CarpetBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Billing Yearly and Every-Six-Months Carpet Cleaning Plans

A carpet cleaning company that lives on one-time jobs has to find new customers every week. A company with a book of yearly and every-six-months customers starts each season with work already waiting. Repeat plans are the steadiest income in the business, and billing them should be just as steady.

Small Charges, Big Book

Setting a sensible minimum for small jobs is covered in Minimum Job Charges and Trip Charges in Carpet Cleaning Billing. Repeat plans are the opposite end of the business: customers you already know, at homes you have already measured, coming back on a schedule.

How Plans Come Due

In CarpetBossPro, repeat cleanings are set by minimum days between visits. A yearly whole-house cleaning might be set at a year between visits. A family with pets that wants cleaning twice a year might be set at six months. When enough days have passed, the home comes due.

Every home that came due shows on the Waiting List, a live map and list with pins colored by status: not due yet, due now, or overdue past a seven-day grace. The office can fill a day by area, grouping due homes in the same neighborhood onto the same route.

The Job Fills In From Last Time

A new job at a home fills in from that home's last job. For a repeat customer, that means the rooms, stairs, upholstery, add-ons, square feet, carpet type, method and access notes are already there. The office reviews it, adjusts anything that changed, and the job is ready.

That also means the services carry over, so the invoice will look much like last year's. Customers like that. Seeing the same lines at the same prices every year builds trust. If prices have gone up, the office updates the service list and the new job reflects it.

Billing the Visit

Most repeat plans in carpet cleaning are billed per visit. The customer is cleaned, the tech taps Complete, and the invoice is created. With a card on file and auto-charge on completion, the card is charged then. That is the simplest and most common setup.

Some companies prefer a scheduled charge for plan customers, or a prepaid arrangement they set up in their own services. Auto-charge can run on a schedule as well as on completion, so the office can match billing to whatever the customer agreed to.

Keep the Card Current

The biggest risk with yearly billing is the card. A lot can happen to a card in a year. Customers can update their own card in the customer app, which is the easiest way to keep yearly charges from failing. A mention in the night-before reminder, or a short text from the office before the visit, helps catch expired cards before they decline.

If a charge does fail, the invoice stays open and past-due follow-up reminds the customer, as covered in Declined Cards on Carpet Cleaning Jobs: What Happens Next and Who Handles It.

Plans in the Customer App

Customers can sign up for services and pricing in the customer app, such as a yearly cleaning plan. That gives them a clear picture of what the plan includes and what it costs before they commit. It also gives you a clear record of what they signed up for, which makes billing straightforward when the home comes due.

Signing up new customers onto a plan with a card captured is covered in the next article, Plan Sign-Ups With the Card Captured: Starting Carpet Cleaning Customers on the Right Billing Foot.

Turning One-Time Customers Into Plan Customers

The best time to offer a plan is right after a good cleaning. The carpet looks great, the customer is happy, and the tech is standing there. A simple line during the final walk-through works: “A lot of our customers have us back every year. Want us to put you on the schedule so you don't have to remember?”

If they say yes, the office sets the minimum days between visits on their address, and next year the home comes due on its own. No reminders on a calendar, no sticky notes.

What a Plan Book Does for Cash Flow

A book of repeat customers with cards on file is predictable money. When you know which homes are coming due next month, you can see your work before you have it. For a one-van owner, that is the difference between hoping the phone rings and knowing your next few weeks are filling up. For the full billing setup, visit the CarpetBossPro carpet cleaning invoicing software page.