WindowBossPro Blog — Window Cleaning Software

Residential and Storefront Work in One Window Cleaning Software

Most window cleaning companies do two kinds of work that hardly look like the same business. Residential jobs are big, infrequent and personal: a 2-story house, inside and outside, twice a year, with the homeowner watching. Storefront work is small, frequent and quick: a shop's front glass, outside only, every two weeks, often before the doors open. Running both from one system is one of the main reasons to use window cleaning software at all.

Two Kinds of Work, One Company

Both kinds of work need the same thing from the job record, as Access Notes in Window Cleaning Software: Gate Codes, Dogs and Where the Ladder Goes showed: the right details in front of the tech at the right moment. What differs is the schedule, the size of each job, and how the customer pays.

How Residential Work Usually Runs

Residential customers usually book quarterly or twice a year. Each job is long — often an hour or more — and the window details vary from house to house: 16 windows on a 1-story ranch, 40 on a 3-story with skylights. Inside cleanings mean someone has to be home. Extras like screens, tracks and hard-water removal come up often.

In WindowBossPro, a quarterly home is set to 90 days between visits and a twice-a-year home to 180. When the time is up, the job appears on the Waiting List as due now. Because residential jobs take longer, a van might do five or six in a day.

How Storefront Work Usually Runs

Storefront customers usually run monthly or every two weeks, set to 30 or 14 days between visits. Each job is short: the front glass and door, maybe a side window, usually outside only. A storefront route might be twenty or thirty stops in a day, packed close together along the same streets.

Storefronts often have timing notes — “before 9am,” “not during lunch rush” — that go in the access notes and help the office set the route order. A storefront customer might pay $45 a month, charged to a card on file each time the glass is done, or be part of a business with several locations that gets one monthly statement.

One Van Residential, One Van Storefront

A common setup is to give each kind of work its own van. Van 1 runs residential: fewer, longer jobs, the big ladders and the inside-cleaning kit. Van 2 runs the storefront route: many short stops, a pole and a squeegee, out early. On the dispatch board, the office filters by van and auto-routes each one from the shop.

A one-van company does both on different days, or fits a few storefronts around residential jobs on the same side of town. Either way, the Waiting List shows all the due work on one live map, and tags like Storefront and Residential make it easy to tell them apart. Clients, Addresses and Tags: Organizing Customers in Window Cleaning Software covers tags in more detail.

Different Billing for Different Customers

Residential customers usually pay per cleaning. With a card on file, the card can be charged when the tech taps Complete. Without one, the invoice goes to the customer and they pay online in the customer app.

Storefronts split two ways. A single shop usually pays per visit like a homeowner. A property manager or a business with several locations can be set to Monthly and get one statement each month covering every location, with each line labeled by address. That keeps a chain of five stores from getting ten separate invoices a month.

What the Customer Sees

Both kinds of customer get the same tools in the customer app: their place on today's route on a live map, invoices and online payment, card updates and service requests. They choose their alerts — the night before, when they are next, when the tech arrives. Homeowners who need to be home for an inside cleaning tend to want all three. Storefront managers often want just the arrived text.

Both kinds of customer can also reach the office through two-way texting. A homeowner asks to move an inside cleaning to a Saturday; a shop manager asks you to skip next visit because the front is being repainted. The conversation lands with the customer record, so whoever plans the next route sees it and the right van gets the change.

One System for Both

Running residential and storefront work in separate notebooks or spreadsheets doubles the office work. One system with window details on every job, recurring cleanings that come due on their own and billing that fits each customer keeps both sides of the business moving. See how it all fits on the window cleaning software page.