How to replace a paper window-cleaning round book

Start with what the book is really doing

A window-cleaning round book is more than a customer list. It normally records the order of houses, the work carried out at each property, the price, the usual frequency and a shorthand history of whether a clean was completed or paid. A useful digital replacement must preserve all of those jobs.

Before entering anything, photograph or scan each current page for reference and note what every mark means. Identify the rounds you still work, the order you actually follow and any houses that have moved, paused or ended. Use fictional copies when testing a new system; move real customer information only into the approved production service.

Separate the customer, property and service

Paper makes it tempting to treat one line as everything. Software works better when the person who pays, the address being cleaned and the recurring service are separate. That lets one customer pay for two properties and one property hold different prices or frequencies for windows, gutters and a conservatory roof.

For each active property, capture only the information needed to provide the service. Put gate instructions and safety warnings in protected access notes, not in a general public description.

• Customer: name, preferred contact details and payment method.
• Property: service address, postcode and necessary access information.
• Service: scope, method, price, frequency and estimated duration.
• Round stop: the property and selected services in the familiar route position.

Build the familiar route before optimising it

The safest first digital round is a faithful copy of the route that already works. Create one named round at a time and enter the stops in the order you normally clean them. Do not let a map automatically reorder the day until you have checked parking, walking sections, locked gates and the habits that are not obvious from distance alone.

Once the order is accurate, add realistic durations and a preferred working day. That gives the planner enough information to show when a round no longer fits the available time without silently moving customers.

Reconcile balances before the changeover

Choose a clear cut-off date and work through every active customer who owes money. Record the individual unpaid cleans where the new system supports a ledger, rather than copying only one unexplained balance. Keep evidence of how the opening figure was reached.

A reliable system should calculate what is owed from charges and confirmed payments. Avoid editing one balance field whenever money arrives; that loses the history needed to explain a disagreement later.

Test one round from start to finish

Use a small representative round first. Schedule it, open the work on the field phone, complete a clean, leave one amount outstanding, record one payment and confirm the next visit appears on the correct date. Test the offline workflow before relying on it in a weak-signal area.

For one controlled cycle, keep the old book available as a reference while treating one system as the source of truth. Review missing houses, wrong frequencies and opening balances at the end of the day, then move the next round only when the first one reconciles.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

Roundflow help

Put the process into practice