MaidBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Lockout Fees as a Line Item: Billing the Trip When the Team Cannot Get In

The team pulls up, walks to the door, and the lockbox is empty. Or the code was changed. Or the alarm is on and nobody answers the phone. Twenty minutes later they leave without cleaning, and that slot in the route is gone for the day. A lockout costs you the drive, the time and the job that could have filled it. Whether you charge for that is your policy. How you charge for it should be simple and clear.

Lockouts Start Before the Invoice

The last guide, Billing Post-Construction Cleans: Deposits, Final Invoices and Builder Accounts, looked at protecting big one-time jobs. Lockouts are the everyday version of the same problem: a scheduled visit that falls through at the last minute.

The best lockout fee is the one you never have to charge. Most lockouts come from a few causes: an entry code nobody updated, a key that went home with a different team member, or a customer who forgot it was cleaning day. Fix those first, and the fee becomes a rare backstop instead of a regular line.

Cutting Down on Lockouts

MaidBossPro has a few tools that prevent lockouts before they happen:

• Entry notes on every home. Lockbox, key, door code and alarm details live in the job's entry & notes and show on the team's phone under the address.
• Remembered homes. A new job at a home you have cleaned before fills in from its last job, including the entry code, so nobody re-types it wrong.
• Night-before reminders. Customers who turn on the night-before alert get a reminder that the team is coming, which is often when they remember the new code.
• On-the-way and arrived texts. Automatic texts let the customer know the team is close, giving them a chance to reply if something changed.
• Two-way texting. When the customer replies with a new code, it comes to the office, which can update the entry notes for every future visit.

Writing a Lockout Policy

If you do charge for lockouts, write the policy before you need it and share it at sign-up. Cover:

• What counts as a lockout. No access by the entry method on file, no answer after the team tries to reach the customer, or an unsafe situation such as an aggressive pet loose inside.
• How long the team waits. A set number of minutes and a set number of attempts to reach the customer.
• What the fee is. A flat fee is easiest to explain. Many owners set it to cover the trip and the lost time rather than the full cleaning price.
• Whether you will try again the same day. If the customer responds while the team is nearby, can they come back later?

Put it in plain words. “If we can't get in using the entry details on file and can't reach you within 15 minutes, a lockout fee applies and we'll reschedule your cleaning” is something a customer can read and remember.

What the Team Does on Site

Give your teams a clear routine so the lockout is documented the same way every time:

• Try the entry method in the notes.
• Let the office know so they can text or call the customer.
• Wait the time your policy allows.
• Tap Skip on the job with a short note: “Lockbox empty, no answer, waited 15 min.”
• Take a photo of the closed door or empty lockbox if it helps.

Skipping, not completing, matters. Complete creates an invoice for the cleaning, which is not what happened. Skip tells the office the visit did not happen and why.

Billing the Fee as a Line Item

Add a “Lockout Fee” line to your service list at your price. When a skip qualifies under your policy, the office adds that line to an invoice for the customer. Named plainly, on its own line, it reads like what it is: a charge for a trip that could not be completed, not a mystery amount.

If the customer has a card on file, the invoice can be charged. If not, they can pay it from the customer app. A short text from the office explaining what happened and offering the next available day goes a long way. The rescheduled cleaning is its own job and its own invoice.

Use judgment on first offenses. Many owners waive the first lockout for a good long-time customer and charge the second. That is a business decision, not a software one. The same thinking applies to cancellations, covered next in Late-Cancellation Fees for Cleaning Services: Writing the Policy and Billing It Fairly.

Fewer Lockouts, Fair Fees

Lockouts are mostly an information problem. Good entry notes, remembered homes and automatic reminders prevent most of them, and a clear policy billed as its own line item handles the rest. To see how fee lines fit with your invoices, card on file and online payment, visit the MaidBossPro cleaning invoicing software page.