MaidBossPro Blog — Offices, Rentals & Move-Outs

Tags and Custom Fields for Commercial Cleaning Accounts

A maid service with nothing but recurring homes can get by with names and addresses. Add a few offices, a property manager, a couple of rental hosts and a builder, and your client list starts holding information that does not fit in the standard boxes. Which clients came from which realtor? Which unit is in which building? Does this office need a purchase order number on the bill? Tags and custom fields are where that information goes.

Why Commercial Accounts Need More Than a Name

Photos, covered in Before-and-After Photos as Proof of Service for Property Managers, show what was done at each visit. Tags and custom fields describe the account itself, so you can find it, sort it and handle it the right way.

Without them, important details end up in a notes box nobody reads, or in the owner's head. With them, anyone in the office can filter, search and answer questions without asking around.

Tags: Sorting Accounts by Type

Tags are short labels you put on clients. They are best for sorting and grouping. Useful tags for commercial work include:

• Account type: Office, Dental / Medical, Property Manager, Rental Host, Realtor Referral, Builder.
• Billing: Monthly, Card on File.
• Scheduling: Evening, Rush Often, Same Team.
• Status: New Account, Renewal Due.

With accounts tagged by type, you can quickly see every office account, every property manager you work with, or every client a particular realtor sent you. Keep the list of tags short and consistent. Ten tags everyone uses are worth more than fifty nobody remembers.

Custom Fields: Recording the Details

Custom fields hold specific pieces of information that every account of a certain type has. They are best for details you need to look up, not sort by. Examples:

• Unit number or building name for property manager addresses.
• Responsible manager for large management companies with several contacts.
• Purchase order number or cost center for businesses that need it on their bills.
• Referred by for realtor and builder referrals.
• Agreement start date or renewal date for office accounts.
• Skip policy such as “Make-up visit next night” or “Wait for next week.”

Putting Them to Work

Tags and custom fields earn their keep in everyday tasks. When a property manager texts about “the unit in the Maple building,” a building custom field tells you which address they mean. When you add a new office's recurring series, an Evening tag reminds the office which team it belongs on. When a builder's bookkeeper asks for a PO number on every statement, it is in a custom field on the account, not in someone's inbox.

They also help with growth. A Realtor Referral tag paired with a Referred By field shows which agents send you the most work, so you know who to thank.

Tags on the Client, Fields on the Address

For accounts with many locations, think about where each piece of information belongs. Something true of the whole client, like “Property Manager” or “Monthly,” belongs on the client. Something true of one location, like a unit number, a building name or the manager responsible for that building, belongs with that address. Getting this right means a dental group's three clinics can each carry their own cost center while the group as a whole is tagged once.

Remember that cleaning instructions, like the lockbox code or rooms to skip, already have their own place in the entry notes on each address. Use custom fields for the business details, and keep the cleaning details where the team will see them.

Tags, Fields and Reports

Reports get more useful when accounts are tagged consistently. If every office is tagged Office, you can look at how much office work you did this quarter compared to move-outs. If every property manager is tagged, you can compare them side by side. The next guide, Reports by Account: Knowing Which Commercial Cleaning Clients Pay Off, goes into how to read those reports.

Start Simple

You do not need to design a full system on day one. Start with account type tags and two or three custom fields you know you need, such as unit number and PO number. Add more only when you find yourself writing the same thing in notes over and over. When you bring in a list of existing clients with CSV import, plan your tags first so you can apply them as you go.

Office user roles let you decide who in your office can change client records, which helps keep tags and fields tidy as the team grows.

To see how tags and custom fields fit with offices, rentals and move-outs, visit the MaidBossPro commercial cleaning software page.