WindowBossPro Blog — Routes & Scheduling

Choosing Window Cleaning Route Software: What to Check Before You Switch

Switching software is a real cost. Your client list has to move, your crew has to learn something new, and for a week or two everything feels slower. So before you switch, it is worth knowing exactly what you need from route software as a window cleaner, and checking each item during the trial instead of finding out in the spring rush.

Start With How You Plan

The last article, Planning the Window Cleaning Week: From the Waiting List to Five Full Days, described a weekly routine. Whatever software you choose should make that routine faster, not force you into a different one. Keep it in mind as you go through the checklist below.

1. Does It Know What a Window Job Is?

Generic field-service software treats every job as an address and a time slot. Window cleaning needs more. Check that each job can carry the number of windows, stories, sides (outside only, inside and outside, inside only) and extras like screens, tracks and hard-water removal, and that those details show where you build routes and on the tech's phone.

In WindowBossPro they show under the address on every list as a line like “28 windows · 2-story · Inside & Outside · Screens.” Without that, you will be sizing days from memory.

2. Do Recurring Plans Come Due on Their Own?

Your storefronts on 14 or 30 days and homes on 90 or 180 days should come due without anyone remembering them. Check how the software decides a job is due, and whether a skipped or rained-out cleaning stays due or quietly disappears. Plans set by minimum days between visits, counted from the last cleaning, handle late and early visits gracefully.

3. Can You See Due Work on a Map?

A list of due customers tells you who. A map tells you where, and where is how you build tight routes. Look for a map of every job that came due, with clear status colors for due and overdue, like the Waiting List in WindowBossPro. See The Waiting List: A Map of Every Window Cleaning Job That Came Due.

4. Does Routing Fit How You Work?

Check that you can assign jobs to a van and a day, filter the board by van, auto-route from your shop and override the order by hand. Hand ordering is essential for early storefronts, inside cleanings with time windows and anything else the map cannot know. If you run a residential van and a storefront van, make sure each can have its own day.

5. What Does the Tech See?

Put the app on a tech's phone during the trial. Does it show the day in route order? Is there a navigation button? Are window details and access notes on every card? Are Start, Skip and Complete simple with wet hands? Can they take before-and-after photos? Does it need an app store download, or does it run in the browser on the phones they already have?

6. Does the Customer Hear From You?

Inside cleanings, dogs and gates make customer notice important. Check for automatic night-before, on-the-way and arrived texts, customer choice of alerts, two-way texting with the office and a way for customers to see where they are in line. In WindowBossPro, the customer app shows something like “You're stop 12 of 20 — the crew is 5 stops away.”

7. Is Pricing Simple?

Per-user pricing punishes you for adding a helper or a second van. Look for plans that do not charge per seat. WindowBossPro plans are Start at $59, Pro at $89 and Crew at $199 per month, never billed per user, with a monthly text allowance included. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial and no credit card.

8. Can You Get Your Data In?

Check the import. Your client list with every address should come in from a CSV, with one client allowed many addresses for property managers and multi-location businesses. Then make sure the addresses show up on the map, because routing depends on it.

9. Can the Office See the Day?

Once the vans are out, the office needs to know what is happening without calling the crew. Check for crew GPS on an office map, skips that arrive with the tech's note, and completed jobs that show up with their photos. Check what happens when a job is completed: is the invoice created, and can the card on file be charged right away? Every step the software handles is a step nobody has to do at the end of the week.

Test It on a Real Week

The best test is a real week: import your clients, set up plans, build routes for each van and run them on your techs' phones. Use the checklist as you go. To see how WindowBossPro handles each item, start at the WindowBossPro window cleaning route software page or try the live demo.