Expanding my cleaning business and need some advice please

[Tina W]

Hi, I am new to this site but was hoping someone would be able to give me a little advice. I run a domestic cleaning business which is going very well but I am now struggling to manage everything alone and am looking into the different types of software packages around that would help me manage everything a little easier.

I know I can buy rota systems there are lots to chose from which will help me manage the staff. My biggest problem is keeping tabs on who is doing what. My clients all get the same cleaner each visit so should be easy, the problems arise when the clients change the times/days the cleaner goes in or increases/decreases the blocks of time. I have to rely on the cleaner being honest and informing me that they are doing extra sessions or that they have changed their time slot etc.

This is proving to be a massive headache. I invoice the client based on the hours the cleaners work which is fine at the moment as they are all very reliable and inform me if the client wants them to do extra work etc. My biggest problem is that I have to continually nag the cleaners to confirm the hours they have worked in order for me to invoice, which takes lots of my time.

As I expand this system is not going to work. There must be a simpler solution and I wondered if anyone else had or is having the same problems? I've found Apps for phones where they can swipe the phone over a sticker in the clients homes to tell me what time they arrive and then swipe again when they leave, but that will only work if they remember and if they are honest so not much different to the system I use at the moment where I rely on them being honest and telling me.

My cleaners are all self employed to keep costs down if they were employed it would be easier to enforce as if they didn;t log in they wouldn;t get paid. Other than this my business works really well, I have happy clients and happy workers.

Any advice gratefully received.

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

If they're self employed then it's fairly simple.

Put together a time sheet - ask them to get it to you by a certain day of the week, if they fail to do so then it's their own fault and you don't pay them for that week until you've had the time sheet.

They're "Self-employed" therefore they can't expect you to do their time sheets for them, if they want paying on time they get it to you when you need it, not when they can be bothered to do so.

 

[Tina W]

The client pays them directly which is where the problem lies. I then invoice the client my management fee based on the number of hours they do. I know lots of other companies operate in this way and wondered how they overcome it?

 

[TradeSmart]

The client pays them directly which is where the problem lies. I then invoice the client my management fee based on the number of hours they do. I know lots of other companies operate in this way and wondered how they overcome it?

I used to run my cleaning company this way when I first started. I used to invoice the customer upfront quarterly based on the amount of agreed hours and then the client paid the cleaner directly their hourly rate.

If I am honest, it is a really poor way of operating which I soon found out.

So much easier to charge the client yourself (say £11 per hour) then subcontract the work to the cleaner (say £7 per hour).

The cleaners are still self employed. They simply send you a time sheet weekly, fortnightly or monthly and you pay them by bank transfer.

 

[Tina W]

What would be the cost implication to the business of doing it that way? Our cleaners get paid very well I take only a small fee for the management side of things so need to keep my costs to a minimum. Would I need an accountant to do that? Does it affect my figures for tax purposes etc?

 

[mckellar]

I had some advice when we looked at taking on self employed cleaners and it was easier for them to be PAYE.

For them to be s/e they need to be actively looking for their own work too. Think HMRC are hammering down on the 'subbie' route. Just be careful.

You would be best off invoicing the full amount and then paying the subbie

 

[Talay]

I used to run my cleaning company this way when I first started. I used to invoice the customer upfront quarterly based on the amount of agreed hours and then the client paid the cleaner directly their hourly rate.

If I am honest, it is a really poor way of operating which I soon found out.

So much easier to charge the client yourself (say £11 per hour) then subcontract the work to the cleaner (say £7 per hour).

The cleaners are still self employed. They simply send you a time sheet weekly, fortnightly or monthly and you pay them by bank transfer.

I think you'll find they are not self employed at all and they are interpreted as self employed only because the business model doesn't work if they are listed as PAYE !

 

[mckellar]

I think you'll find they are not self employed at all and they are interpreted as self employed only because the business model doesn't work if they are listed as PAYE !

This is what I have mentioned above. They are just PAYE without any benefits.

Are they registered as self employed with any paperwork? I'm sure they receive their own UTR number. Do you put them on your payroll as self employed for RTI reports

 

[Talay]

Automation and technology is the way forward here without doubt.

However they do it, shift the onus from assumption of previous hours to presentation of actual hours. As your (franchise ?) model is as an agency, there is every incentive to bill for accurate hours. As you don't know when, where or for how long your cleaners actually work, they could be working 2 hours for you and 10 hours for themselves, pocketing your "commission". Clocking in and out would go some way to minimise this and give you accurate figures to upload into an invoicing program.

 

[Office Cleaning]

From my understanding you are acting as an introduction agency and thereafter you want to take a percentage per hour? Yet the cleaner would appear to be then working directly for the client not for you, this to me looks problematic. There seems no incentive for the cleaner nor the client to inform you of any extra hours worked when they can easily cut out your fees between themselves.

From what I’ve seen I think some of the London domestic companies take credit card details from the clients and then charge them for works carried out, presumably they must deal with paying the cleaners. Having the client pay the cleaner direct is, almost by default, a way to cut out the intermediary. It seems to me that you need to be involved in the dialogue at all times with the client and that they come via you for additional work not the cleaner so you can bill accordingly that and cutting out cash payments may help.

 

[Tina W]

I register them all with inland revenue and take copies of their UTR, they are only allowed to be paid by cheque or direct to their bank account. Being self employed they can accept or decline work, can take time off when they want and are free to engage in private work if they do wish. They sign contracts agreeing not to work privately with clients I have supplied them with. The clients like the service I provide as I supply replacements if the cleaner is off sick or books holidays. I fully vet all the staff do their criminal record checks etc. I keep in regular contact with all my clients and offer a very personalised service to them.
What would be the easiest way to take payments from clients? As the staff currently get paid weekly. Can I do it over the phone with their debit card? Many if our clients are elderly and do not have Internet so can't do online banking.

 

[TradeSmart]

I register them all with inland revenue and take copies of their UTR, they are only allowed to be paid by cheque or direct to their bank account. Being self employed they can accept or decline work, can take time off when they want and are free to engage in private work if they do wish. They sign contracts agreeing not to work privately with clients I have supplied them with. The clients like the service I provide as I supply replacements if the cleaner is off sick or books holidays. I fully vet all the staff do their criminal record checks etc. I keep in regular contact with all my clients and offer a very personalised service to them.
What would be the easiest way to take payments from clients? As the staff currently get paid weekly. Can I do it over the phone with their debit card? Many if our clients are elderly and do not have Internet so can't do online banking.

Set up direct debits with the clients for set hours agreed or let them pay cash into your bank account at a branch.

Or, go to their homes and collect the cash. I do that for 2 of my clients.

 

[Tina W]

Currently I visit each client and invoice them and they pay me at the time. The problem with this is we cover a large area I end up being with each client for at least an hour so with travel times it can be a couple of hours. This system will be unsustainable as we grow. We don't deal with cash as sometimes we deal with LA and everything needs to be traceable.

 

[Office Cleaning]

Sure, I wasnt questioning your role or amount of work you put in just that the current model looks problematic.

A couple of things jump out; if you are booking replacement cleaners then this suggests the cleaners you have are employees - I don’t see any degree of substitution here.

Also if you are stating/paying set hourly rates / set times, again this would imply they are employees again, either via yourself or through the 3rd part employer (the client).

I would suggest running this through the HMRC employment status tool.

If it was me I would also set up invoicing/payroll monthly, weekly means four times as much paper work / time for everyone involved.

Yes you can take payments by card over the phone once you have this set up, there are apps where you can take payments via your smart phone which may suit you better.

As an aside waivers and the like aren’t imo experience worth the paper they are written on, realistically are you going to be able to enforce your claim to stop a cleaner working for one of your clients? Having this may however suggest more employment status.

 

[Talay]

This is Maid2Clean or something similar.

Contracts, staff, vetting etc. None of this is self employment, whatever the franchisor says.

 

[MatthewH]

As you're not supervising them when they work, there is always going to be an element of trust and honesty when dealing with the hours your cleaners have worked. Given your earlier statement that most of your customers are elderly, I'm going to assume that they're actually in the property when it's being cleaned. If they are, then they'll notice if work isn't being done properly or the cleaner leaves early.

If there are certain cleaners you're worried about, I would implement random Quality Assurance checks where you accompany the cleaner on a normal visit and speak to the customer afterwards. I would also check in regularly with the customer to ensure that everything is up to your standards and they're satisfied with the work being done.

Ultimately, dishonesty will show itself. If you have the right attitude and systems in place, you'll naturally weed out those who aren't a suitable fit for your cleaning company (so you don't need silly things like a body camera to document their working hours ... not that any rational cleaner would agree to wear one!) and you'll keep those that are.

As for payment? Most of the 'new' cleaning companies (e.g. Mopp) make the customer pay them and then they pay their contractors. I believe they charge the customer's card on a predefined schedule (e.g. weekly clean, two-weekly clean, monthly clean) but pay their contractors monthly.

In your case, I would suggest setting up a Direct Debit system using something like www.gocardless.com (I believe you can set up a new DD from your phone using it, so you can set up the DD when you next visit each customer) which has low fees and is pretty easy to use.

Doing this has the advantage, as stated above, that you're kept in the loop between your customers and your cleaners.

I'd also move to monthly payments. You can keep weekly invoicing or whatever suits you (don't know if customer could afford a monthly invoice?) but making weekly payments to ALL your cleaners? You have better things to be doing.

I don't see anything wrong with contracts or CRB checking. Contracts need to define the relationship between you and the contractor, and an enhanced CRB check is recommended if they're working with vulnerable adults (I believe the elderly would fall into this).

 

[Office Cleaning]

The above raises a good point, you should have DBS (replaced the CRB certificates) checks in place for any of your cleaners working alone with elderly / vulnerable people.

This does raise the question of having risk assessment / health and safety documentation in place, we do this for each client but we’re commercial cleaning not domestic, I would suggest it’s another thing to look into.

We use gocardless for some clients, remember they take their slice of the pie (1%) so you need to allow for this.