CarpetBossPro Blog — Upholstery, Rugs & Tile

Upholstery Cleaning Software: The Complete Guide to Running Sofas, Rugs, Mattresses, Tile and Add-Ons With Your Carpet Work

Almost every carpet cleaning company cleans more than carpet. The customer who books three bedrooms and a hallway also has a sofa the dog sleeps on, a rug under the dining table, a mattress in the guest room and a kitchen floor with grout that used to be white. That extra work is often the most profitable part of the day, because the van is already in the driveway and the hose is already run. It is also the work most likely to get forgotten, done for free or billed wrong.

This guide walks through how to run upholstery, area rugs, mattresses, tile & grout and add-ons inside the same software you use for carpet, from setting up the services to getting paid for them.

Why Upholstery and Add-Ons Belong in the Same System as Carpet

Plenty of carpet cleaners treat upholstery as a side note. The office writes “also sofa” on the job, the tech reads it or doesn't, and the invoice says “carpet cleaning” with a total that may or may not include the sofa. When the sofa gets missed, you lose the money. When it gets done but not billed, you lose the money and teach the customer to expect it free.

The fix is to treat each piece of extra work as a real service with a real price that travels with the job. The CarpetBossPro upholstery cleaning software page shows how that looks across the whole company. In CarpetBossPro, every job and estimate carries checkboxes for what's being cleaned, and the list includes Upholstery, Area Rug, Mattress, Tile & Grout, Pet Odor Treatment, Stain Protector and Deodorizer right alongside Bedrooms, Living Room, Hallway and Stairs. The extra work is part of the job from the first call.

Step One: Build the Service List

Everything starts with your service list. This is where you decide what you sell and what it costs. A typical carpet and upholstery company might set up:

• Upholstery by piece: sofa, loveseat, chair, sectional and dining chair, each with its own price, such as $129 for a sofa.
• Area rugs: a flat price per rug or a price by size, such as $89 for a standard area rug.
• Mattresses: priced by size or as a flat rate.
• Tile & grout: priced by the square foot so it can be figured off the property's measurements.
• Add-ons: pet odor treatment, stain protector, deodorizer and spot removal, such as $25 a room for pet odor treatment.

Once the list exists, nobody on the phone has to remember what a loveseat costs. They pick it. The details of setting this up are in Setting Up Your Upholstery Cleaning Service List: Sofas, Loveseats, Chairs and Sectionals.

Step Two: Quote the Extra Work With the Carpet

Estimates in CarpetBossPro are built from that service list. A single quote can hold three rooms of carpet, a hallway, a sofa, a loveseat, an area rug and stain protector on the furniture, each as its own line. Services can be priced off the property's measurements, so a tile kitchen floor priced per square foot fills in from the square feet you already have on file.

The customer approves the estimate online, and the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job, with all the job details carried across. The sofa that was on the quote is on the job. Nobody re-types it, and nobody forgets it. If the customer doesn't answer, estimate follow-up emails go out so the quote doesn't sit forgotten in an inbox. For combos you quote all the time, like a sofa and loveseat with protector, estimate templates save you building the same quote over and over.

Step Three: Put It on the Tech's Phone and Checklist

On the tech app, each job card shows the job details and access notes. If Upholstery and Area Rug are checked, the tech sees them before unloading the van, so the right tools come in on the first trip.

The carpet cleaning checklist is where the add-ons really pay off. It walks the tech through the walk-through with the customer, moving small furniture, pre-vacuuming, pre-treating traffic lanes, treating spots and stains, cleaning the carpet and grooming it. Steps for pet odor treatment, upholstery, area rug and tile cleaning, and stain protector or deodorizer only show up when those items are on the job. A tech can't finish the checklist on a job with stain protector without seeing the protector step. That is how paid add-ons actually get done. More on this is in Add-On Steps in the Tech Checklist: Making Sure Paid Add-Ons Actually Get Done.

Step Four: Handle the Stain That Won't Come Out

Upholstery and rugs come with more surprises than carpet. Old stains, unknown spills and wear that looks like dirt but isn't. The checklist has a place to record stains that did not come out, a condition for the job (Good, Needs attention or Repair recommended) and a note for the customer. Before-and-after photos taken on the tech app are saved with the job.

That means when the customer asks why the arm of the chair still has a mark, the office can see exactly what the tech wrote and photographed, and the customer can see the photos in their own app. A clear note written at the time beats a phone argument a week later.

Step Five: Bill Every Piece as a Line Item

When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and the card on file can be charged. Each service shows as its own line item, with sales tax, so the customer sees carpet, sofa, rug and protector separately. Itemized invoices are easier for customers to understand and easier for you to stand behind.

If the customer asks for something extra at the door, the tech notes the request or texts the office, and the office adds it as a line item from the service list. The price is your price, not a number made up on the porch.

Step Six: Bring Them Back

Upholstery customers tend to come back when someone reminds them. Repeat cleanings in CarpetBossPro are set by minimum days between visits, so a yearly whole-house plan with a sofa on it comes due on the Waiting List on its own. The Waiting List shows every home that came due on a live map, colored by not due yet, due now and overdue, so you can fill a day by area.

Tags and custom fields help you find the customers worth calling, such as pet owners or anyone who has had upholstery done before. The customer app lets them request service and sign up for a yearly cleaning plan on their own.

Add-On-Only Jobs and Where to Go Next

Not every upholstery call comes with carpet. A sectional by itself, a single rug or a bathroom tile floor can be its own job, scheduled and routed on the dispatch board like any other stop. Slot it next to a carpet job in the same neighborhood and it turns a gap into revenue.

The rest of this series goes deeper on each piece: per-piece pricing, area rugs, mattresses, tile and grout, pet odor work, stain protector, selling at the door, photos, customer notes, billing, repeat customers and referrals from maid services and realtors. For the overview of how upholstery fits into the whole system, return to the CarpetBossPro upholstery cleaning software page.