MaidBossPro Blog — Team App

Invoices Sent From the Job: How Completing a Cleaning Bills the Customer

In a lot of small cleaning companies, invoicing is a Friday-night job. The owner sits with a notebook, the week's schedule and a cup of coffee, trying to remember which homes had extras, which customer paid in cash, and who still owes for the move-out. Invoices go out late, some go out wrong, and a few never go out at all. Building the invoice from the job, at the moment the job is done, fixes that.

Complete Creates the Invoice

The card-on-file charge, covered in Charging the Card on File When the Cleaning Team Taps Complete, is the payment half. The invoice is the record that goes with it.

When a team taps Complete in the MaidBossPro team app, the invoice is created from that job. The office does not retype anything. What was on the job is what is on the invoice.

What Goes on the Invoice

Because the invoice comes from the job, it carries the job's line items:

• The clean itself. “Every-two-weeks clean, 3 bed / 2 bath, $155.”
• Each extra as its own line. “Inside oven, $35.” “Change linens, $15.”
• Sales tax if your area and your services call for it.
• The address the work was done at, which matters when one client has several homes.

Customers see exactly what they paid for, line by line. When a customer asks why this visit cost more than the last, the answer is right there: the inside of the fridge was added.

For one-time jobs the same rule applies. A $325 deep clean with inside cabinets and interior windows reads as three clear lines, not one lump sum the customer has to question. Move-out customers in particular often need a clear invoice to show a landlord or keep with their records.

How the Customer Gets It

The customer sees the invoice in the customer app, where they can view past invoices and pay online. If their card on file was charged at completion, the invoice shows as paid. If not, they can pay right from the app.

This is where the team's work and the customer's side meet. The same app that showed them the team was on the way and when it arrived now shows what was done and what it cost. When the owner turns on photos, the before-and-after pictures sit on that past visit too.

Monthly Accounts Get One Statement

Not every customer should get an invoice per visit. An office cleaned twice a week, or a property manager with six rentals, would drown in invoices. For those accounts, set billing to Monthly. MaidBossPro sends one statement each month covering every location, with each line labeled with the address.

The team does not do anything different. They tap Complete at each location like any other job. The difference is all on the billing side. Office and rental accounts are covered in more detail in What the Office Sees When a Cleaning Team Completes a Job.

Past-Due Follow-Up Without the Awkward Calls

Some invoices will not be paid on time. A card declines, a customer without a card on file forgets, a check gets lost. MaidBossPro's past-due follow-up handles the reminders, so the owner is not texting a long-time customer about $155 by hand. Customers can update their card and pay the open invoice in the customer app.

A simple weekly routine helps: open the list of unpaid invoices, see who is overdue, and decide who needs a personal note on top of the automatic reminders.

Getting the Job Right Before the Tap

The one catch with invoices built from the job is that the job has to be right. A few habits keep it that way:

• Add extras before Complete. If the customer asked for something extra at the door, the office adds the line item from your service list before the team taps Complete.
• Note what was not done. If the team ran out of time on the baseboards, the office can take that line off before the invoice is created.
• Keep your service list clean. Clear names like “Inside Oven” read better on an invoice than “Misc add-on 2.”
• Check the first week. When you start, open a few invoices after the teams complete jobs and make sure they read the way you expect.

Invoicing Moves Into the Workday

When invoices are created from the job, invoicing stops being a separate chore. It happens five times a day, one Complete at a time, while the details are fresh and correct. Friday night goes back to being Friday night. To see how invoicing fits with route order, photos and texts on the team's phone, visit the MaidBossPro maid service app page.