Bus and Motorcoach Editing and Proofreading Services

A school books a coach for a day trip: leave at eight, back by six. The quotation is £480. The invoice is £840, because the return was delayed to seven, the driver reached his limit, a second driver had to be sent, and waiting time applied from four o'clock. Every charge was in the terms. None of them was in the quotation the head teacher approved.

We edit what coach operators and private hire businesses produce — quotations and their inclusions, driver hours and second-driver explanations, waiting time and overtime terms, booking confirmations and itineraries, school and group travel documentation, cancellation and amendment policies, accessibility information, and the correspondence that follows a disputed invoice. Our editors work on quotations that have to survive a day that runs late.

The quotation and its driver-hours explanation is where coach hire is priced honestly or ends in an argument, and its failure is a headline figure with the legal constraints hidden in the terms. The customer does not know that a driver is a regulated resource. We work through these so the driver's permitted day is explained in the quotation as the thing that shapes the price, since a customer who understands that the driver's clock starts before the coach arrives will plan differently and one who does not will overrun; so the latest possible return time is stated as a time of day rather than as a duration, because that is the number the group has to organise around; so what happens at that point is spelled out — the coach stops, a second driver is required, or the return moves to the next day — given that a customer who has never met this rule assumes flexibility exists; so waiting time is defined with when it starts and what counts, as this is the most disputed line on any coach invoice; so the second driver cost is quoted in advance as a conditional figure rather than added later; so anything that changes the price is listed as a short set of triggers the organiser can watch for; so the quotation states what is included — parking, tolls, driver accommodation, congestion charges — since these are the additions that surprise people; and so the confirmation repeats the latest return time in the same words. Quotations written this way produce invoices that match.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including quotations, contracts and customer correspondence. We are editors rather than transport managers or compliance advisers, and we offer no view on drivers' hours rules, pricing or any booking. What we can do is put the constraint in the quotation rather than in the terms.