WindowBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

How to Invoice a Window Cleaning Job: What Belongs on Every Invoice

An invoice is the last thing a customer sees from your company after a cleaning. It should be short, accurate and easy to pay. A sloppy one undoes some of the goodwill your crew just earned on the ladder. A clear one gets paid quickly and rarely gets questioned.

Start With the Big Picture

If you have not read it yet, Window Cleaning Billing Software: The Complete Guide to Invoicing and Getting Paid covers how billing fits together from quote to payment. This article zooms in on one piece: the invoice itself, and what belongs on it.

The good news is that a window cleaning invoice does not need to be fancy. It needs to answer five questions: who is this from, where was the work done, what was done, how much is it, and how do I pay.

Who It Is From and Who It Is For

Your company name, logo, phone and email belong at the top. So does the customer's name. That sounds obvious, but a surprising number of handwritten invoices go out with a first name only, which is a headache for a business customer whose accounting office pays the bills.

For commercial clients, use the business name the way they want it on paper. If a property manager pays for several buildings, the client is the management company, and each address is listed under it.

Where the Work Was Done

Every invoice should carry the service address, even when it is the same as the billing address. A customer with a home and a rental, or a business with three storefronts, needs to know which property the bill is for.

In WindowBossPro, one client can have many addresses, and the invoice is tied to the address where the job happened. On a monthly statement for a property manager, every line is labeled with its address, so the accounting office can match it without calling you.

What Was Done

This is where window cleaning invoices usually go wrong. “Window cleaning, $310” tells the customer nothing. Was that inside and outside? Were the screens included? Why is it more than last spring?

The fix is to bill from the job. WindowBossPro keeps the window details on every job: the number of windows, the stories, the sides (outside only, inside and outside, or inside only) and the extras like screens, tracks and hard-water removal. Those details are entered on the job once, and the invoice uses line items from the same service list you quoted from. For how to name those lines so customers follow them, see Window Cleaning Invoice Line Items Customers Actually Understand.

A typical residential invoice might read:

• Window cleaning, inside and outside — 28 windows
• Second-story add-on
• Screens — removed, washed and reinstalled
• Tracks — vacuumed and wiped
• Sales tax

Add the date of service, too. For recurring customers, it is the easiest way for them to tell one quarterly cleaning from the next.

How Much, Including Tax

The total should be the total, tax included. Sales tax rules vary by state and province, so check with your accountant on what is taxable where you work. Once you know, set the tax up once and let the invoice calculate it. Adding tax by hand on a phone calculator in the van is how a three-cent error turns into a ten-minute phone call.

If you offer a discount, such as for a referral or a first cleaning, put it on its own line so the customer sees what they saved.

How to Pay

The fastest invoices to get paid are the ones that are already paid. With a card on file, WindowBossPro can charge the card when the tech taps Complete, so the invoice the customer receives is a receipt, not a request.

For customers without a card on file, the invoice should make paying easy. In WindowBossPro, customers see their invoices in the customer app and can pay online from their phone. If you still accept checks, put who to make the check out to and where to mail it.

State your terms in plain words. “Due on receipt” is common for homeowners. Business accounts on a monthly statement often get a set number of days. Whatever you choose, write it down and stick to it, because past-due follow-up only works when the due date is clear.

When to Send It

Send it the day the work is done. An invoice that arrives two weeks later feels like an afterthought and gets paid like one. Billing software solves this without effort: Complete on the tech's phone creates the invoice right then. Monthly accounts are the exception. They get one statement at the end of the month covering every visit.

Next Steps

Get those five questions answered on every invoice and most billing headaches go away. The rest of this series gets into line items, card on file, declined cards and monthly statements. To see how WindowBossPro handles all of it, visit the window cleaning billing software page.