SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Recurring Cleanings

Choosing Recurring Solar Cleaning Software: What to Check Before You Switch

If recurring plans are the heart of your solar cleaning business, the software you run them on matters more than almost any other tool you buy. Most field-service software claims to handle recurring jobs. Fewer handle them the way a solar cleaning company actually works. Here is what to check before you switch.

Start With How You Work Today

Moving Recurring Solar Cleaning Customers Off Spreadsheets and Paper covered the move itself. Before that, you need to pick where you are moving to.

Write down how your plans work now: which plans you sell, how many customers are on each, how you know who is due, how you route, and how you get paid. Then test every option against that list. Software that looks good in a demo but does not match how you run plans will end up back on a spreadsheet.

1. How Do Plans Come Due?

This is the most important question. Some generic field-service software schedules recurring jobs on fixed calendar dates set far in advance. That breaks the first time rain pushes a route.

Look for plans set by days between visits, counted from each completed cleaning. Then ask where due work shows up. In SolarCleaningBossPro, every plan cleaning that comes due lands on the Waiting List, a live map and list with pins colored not due yet, due now and overdue past a 7-day grace. See How Recurring Solar Cleanings Come Due on the Waiting List.

2. Does It Know What a Solar Job Is?

Generic software gives a job an address and a notes box. A solar cleaning job is a panel count, a mount, a number of stories, a pitch, extras like bird proofing and critter guards, and access notes about the spigot and roof access. Check whether those details:

• Are entered once and show on every plan visit after
• Appear under the address on office lists and on the tech's phone
• Feed into estimates with per-panel pricing, minimums and story and pitch add-ons

3. Can It Route Plan Work?

Plans are only profitable if visits are routed tightly. Check that you can pick due work from a map, assign it to a truck and a day, and auto-route from the shop. Check that you can filter by truck, so homes and commercial arrays can run on separate trucks.

4. What Does the Tech See?

Have a tech try the app. Look for the day's jobs in route order, a navigation button, panel details and access notes on each card, Start / Skip / Complete, before-and-after photos, and a time clock. Check whether it runs on the iPhones and Android phones your crew already has, without special devices.

5. Does It Keep Customers Informed?

Plan customers need reminders. Look for automatic night-before, when-they're-next and arrived alerts by text and email, two-way texting with the office, and a customer app where they can see invoices, pay, update their card and watch the route. Check how much texting is included. SolarCleaningBossPro includes 500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received per month on Start, Pro and Crew.

6. How Do Plan Visits Get Paid?

Check for a card on file charged on completion or on a schedule, online payment, past-due follow-up and monthly account billing for property owners with many sites, with one statement each month and each line labeled with the address.

7. Can You Bring Your Customers In?

Ask how you get your current list in. CSV import is the minimum. In SolarCleaningBossPro, imported addresses are placed on the map automatically.

8. What Does It Cost?

Look at the real monthly price, and whether recurring plans, the tech app and the customer app cost extra. SolarCleaningBossPro is $59, $89 or $199 a month for Start, Pro and Crew, with recurring cleanings on every plan and a 14-day free trial with no credit card.

Involve the people who will use it every day. Have the office person build a week of routes and a tech run a day on the phone. Their reaction in the first hour tells you more than any feature list, and software the team actually likes is software that gets used.

Finally, ask how long it would take to get your current customers in and running. A system that takes months to set up costs you a season of plan visits while you wait.

Try It on Real Customers

The best test is to load a handful of your real plan customers and run a week with them. See whether due work shows up where you expect, whether routes make sense and whether a tech can run the day from the phone. For everything recurring plans need in one place, visit the recurring solar cleaning software page.