Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mr Sparkle on January 28, 2009, 08:19:41 pm
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Been going for few months now and recently started doing well and picking up plenty custies.
But am i finding it a nightmare organising the work. Whats do you guys use to organise without using george.
Please help as it's driving me round the twist :'( :'( :'( :'(
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Been going for few months now and recently started doing well and picking up plenty custies.
But am i finding it a nightmare organising the work. Whats do you guys use to organise without using george.
Please help as it's driving me round the twist :'( :'( :'( :'(
I use windowcleanerpro.com
I used to use excel sheets but that was a total nightmare in the end, start as you mean to go on. it saves so much time it is untrue
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Say you clean on a 4 week basis. just create 4 work sheets in ms-word, numbered week1 to week4. Print each one out as you need it, making any adjustments i.e. moving work around cos you got rained off the week before etc.
Buy a "week per view" A4 diary & record all your work & anything owed to you every day when you get home.
This way you will always know who's been cleaned & when & who owes what. takes 10 mins to set up & is pretty much monkey proof! ;)
Tony
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macmac. wow that seems very complicated ??? i bought goergeand its the best thing i ever did . it cudnt be simpler. and gorge wasnt that expensive , if i remember right :)
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macmac. wow that seems very complicated ??? i bought goergeand its the best thing i ever did . it cudnt be simpler. and gorge wasnt that expensive , if i remember right :)
£50
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just wright out a pad all jobs to do cross out whats done keep a diary of work and check
that evry mon try and do aii jobs missed week befor
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macmac. wow that seems very complicated ??? i bought goergeand its the best thing i ever did . it cudnt be simpler. and gorge wasnt that expensive , if i remember right :)
You're joking right? ???
My daily accounts are done quicker than my computer boots up!
My weekly sheets are done in 10 minutes, everything I could possibly need to know, at hand, right there in front of me (I do keep a backup, duplicated diary just incase).
I'm in the south-east of scotland so my work is re-organised quite often because of weather, this way it's so simple. See the "unpresidented" harsh winter the southern softies have had this year? Well welcome to every winter up here! ;D
Tony
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macmac, it takes less than 10 minutes on george! ;D
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macmac, it takes less than 10 minutes on george! ;D
Your point being?
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no point really :) george does alot more than organise your round though
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I use word to make lists of all my custy's. I print in landscape A4. Like so - about 15 to a page.
Letsby Avenue
3 BLOGGS M £12 ____________________________________________________________
5 JONES EOT £15 ____________________________________________________________
8 SMITH M £14_____________________________________________________________
9 GRAY (Not Con) M £10________________________________________________________
Key = House number, name, M = monthly, EOT = every other time, amount.
(Not Con) = not conservatory; JF = Just fronts
I then, using a pen put the date of the clean - say 15/4N (for not paid) 15/4Y (for yes, paid)
When a cheque arrives I change the N for a Y to indicate payment.
Easy peasy!
I also have a monthly sheet with 0 - £3000 on the left hand side in £100 increments and I build a tower with the daily amounts so day one £187, day two £210 day three - hols/rain etc and make a running total.
JANUARY 2009
£3000 __________
£2900 __________
...
etc...
etc...
...
£ 300 __________
£ 200 __________
£ 100 __________
£ 0 __________
At the end of the month the month turnover total is written down on the sheet any cash expenses attached.
A year sheet has each monthly total added and so I know what my year turnover to date is at any time.
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no point really :) george does alot more than organise your round though
Whats do you guys use to organise without using george.
;)
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macmac ok see your point . but why doesnt everyone use some sort of program like george? i cudnt manage without it . my opinion only :)
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There is one simple foolproof way that I have used for years, all you need is a pack of 6"x4" ruled stock cards and a pen.
The cards already have lines on them, you just need to draw in some faint columns.
write the street name or area on the top of the card.
Draw one column top to bottom for the house numbers.
The next column has to be wider to write down the customers name and phone number.
The third column is the price for the job.
the rest of the columns are narrow, in fact when you draw them you have little squares.
When you go round you put a tick in the square if they pay, or a 0 if they don't, when they do pay, you strike through the 0 with a tick. If they don't have them done then I put a ---.
You can put the date they are done above that months squares.
I get a years work on one card, and the cards are kept in a 6x4 photo album.
This method is so simple, and you fill the card as you do the job.
Even if you use george or a spread sheet, you still have to have some record of who paid or didn't as you go along throughout the day.
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There is one simple foolproof way that I have used for years, all you need is a pack of 6"x4" ruled stock cards and a pen.
The cards already have lines on them, you just need to draw in some faint columns.
write the street name or area on the top of the card.
Draw one column top to bottom for the house numbers.
The next column has to be wider to write down the customers name and phone number.
The third column is the price for the job.
the rest of the columns are narrow, in fact when you draw them you have little squares.
When you go round you put a tick in the square if they pay, or a 0 if they don't, when they do pay, you strike through the 0 with a tick. If they don't have them done then I put a ---.
You can put the date they are done above that months squares.
I get a years work on one card, and the cards are kept in a 6x4 photo album.
This method is so simple, and you fill the card as you do the job.
Even if you use george or a spread sheet, you still have to have some record of who paid or didn't as you go along throughout the day.
Bit like my system Dai - the KISS approach - Keep It Simple, Stupid! ;D
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Say you clean on a 4 week basis. just create 4 work sheets in ms-word, numbered week1 to week4. Print each one out as you need it, making any adjustments i.e. moving work around cos you got rained off the week before etc.
Tony
Same as above! 'Easy peasy', Nice and simple.
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GEORGE the 50 quid you,ll ever spend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nice avatar! Stan.
Where'd you get it? :) ;)
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Yer stan where you get it
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some non copyrighted post was it
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A pack of 6" x 4" cards and a diary. Like Mac Mac said the jobs done by the time the pc boots up.
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I use an excel spreadsheat which is scarily like the method that Malc uses.
I'd like to say 'Great minds think alike', but he's from Bristol! ;D
I think the most important part of administrating your round is to do your updating DAILY and send any invoices off PROMPTLY.
But maybe that's just me; sometimes I leave my updating till the end of the week and can't remember whose paid - or even where I've cleaned!?
And I'm also guilty of cleaning stuff and not sending my invoices off till weeks later; then I grumble about the delay in payment.
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The difficulty might be that he has jobs on different intervals.
This is the main problem of having customers on 4 week, 6 week, 8 week intervals, some weeks it all falls due and other weeks there is nothing to do.
Stick to a monthly rota and you won't have this kind of problem.
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B****y hell :o
How on earth did us 'old school' window cleaners ever manage before computers were invented ::)
I have a round comprised of monthly or two monthly jobs.
I list them all in the order they should be done on A4 sheets laid crosswise (landscape in the modern vernacular). Across the sheet I have 12 columns. If a two monthly job is not due, I put an 'X' in the column. Every day I write a list of the next jobs I want to do, in their right order. I go out and do them, and tick them off on my list. Those who pay get a tick, those I intend to collect get a 'C' those where I leave an SAE get an 'E'.
When I get home I update my 'office copy' from the records on my list - at the top of the column I put the date cleaned, going down the column I put the ticks, 'C's and 'E's.
At the end of the week I go through the list and pick out all the 'C's - that's my collect list. Any SAE's that come back I cross out the 'E' on my master list. When I've finished collecting I cross off all the 'C's I've collected, or if they weren't in and still owe, I put and asterisk, so in future I know I've tried to collect but couldn't.
All the information I could possibly want is there in front of me on the same master sheet, with the history of each job
How can you possibly miss a job if it's in front of you in black and white?
Running a window cleaning round is basic, simple routine. If you can write, you can keep infallible records.
The thing I don't like about computer programmed round records is that they can't handle the fact that weather, odd days off etc upset the routine. If you have a mix of monthly and two monthly jobs, then the program will re-schedule exactly 4 or 8 weeks into the future, so any two monthlies will be out of sequence from their geographically related monthlies.
If they're written of a sheer of paper they're still where they're supposed to be.
I've yet to find written records jumping off the page and reappearing three pages further along ;D
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get this software its free Cleaning Business
;D
http://www.rb59.com/software/
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I use Excel that's because I have been fluent at it for the past 10 yrs, oops I sound old ;D
It is hard to use but once you know the calc formulas like vlookup etc.. then you can build a spreadsheet to meet your needs.
Just building one with mail merge for someone 8)
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i use window cleaner pro too i find it really good very simple to use nice layout as i dont have a large amount of customers yet it works well to make worksheet from jobs that need doing to being able to bring forward jobs click to print n out pops ya worksheet for the day which has columns to enter who has payed and wat method has customers details too if you need to contact them that day, really simple, iv not used george so cant compare but did have the roundtracker from window cleaning resources n found it really naff!!!
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Been going for few months now and recently started doing well and picking up plenty custies.
But am i finding it a nightmare organising the work. Whats do you guys use to organise without using george.
Please help as it's driving me round the twist :'( :'( :'( :'(
I use the spreadsheet and database in MS Works.
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macmac ok see your point . but why doesnt everyone use some sort of program like george? i cudnt manage without it . my opinion only :)
I don't use a dedicated program for several reasons (not just referring to George here)..
1) I would feel too dependent on the software author for updates. If a feature isn't included then you must wait for the author to include it.
2) Support depends on the wellbeing of the author (may they all live long and prosper but the day they don't is the day you lose the support).
3) If there's a glitch, you don't have the usenet newsgroups to fall back on as the software is more specialised without the widespread knowledge base.
4) Even though the payment is usually low, it still has to be made.
The flipside of all this is that in order to adapt the Works spreadsheet and database programs to my own needs, I had to put in a fair bit of work and some research. However, there was loads of support for this on usenet.
If I want the programs to do more than they are currently doing, I have to do it myself - the good bit being that I can do it when I choose to do it.
There is more maintenance as you go with the way that I do it but I consider it to be worth it. I can still update all my daily records in five to ten minutes at most. I tend to do my printouts for accounts at year end so need to spend some time on it then. Also, for simplicity's sake, I keep the income records seperate from the expenditure records on seperate spreadsheets.
It sounds a lot more complex than it actually is. The only difficult bit was setting it up in the first place. It's not for everyone. Maybe the difference between paying a WFP company and doing it DIY.
Not everyone wants to learn to set up spreadsheets and databases. If that's the case, a pre-written program is ideal.
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The difficulty might be that he has jobs on different intervals.
This is the main problem of having customers on 4 week, 6 week, 8 week intervals, some weeks it all falls due and other weeks there is nothing to do.
Stick to a monthly rota and you won't have this kind of problem.
I find it a bit like you except that I have 6 weeks as my default. A few larger jobs are 12 weeks. Makes it easier to manage with less maintenance and travel. I have one mid sized bi-monthly but that's not a mile from my water supply so I have to be in the area anyway. I could run it at different intervals but I did this years ago and found it less productive.
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Been going for few months now and recently started doing well and picking up plenty custies.
But am i finding it a nightmare organising the work. Whats do you guys use to organise without using george.
Please help as it's driving me round the twist :'( :'( :'( :'(
I started with paper round lists then upgraded to excel, then bought round tracker for £10 but had no end of problems with it so in the end spent £50 on George, £20 on a pda from ebay and since then looking after my rounds has been soooo much easier ;)
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I think it depends on two things.
1. how computer literate you are. i have my pc on for loads of stuff anyways so its not a prob. i like computers anyways, some older ones may not!
2.it depends on how much work you have. if you are working on your own and dont have that much to get through i suppose you could write it out on cards or whatever. but why do that when you can print it out with lines, colums, sub totals, totals, dates, whatever you want you can configure it with a simple computer program be it george, round organiser or a simple excel spreadsheet.
i have tried george and round organiser and found them to be unnecessary. i have a excel sheet which i type out the work once, and print it off every week making adjustments as necessary. you can have anthing and everything you want right there on a simple sheet to the shape, size you want.
those of you who use george and that, dont you find it cumbersome? why go through what, 6 frames clicking next every time, with things like name address postcode and all that rubbish just to add one customer? or am i missing something? i find the round print off from george a waste of space on the sheet. i did try using a pda, but small electronic gadget with water everywhere? not a good combo.
the only thing i think you need an excel sheet with the street name at the top once, house number and price as you go down. you can add other columns like dates, paid, still to collect or enveloped and totals etc if you want. it'll add up for you and generate date etc really easy if you just click a help topic. i usually put about £500 worth of work on each sheet and print it off.
eg mine looks a little like this
STREET PRICE PAID COLLECT/ENV INFO
LETSBE AVENUE
1 £10 X C Front only
3 £8 C dog!
5 £8 X E bungalow
7 £5 X E shut gate
TOTALS ____
4 £31
or yknow, something like that. works for me, probably not others. just keep it simple with one sheet per day,that way it doesnt get over used and go to mush after using it for like 2-3 days!