Water Route Accounting Software: What It Has to Do, and How to Choose
A water dealer does not buy route software. They buy the books: who got what, who paid, who owes, which bottles and coolers are out where. The route is how the books get filled in. So the useful question about any system is not whether it draws a nice map, but whether it does every job the office does today, without a second program on the side.
The short answer
Water route accounting software has to keep your route days and their cycle, price and write the ticket at the door, post the day so balances and bottles move together, track deposits and cooler rent, send invoices and statements, take cards on file and online, follow up on declined cards and late payers with aging and late fees, give you sales tax by month and quarter, keep your history, and sync with QuickBooks. If a system misses one of these, the office keeps a second program for it, and that is the program that stops working first.
The jobs, one by one
1. Route days and the cycle
Most dealers run a four week route book: each customer on a day label, every week, every other week or every four weeks, with holidays that push the book. The software has to keep that exact calendar, or a one week slip means a month of wrong stops.
Ask: Can it run my day labels and my rotation as they are, holidays included?
2. Standing orders and prices
A standing order per stop (three 5 gallon spring and a sleeve of cups), the list price, a customer's special price, quantity prices for offices, prices by area, and a percent discount on a product or on cooler rent.
Ask: Where do special prices and discounts live, and does the driver's ticket use them by itself?
3. The ticket at the door
The driver writes the ticket on the stop: bottles left, empties back, the price from the list, cash, check, card or on account, a photo when nobody is home. Paper tickets keyed in at night are where money goes missing.
Ask: Does the driver see what the customer owes, and can they take a check number at the door?
4. Posting the day
Balances and bottles out should move only when the office posts the day, after a check: two tickets for one visit, a check with no number, cards still to charge. That review is what route accounting means.
Ask: What does the office see before it posts, and can a posted day be traced ticket by ticket?
5. Bottles, deposits and equipment
Bottles out per account, deposits held, and every cooler and filter by serial with its monthly rent, swaps, pickups and cleanings. Rent for customers nobody visits still has to be charged at month end, once.
Ask: Is rent charged per unit, and can it ever be charged twice in a month?
6. Invoices, statements and reminders
A ticket emailed when the day posts, invoices by week or month for those billed that way, statements on paper for the ones who want paper, and reminders to whoever has not paid, by email or text.
Ask: Can I see who opened an invoice, who paid, and who bounced?
7. Getting paid by card
Cards on file charged through the dealer's own processor, month end autopay, a backup card, a pay link on every ticket and a Pay my bill button on the dealer's website. And a plan for a declined card: it should stay on a list until it is paid, with the customer sent their link.
Ask: What happens to a declined autopay card the next morning?
8. Late fees and who owes
Who owes and for how long (0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, over 90 days), and late fees charged by themselves after the dealer's terms, such as 44 days after delivery for net 30 plus 14, with some customers never charged and any fee waived in a step.
Ask: Is aging worked out from the tickets, and can a fee be waived without a manual journal?
9. Sales tax and the books
Tax per product and per customer (schools and government are often tax free), totals by month and quarter for the filing, and every year's billing and collections side by side. Most dealers also want it all in QuickBooks without typing it twice.
Ask: Does it give me sales tax by quarter, and what goes to QuickBooks by itself?
10. Your history
Years of old tickets and payments, so the office can answer "what did I pay in March two years ago" and the owner can see what each year made. A move that leaves the history behind keeps the old program running for years.
Ask: Do my old tickets and payments come over, or stay in the old program?
11. New customers and texts
A sign up page for the dealer's website where a new customer picks their water, signs on their phone and opts in to texts, and a text the day before a delivery from the dealer's own number.
Ask: Is the yes to texts kept, word for word, with the time? Text message registration asks for it.
Before you switch: the move matters more than the features
Every system on a demo looks complete. What decides the first month is the move: whether every account comes across with its number, every balance to the cent and every bottle to the bottle, whether your day labels land on the same days, and whether your years of tickets come too. Ask who does the import, whether they check the totals against your own reports with you, and whether you can run a route day side by side before you post for real. Our checklist for dealers on Route Manager is in Leaving Route Manager.
How Raute does it
Raute does each job above on one plan, $99.99 a month for up to 25 drivers, with drivers on iPhone or Android. Route days run on a four week cycle or a Route Manager style rotation; the driver's ticket prices itself from your list, special and area prices and any discount; the office posts the day after a check; rent is charged per cooler at month end; invoices, statements and reminders go by email or text; cards are charged through your own Authorize.net, with autopay, a backup card and a pay link; Accounting shows every year side by side, who owes by age, money in by day, late fees and declined cards; and customers, tickets and payments sync with QuickBooks Online.
We move you in ourselves. Raute reads the Route Manager data folder, years of tickets and payments included, we check it with you, and we set the account up the way your route runs. Much of the water side was built because a dealer asked for it, often the same week. The screens are on our water delivery page, and planning water delivery routes covers route days, will calls and skips.
Questions dealers ask
What is route accounting software for water delivery?
Software that runs a bottled water or cooler dealer's routes and the money on them together: route days on a cycle, standing orders, the driver's ticket at the door, posting the day so balances and bottles move, deposits and cooler rent, statements, card payments, and who owes. Plain route planners plan stops but do not keep balances, bottles or tickets.
Is Route Manager the only route accounting software for water dealers?
No. Route Manager (RMA) from Advantage Route has been common for decades, and others include RouteStar, Water Delivery Solutions and Raute. They differ in price, whether drivers use phones, how much of your history comes over, and whether card payments and QuickBooks are included.
How much does water route accounting software cost?
Published prices run from about $59 a month for simple subscription tools to $350 a month or more with an onboarding fee for full route accounting; Route Manager is quoted. Raute is $99.99 a month for up to 25 drivers and 5,000 orders, with every water feature included and no onboarding fee.
How long does it take to move from Route Manager to Raute?
The data itself comes across in an afternoon: Raute reads the Route Manager data folder for customers, route days, standing orders, prices, balances, bottles, equipment and years of tickets and payments. We check the totals with you and run a route day side by side before you post for real.
See it on a water route
Tell us how many routes and customers you run, and we will bring your data in with you and check it against your own totals.