I use a spread sheet data base for oganising my round. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but once you do, it takes about 10 minutes updating each day.
In street alphabetical order, set up various columns to include:
An area code.
House Number.
Street.
Cost of Clean.
Date last cleaned.
Date of Current Clean.
Do they owe for a clean?
Remarks (to include name and telephone number).
Then with the 'sort' function you can retrieve lists by area, deleting the houses you've just cleaned.
At the end of each day, put the date into the current clean column and annotate 'yes' if they owe you money. (Use the copy, cut and paste - to stop you re-typing the same date X amount of times). Sort your next days cleaning list - print it off.
To find out who owes you money on collection nights - sort on the 'Money Owed' column and within seconds you have a list. Delete the block that doesn't owe you and print off your list.
I may have made it sound complicated, but with a little bit of practice - you'll find it a peice of cake. Honestly - it takes ten minutes per day.
I also keep my accounts on an excell spread sheet - using different columns for 'Amount Cleaned' and 'Cash and Cheques Received' - just to show the disparity between my work rate and cash flow.
Oh, when-ever you store important data on a computer - ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU MAKE BACK UP COPIES ON DISC, AND PRINT OFF HARD COPIES ON A REGULAR BASIS. I do this once a week.
