WindowBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Billing Recurring Window Cleaning Plans: Quarterly Homes and Twice-a-Year Customers

Recurring plans are what turn a window cleaning business from a scramble for jobs into a steady operation. A few hundred homes on quarterly or twice-a-year cleanings, plus storefronts every month or two weeks, gives you a base of work that shows up on its own. Billing those plans well means the money shows up on its own too.

Recurring Customers Are Your Best Customers

Handling a complaint without losing a customer was covered in Streaks, Re-Cleans and Refunds: Billing When a Window Cleaning Customer Complains. That matters most with recurring customers, because each one is worth years of cleanings, not one.

The billing goal with recurring plans is simple: every visit gets billed, every bill gets paid, and nobody in the office has to remember anything to make that happen.

How Plans Come Due

In WindowBossPro, recurring cleanings are set by minimum days between visits: 14 or 30 for storefronts, 90 for quarterly homes, 180 for twice-a-year. When a cleaning comes due, it lands on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every cleaning that is due. Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, or overdue past a seven-day grace.

The office assigns due cleanings to a van and a day. The tech works them in route order and taps Complete. That tap is where billing starts.

Charge Each Visit, Not a Subscription

Most window cleaners bill recurring residential customers per visit rather than a flat monthly fee. It is easier for customers to understand, and it means you never charge for a cleaning that has not happened yet because of rain or a reschedule.

With a card on file, WindowBossPro creates the invoice when the tech taps Complete and can charge the card right then. A quarterly customer is cleaned, charged and invoiced on the same afternoon, four times a year, without anyone touching it.

Storefronts can work the same way, or roll into a monthly statement. See Storefront Window Cleaning Billing: Monthly Statement or an Invoice per Visit?

Plans With a Different Scope Each Visit

Many recurring plans are not the same cleaning every time. A common setup for homes:

• Spring: inside and outside, screens and tracks.
• Summer and fall: outside only.
• Winter, if you work it: outside only, or skipped.

The window details on the job, the sides, the stories and the extras, drive what the tech does and what the invoice says. Before a visit with a different scope, check the job details so the tech sees “Inside & Outside · Screens” on the spring visit and “Outside only” in the summer, and so the invoice matches. Tell the customer too. A short text before the spring cleaning, “This visit includes inside and screens as usual,” avoids surprise at the bigger bill.

Keep Cards Current

Recurring customers on long cycles have one billing weakness: time. A twice-a-year customer's card has six months to expire between visits. A quarterly customer's, three.

Two habits help. First, remind customers that they can update their card any time in the customer app, especially right after sign-up and on invoices. Second, for twice-a-year customers, a short text a week before the visit asking them to check their card in the app saves a lot of declines.

When a decline does happen, the invoice stays open, the customer can update the card and pay in the customer app, and past-due follow-up reminds them by text and email.

Price Changes on Recurring Plans

Sooner or later you will raise prices. With recurring customers, do it cleanly:

1. Update your service list.
2. Tell recurring customers in writing before their next visit at the new price.
3. Make sure the job details reflect the new price before the next cleaning comes due.

A customer who was told is rarely upset. A customer who notices on the invoice usually is.

Alerts Make Recurring Billing Smoother

Customers on a quarterly plan can forget you are coming. Automatic alerts fix that. Customers choose texts for the night before, when they are next, and when the tech arrives. A customer who knew the crew was coming is never surprised by the charge, which means fewer disputes and fewer chargebacks.

The live route map in the customer app, “You're stop 12 of 20,” adds to that on the day.

Recurring Work, Recurring Payment

Recurring plans that come due on their own, cleanings charged when the tech taps Complete, cards kept current through the customer app, and scope and price changes communicated up front. That is how recurring billing runs itself. To see how WindowBossPro connects recurring cleanings to billing, visit the window cleaning billing software page.