WindowBossPro Blog — Recurring Cleanings

Minimum Days Between Visits: How 14, 30, 90 and 180 Day Window Cleaning Plans Work

Every recurring plan in WindowBossPro runs on a single number: the minimum days between visits. It sounds like a small setting, and it is. But it replaces the wall calendar, the “last cleaned” column in the spreadsheet and the stack of reminders on your phone. Understanding how that one number works makes everything else about recurring cleanings easier to run.

One Number Per Plan

The storefront plans in Every-Two-Weeks Storefront Window Cleaning: When Monthly Is Not Enough and the home plans earlier in this series all come down to the same setting. Window cleaners use four common values:

• 14 days — every two weeks, for busy storefronts and restaurants.
• 30 days — monthly, the standard storefront and office plan.
• 90 days — quarterly, for homeowners who want clean glass all year.
• 180 days — twice a year, spring and fall for homes.

You set the number on the recurring service for the address. That is the whole setup. There is no list of future dates to build and nothing to roll forward at the end of the year.

The Count Starts From the Last Visit

Here is the part that matters most. The count starts from the last completed visit, not from a fixed date. When the tech taps Complete on a quarterly home in March, the next visit comes due about 90 days later. If the next visit actually happens in mid-July, the one after that is measured from mid-July.

That is different from a calendar-based schedule that says “first Tuesday of every third month.” Calendar schedules look tidy until real life gets in the way. Rain pushes a week back, a customer asks to move a visit, a van breaks down. With a fixed calendar, every slip leaves a mess of dates to fix. With minimum days, the plan simply follows the work.

It also protects the customer. A quarterly customer cleaned late in one cycle is not rushed back a few weeks later just because a calendar date came up. The minimum days are always respected.

Due, Not Scheduled

When the minimum days have passed, the cleaning does not drop onto a route by itself. It comes due. That means it shows up on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every cleaning ready to schedule, colored as due now. The office then decides which van and which day.

That split is deliberate. The software knows when a cleaning is ready. You know the weather, the vans, which neighborhood the residential crew will be in Thursday, and which storefront asked to wait until after its sale. The Waiting List hands you the due work and you build the week. For a closer look at that screen, read The Waiting List: Where Recurring Window Cleanings Come Due.

The 7-Day Grace and Overdue

A cleaning that is due but not yet scheduled has a little room. After a 7-day grace, the pin turns overdue. That gives you three states to read at a glance:

• Not due yet — inside the minimum days.
• Due now — minimum days have passed, within the grace.
• Overdue — past the 7-day grace and still not done.

On a 180-day plan, a week of grace barely registers. On a 14-day plan, it is half a cycle. Keep that in mind when you work the list: overdue storefronts on short plans deserve attention first.

Choosing the Right Number

Most customers fit one of the four standard plans, but the number is yours to choose. A few rules of thumb from the field:

• Pick the number that matches when the glass actually gets dirty, not just what sounds good on a flyer.
• Storefronts on busy streets often need 14 days. Quiet offices are fine at 30.
• Homes near construction, sprinklers or heavy pollen may want 90 days even if they first asked for 180.
• When in doubt, start longer. It is easier to sell a customer up to more visits than to ask them to accept fewer.

Changing a customer's plan later is just changing the number on the address. The next visit comes due on the new cycle from the last completed visit.

Why It Beats a Calendar

A calendar is a promise you have to keep by hand. Minimum days between visits is a rule the software keeps for you. You never have to rebuild next year, you never have to remember who was last cleaned when, and nothing falls through because a date was entered wrong. The plan follows the work, and the Waiting List tells you what is next.

For how minimum days fits with routing, reminders and billing across every plan type, go back to the recurring window cleaning software page.