tracks AR and supports aging reports.

Payment Posting — Recording a payment received against a customer's outstanding invoices.

Disposal Ticket — A record of material disposal at a landfill or transfer station. Captures weight (tonnage), material type, disposal site, and cost. Can be attached to work orders for cost tracking and customer billing.

Tonnage — Weight of material disposed, typically measured in tons. Used for disposal cost calculations and reporting.

Material Type / Waste Stream — The category of waste being collected: trash (MSW/Municipal Solid Waste), recycling, yard waste/green waste, construction & demolition (C&D), organic, etc.

Transfer Station — A facility where waste is consolidated before being transported to a landfill. Hauler Hero can track disposal at transfer stations.

Driver App (Tablet App) — Hauler Hero's mobile application used by drivers in the field. Shows the day's route, stop-by-stop navigation, and allows drivers to record service completion, take photos, capture signatures, and log notes.

HeroVision — Hauler Hero's real-time vehicle/driver tracking and visibility feature. Provides dispatchers and office staff with live GPS location of trucks on routes, along with route progress and status.

Service Completion — When a driver marks a stop as done in the Driver App. Can include status codes (completed, skipped, contaminated, blocked, etc.).

Photo Capture / Inspection — Drivers can take photos at stops for documentation — contamination evidence, blocked access, damage, etc. Photos are attached to the work order.

Offline Sync — The Driver App can operate without cell/data service and will sync data when connectivity is restored.

Customer Portal — A self-service web portal for your customers (the people you haul for). Allows them to view their account, make payments, request service changes, and submit service requests. You can send portal invite links to your customers.

Portal Invite — An email invitation sent to a customer giving them access to log into the Customer Portal.

Reports — Hauler Hero includes built-in reports for operations, billing, disposal, and customer data. Examples: configured service reports, AR aging, disposal ticket reports, route completion reports.

Implementation — The structured onboarding process for new Hauler Hero customers. Includes data migration, system configuration, training, and go-live support. Hauler Hero assigns a dedicated implementation contact.

Go-Live — The day your team starts using Hauler Hero for daily operations in production.

Discovery Call — An initial call during implementation to understand your business operations, service types, billing structure, and routing setup.

Training Environment — A sandbox environment where you can practice using Hauler Hero before go-live without affecting real data.

Residential — Curbside service for homes, typically using polycarts. Usually high volume, lower per-stop revenue.

Commercial — Service for businesses, typically using front-load dumpsters (2–8 yard). Often has more complex scheduling (multiple pickups per week).

Roll-Off — A service line involving large open-top containers for construction, renovation, or cleanout projects. Involves delivery, swap, and pickup workflows with rental billing.

Front-Load — A type of commercial dumpster designed to be lifted and emptied by the arms on the front of a collection truck.

Hauler — That's you! The waste collection company. In Hauler Hero, "hauler" refers to the operator running the business (as opposed to their end customers).