Window cleaning rounds: routes, rounds and getting paid on the day
Window cleaning is the purest route business in the trades. The job itself takes minutes; the money is made in how many houses you reach and how quickly the small balances come in.
Two things move the needle: a round that is built geographically, and payment collected on the day rather than a fortnight later.
Build the round around the map
Rounds grow one customer at a time, which is exactly how they end up inefficient. A street added six months ago sits on the wrong day, and the van crosses town twice to reach it.
Rebuilding rounds by postcode area, then ordering the stops within each day, is usually worth more per week than adding new customers.
Let the schedule repeat itself
Four-weekly, six-weekly, monthly, quarterly — each customer's frequency should be set once and generate its own visits. The board then shows who is due, who was skipped and who is overdue, without anybody keeping a paper round book.
- Frequency and preferred day set per customer
- Access notes: gates, dogs, parked cars, water access
- Front only, front and back, conservatory, gutters and fascias
- Price and any agreed extras kept on the record
Tell people you are coming
A short message the evening before means gates are unlocked, cars are moved and nobody is surprised. Skipped houses are the biggest silent cost in this trade, and a text prevents most of them.
Want to see what this looks like on your own jobs?
Collect on the day
A round of small balances is the hardest kind of debt to chase, because each one is too small to justify the phone call and they add up to real money.
Sending the invoice with a payment link the moment the job is marked complete, or taking a card payment at the door, closes the gap. For regular customers, recurring payment arrangements remove the question entirely.
Know who is overdue for a clean, and who is overdue for a payment
Two lists run this business: houses due a visit and customers due a payment. When both live in the same system, one screen tells you what tomorrow should look like.
Add the extras without losing them
Gutter clears, fascia and soffit cleans, conservatory roofs and one-off deep cleans are the higher-margin work. Recording them against the customer, with photos, means they get quoted, done and invoiced instead of mentioned and forgotten.
Frequently asked questions
- Can we set a different cleaning frequency for each customer?
- Yes. Each customer has their own frequency and preferred day, and the visits are generated automatically onto the round.
- How do we cut the drive time on a round?
- Group customers into rounds by postcode area and order each day's stops so the van does not cross its own path. The board shows the day's sequence.
- Can customers pay without us knocking?
- Yes. The invoice can be sent with a payment link as soon as the job is marked complete, or a card payment can be taken at the door.
- What about houses we cannot access on the day?
- Mark the visit as skipped with a reason, and the customer stays on the round for the next cycle rather than dropping out of the book.