I was told by the Receiver when I first started to have on record the name and address of every customer I clean windows for, and have accurate records of each clean and how much it was.
When I asked why, they said that they need that so they could contact a selection of them at random and ask them how many times I cleaned their windows and what I charged them.
I thought at the time that this wasn't a well thought out answer for obvious reasons, but was one of the reasons for running George. Most of our customers know we run a computer generated work schedule, but how many of them will remember accurately how many times we have cleaned their house in the last year if the receiver asked them?
The first thing I did when we first started was to get customers names as its professional IMHO, but when we bought a window cleaning round, the previous window cleaner had no idea the names of most of his customers. His addresses were on a piece of A4 paper with a row of columns for each clean with their date, a diagonal line for cleaned and a second diagonal line for paid. At the end of the month he had no idea what amounts he had collected and when, although he could work out roughly how much work he had done.
So you can understand the uphill battle the Receiver has with cash only services.
Didn't someone say that they have a detailed weather report on each day of the year, so they have the upper hand when asking why you showed no income on a day. You may not be able to remember the exact reason why you didn't work on the 25th of March 2011, but you can't automatically blame the weather - if they ask you then the possibility is that it was a beautiful day weather wise. They would just presume that you were working "cash in hand". How do you challenge that?
