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Newbie in a muddle

U

unit

Hi all,I'm new to this forum and window cleaning in general.

I jacked my building job in about this time last year and decided with the money I had,to set up an external cleaning business.

Windows are becoming my bread and butter,with gutter/driveway upvc cleaning as a nice little top up on the side.

I guess I have been up running propaly since April,and now I'm starting to get reg clients,around 25 at the moment,not massive numbers but I have a memory like siv.

I am using my google calander to plot each months clients in too,I do wonder if it's very accurate,after having a bad exspirience with the I pad calendar deleting my regular clients after so many days.

So was wondering what system you chaps are using to make sure clients are not getting missed out.

I am considering cleaner planner,but could do with out the exspence.

Cheers.

 
I used google calender too and found like you it removes regulars after a month as it dosent have enough memory. I changed to a pro planning system would highly recommend, or make your own in excel is possible too.

 
My round is 6 weekly and rammo. I have it written neatly into a big work book that I just follow. Never had a problem in 20 years.

I'm quite o.c.d, so I keep it neat so no need for google thingy in my humble opinion

 
Index cards. Each customer has a card with date for next clean. Cards at front of box are next to be cleaned. After cleaned, next date is added (2 months for most) and card is put to back of box.

 
If you dont have many custies than pen and paper will be fine for you for now or use microsoft excel and backup to the cloud or external usb.

then id get george or cleaner planner, trial both and see which u prefer

 
Hello u nit. A pen and a diary works for me. It's fail safe. Never deletes your work. Has worked for 35 years for me!
Maybe a silly question, but how do you use the diary?

I use index cards, all organised into days in certain areas.

 
Tolish. I keep a diary so I know where I've been recently. I have a book that lists each round. Usually up to 30 houses. It shows who is due and if they owe for last time

 
My experience of using a diary is do the job and write it in on that date and each evening look back to the next day but of the previous month to see who is due

Gets confusing and easy to **** up

Index cards worked well for me thanks to your advice @TolishAPurd but round partner is so much easier

And the reports function on there means i can copy and print a report for each month going back years of

Paid jobs

Expenses

Completed jobs

Outstanding payments

And summaries of the lot which means no more admin in the evenings

I do however open the reports bit and copy paste into an excel spreadsheet just for my own use

Or for the taxman once i have deleted the jobs i don't want to show him lol

 
That's not so bad then

Once you start juggling 200+ residential jobs with monthly. .2 monthly. .2 weekly and 6 weekly (only a couple of 2 and 6 weekly though) it becomes a nightmare for me to use a diary

 
HI. When started, I used a large diary. I would put all houses and £ on the date there due, then when dne put them in the next time there due, this got complicated after my round got bigger as I have 4/5/8/12 weekly.

I really did not want to pay out for a system, but bite the bullet and paid for aworka, now what used to take me hours a week now take me a minute a day.

I can print all my work daily/weekly. print all my depts., separated to online payers/on day payers.

At £100 a year. this is amazing service. it also tells you how much you will earn a year. plus you can put in all your payouts, etc.

 
Each to their own is how it goes.

Diaries and index cards are ok i guess (never tried) but i use Cleanner Planner as the entire round is then on my mobile as well as desktop.

If i am walking through town and i spot a customer that i think owes money a quick look at the phone tells me all.

Also when on rounds press two buttons and the cusromer is updated there and then. No messing about writing on cards and in diaries.

 
Mine I have a book with pages say 1-40. Page 1 is say 15 houses page 2 the same & so on. In my diary I write say for the 4th of Jan page 1 so I know page 1 is due that day. 5th Jan day 2 & so on. Very easy. I would imagine putting it down on computer would prob be better but this works well for me.

 
What do you do when the weather ruins the day so then you are between pages etc??

That's where i used to get pee'd off altering everything

Now I just click on the job and change the date if i want to move jobs or do the red ones first as they go red if overdue

 
i,m using google spread sheets at moment, its doing the job but not perfect i,m sure george or one of the more profesional ones would be better

 
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