WindowBossPro Blog — Window Cleaning Software

Window Cleaning Software vs. Generic Field-Service Software

Generic field-service software is built to serve plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, cleaners and dozens of other trades at once. That breadth is its strength and its weakness. It can do a little of everything, but it was not built around how a window cleaning company actually works. Here is where the difference shows up.

Built for Everyone, or Built for Windows

Many of the questions in Choosing Window Cleaning Software: Questions to Ask Before You Commit come down to one thing: was this software built for window cleaning, or adapted to it? Generic software usually can be bent to fit. The question is how much bending, and who does it.

The Job Record

A generic job is a customer, an address, a time and a description. For a plumber, that is enough. For a window cleaner, the important details — window count, stories, sides, screens, tracks, hard-water removal, gate code, dog, ladder spot — end up crammed into the description or a pile of custom fields. Every company sets them up differently, and techs learn to skim past them.

Window cleaning software makes those details part of every job. In WindowBossPro they show under the address on every list and on the tech's phone: “28 windows · 2-story · Inside & Outside · Screens.” Nobody has to design that; it is there from the first login.

Recurring Work

Generic software tends to be built around one-off jobs: a call comes in, a tech goes out, the job is closed. Recurring work is often handled with repeating appointments on a calendar, which have to be dragged around by hand every time it rains.

Window cleaning is mostly recurring: homes quarterly or twice a year, storefronts monthly or every two weeks. WindowBossPro sets each plan by minimum days between visits and puts every due cleaning on the Waiting List map, colored not due yet, due now and overdue. Plans come due on their own, and the office plans from the map instead of the calendar.

Routes and Vans

Generic software often assumes long appointments with time windows. A window cleaning storefront route is twenty short stops in a morning; a residential van does five or six big homes. Window cleaning software is built around assigning due work to a van and a day, auto-routing Closest First or Furthest First from the shop, and showing the tech their jobs in that order. A common setup — one van on residential, one on a storefront route — works without workarounds.

Billing Property Managers and Storefronts

Generic software usually sends one invoice per job. That is fine for a homeowner and painful for a property manager with six buildings on every-two-week service. WindowBossPro lets a client set to Monthly get one statement each month covering every location, with each line labeled by address. Storefronts and homeowners can be charged by card on file when the tech taps Complete.

Customer Experience

Window cleaning has more “please be ready” moments than most trades: someone home for inside cleanings, the gate open for the back, the display moved for a storefront. WindowBossPro sends night-before, when-you're-next and arrived alerts that customers choose, and the customer app shows where they are on today's route. Customers can also see invoices, pay, update their card, request service, and rate and refer.

Price and Per-User Fees

Generic field-service software is often priced for bigger companies across many trades, frequently with fees per user. Window cleaning crews swell in spring and shrink in winter, so per-user pricing means paying more exactly when margins are tightest. WindowBossPro is $59, $89 or $199 a month for Start, Pro and Crew, never billed per user, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card.

There is also a hidden cost to generic software: setup time. Every custom field, workaround and template you build to make it fit window cleaning is time not spent on the glass. Software that already fits removes that cost.

When Generic Software Might Make Sense

If window cleaning is a small side service in a company that mostly does something else — general contracting, say — a generic system might fit the rest of the business better. But if window cleaning is your business, software built for it will save setup time, reduce mistakes on the job and fit how your routes, plans and billing really work. For the complete checklist, see The Window Cleaning Software Buyer's Checklist.

Pick the Tool Built for the Trade

Window details on every job, recurring cleanings that come due on their own, van routes, monthly statements for property managers and no per-user fees. That is what you get from software built for window cleaning. Read more on the window cleaning software page.