Storage

Every towed-in vehicle accrues storage

There is no vehicle type that is exempt. A vehicle waiting for repair accrues storage the same as a total loss.

If you used an older version of WinchWorks, or another system, you may remember storage being tied to a total-loss declaration. That is no longer how it works. Whether a vehicle is a repair or a total loss is a status for your own tracking and has no effect on billing.

When the clock starts and stops

Day one is the received date — the day the vehicle entered your yard. Not the day it was towed from the scene, if someone else did that leg.

Both ends count. A vehicle that arrives on the 3rd and leaves on the 5th is three days, not two.

Pickup stops the clock. Until you record a pickup, storage keeps counting against today's date, and the running total updates every time you open the job.

Your timezone decides the day. A vehicle checked in at 9pm counts as that day, not the next one — as long as your shop timezone is set correctly in Settings.

Storage needs a rate line

Storage prices from the payer's rate schedule like any other charge, matched on the job's vehicle class.

If the schedule has no daily storage rate for that class, storage is not included at all. WinchWorks warns you on the job, but the estimate will simply be missing the money.

Two fixes: correct the job's vehicle class, or add a storage line for that class to the schedule.

Caps tell you what a payer normally pays

If a payer's schedule caps storage — thirty days, say — and a vehicle sits for forty-five, WinchWorks bills all forty-five days and tells you fifteen are above their cap.

It does not silently reduce the invoice. You billed for the storage you provided. What the insurer pays and what the vehicle cost to keep are separate questions, and the difference is normally collected from whoever picks the vehicle up.

Reducing storage

Three ways, depending on why.

Bill through an earlier date

At finalize you choose the date storage is billed through. You can set it earlier than today if you have agreed to stop the clock early, and you can set it later than today when you already know the pickup date — the invoice can bill through a future pickup.

WinchWorks shows the day count before you commit.

Waive it entirely

On the job, waive storage and record a reason. No storage is billed at all, and the reason stays with the job.

Use this when storage genuinely should not be charged.

Adjust after the fact

If an invoice is already issued, revise it, edit the storage line to the number of days you have agreed, and finalize again. See Finalizing, revising and superseded.

There is no separate "partial waiver". Knocking a weekend off is either an earlier through-date at finalize, or an edit on a revision.

Watching what is accruing

The dashboard shows every vehicle in the yard, whether storage is accruing or stopped, and how long each has been there.

Storage stops accruing when you record a pickup, when you waive it, or when the job is finalized and closed.