For cleaning companies

Cleaning rota software: the right cleaner on the right site, at five in the morning

A cleaning company runs on other people’s buildings and other people’s hours: the office block before its tenants arrive, the school after the last lesson, the gym after it closes. InShift keeps every client site as a location with its own slots, puts a cleaner on two or three of them in a day, pays per clean or per hour, tracks the keys and fobs, and shows the hours behind every contract before the invoice goes out.

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Twelve buildings, twelve sets of hours, and a cleaner who sees three of them before lunch

A cleaning contract is a slot: two cleaners at the office block from five to eight, one at the dental practice before the first patient, two at the school from half three, one at the gym after ten at night. The slots do not move, the buildings do not move, and the same six people cover them in a different order every week as holidays and sickness come through. On paper the rota is a grid of buildings and names that only the supervisor can read, and the cleaner finds out where they are going tomorrow by text.

The money is the second half. Some cleans are paid as a fixed amount per visit, some by the hour, the supervisor is on a salary, and the client is invoiced by the contract. At the end of the month the hours have to be split by site to see which contract makes money and which does not, and a spreadsheet of names does not know which building a Tuesday belonged to.

The third half, because there is always one more, is the keys. Every building has a key, a fob or an alarm code that was handed to someone, and when that someone moves on, the company has to know what to collect. Below is how a company of fifteen cleaners on twelve sites looks in InShift.

Sites

Every client building is a location, with its own slots and its own hours

“Locations” holds every site with its address, how many people are on it and how many shift types it has. Slots are shift types of the site: “Morning clean 05:00–08:00” at the office, “After school 15:30–18:30” at the school, “Late clean 22:00–00:00” at the gym, each on the days the contract says. Locations can be grouped by client, and the planner shows one site, a client’s sites or all of them at once, so the supervisor sees the day the way the van drives it.

  • “Add Location” for every building; “Group” to keep a client’s three sites together
  • Shift types per site with their own days: a Monday, Wednesday and Friday clean is offered on those days only
  • “All locations” in the planner: every site as a block with the count of who is on today
  • A cleaner on two or three sites in a day has two or three shifts on that day, and the hours add up
The admin panel screen by screen

A Tuesday on the rota of a cleaning company with six cleaners and five sites

The slots are the contracts. Two or three sites per person in a day, with the drive between them, and a supervisor who checks the work and keeps the van stocked.

05:00–08:00 · Cleaner × 2

Office block, floors 1 to 4, before the tenants arrive

05:30–07:30 · Cleaner

Dental practice, holds the key, before the first patient

09:00–13:00 · Cleaner × 2

Serviced apartments, the changeovers of the day

07:00–15:00 · Supervisor

Site checks at three buildings, the van, the stock, the client calls

15:30–18:30 · Cleaner × 2

Primary school, after the last lesson

18:00–21:00 · Cleaner × 2

Second office block, after the tenants leave

22:00–00:00 · Cleaner

Gym, after closing; the shift crosses midnight and counts as one

That is 35 paid hours on a Tuesday for six cleaners and the supervisor, most of them on two slots with a gap between. Travel between sites is not a shift; if you pay it, it is a shift type of its own or a per-shift bonus on the second site.

Per clean or per hour

A price per visit for the fixed contracts, an hourly rate for the rest, on one payroll

Pay terms are set per person on the “Pay” tab of “Payroll”: an hourly rate, a price per shift or a monthly salary, from a date you pick. A cleaner on the office contract is paid a fixed amount for the morning clean; the same person on the apartments is paid by the hour; the supervisor is on a salary. Every published shift carries its type, time and site, so the accruals add up by person and can be filtered by site to see the hours behind each contract.

  • “No pay set” flags the person whose shifts count without money, before payroll runs
  • “Night hours” and “Holiday work” on “Premiums” for the late clean and the bank holiday
  • “Payroll” filtered by location: the hours and the cost of one contract on one screen
  • “Export to Excel” for the accountant and for the client who wants the hours

Keys and fobs

Every key against the name of the cleaner who holds it, confirmed on their phone

With the “Equipment tracking” module, keys, fobs, alarm tags and the company polo shirt are items in a catalogue, issued to a person. The cleaner sees “My property” in the app, confirms “Received” when the key is handed over, and passes it on with “Pass to a colleague” when the round changes hands, so the history always says who has the key to the dental practice tonight. When someone leaves, their card lists what to collect.

  • A return date on a key that was lent for a cover week, and an overdue list
  • A presence check every so many days: the app asks whether the person still has it
  • “Take back” in the panel closes the loop; every step is in “History” with a date and a name
  • The module is switched on in “Modules” and comes with Basic
The app screen by screen

Moving a cleaning company onto InShift

An afternoon for a company of fifteen on twelve sites, the team joining included.

  1. 1

    Sign up and the sites

    Email or Google. Every client building is a location with its address; a “Group” per client keeps them together. The office of the company itself is a location for the supervisor.

  2. 2

    Positions and slots

    Cleaner, supervisor, driver. Shift types per site: “Morning clean 05:00–08:00”, “After school 15:30–18:30”, “Late clean 22:00–00:00”, on the days of the contract.

  3. 3

    The team, the pay, the keys

    “Add multiple” pastes the names with a position and a home site; “Available for substitution” for the people who cover anywhere. Pay per shift or per hour on the “Pay” tab. With “Equipment tracking” on, the keys go against names.

  4. 4

    The first week and publish

    The fixed slots first, site by site, then the people, then “Publish”. From the second week on it is “Copy last week”, the holidays and “Publish” again.

Frequently asked questions

Is every client site a separate location?▾

Yes, and that is the point. A location has its own address, its own shift types with their days and times, and its own people, and locations can be grouped by client. The planner shows one site, a group or all of them, and payroll can be filtered by site to see the hours behind a contract.

Can one cleaner do three sites in a day?▾

Yes. A person can belong to several locations, and a day can hold several shifts for them, each at its own site with its own pay term. Overlapping times are flagged as a “Time conflict”. Travel between sites is not tracked; if you pay it, make it a shift type or a per-shift bonus.

Can I pay per clean instead of per hour?▾

Yes. Pay terms are per person on the “Pay” tab: an hourly rate, a price per shift or a monthly salary, each from a date. A price per shift is the fixed contract clean; the hours are still counted for the record. Premiums for nights and holidays are rules on the “Premiums” tab and apply to everyone.

How do I keep track of keys and fobs?▾

With the “Equipment tracking” module: every key is a numbered item issued to a person, confirmed by them in the app with “Received”, passed on with “Pass to a colleague” and taken back with “Take back”. Each item has a history, an optional return date and an overdue list.

Can I see the hours behind one contract?▾

Yes. Every shift belongs to a site, so “Payroll” filtered by location shows the shifts, hours and cost of that site for any period, and “Export to Excel” puts the same numbers in a file for the invoice or the client.

What does it cost for a company of fifteen?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that it is a subscription per active person on the “Employees” list, with locations, payroll and the team app included; “Equipment tracking” comes with Basic at no extra charge. The numbers are on the pricing page.

Get the whole company on one rota

Sites, slots and the first week take an afternoon, and every cleaner sees tomorrow’s building in the app the same day.

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