SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Commercial Arrays

Property Owners With Many Buildings: One Solar Cleaning Customer, Many Roofs

Some of the best customers a solar cleaning company can have are property owners with many buildings. A landlord with a dozen rental houses that all have solar. An investor with three small office buildings. A family that owns a strip center, a warehouse and a few duplexes. One phone number, one decision maker, and a lot of panels.

Why Property Owners Are Worth Chasing

The rows of buildings in Self-Storage and Office Parks: Commercial Solar Cleaning Across Rows of Buildings sit on one site. A property owner's buildings may be spread across town. The setup principle is the same, but the routing and billing look a little different.

Property owners like a vendor who makes their life simple. If you can take every building off their list with one relationship, one schedule and one bill, you become hard to replace. Win the first building and do it well, and the rest often follow.

One Client, Every Building

In SolarCleaningBossPro, the property owner is one client. Every building they own with solar is an address under that client. Each address has its own:

• Panel count, mount (roof, ground mount or carport), roof stories and pitch
• Extras like bird proofing, critter guards or inspection
• Access notes: tenant contact, gate code, lockbox, roof access side, spigot location, dogs
• Pin on the map and spot on the Waiting List
• Photos and job history

The owner's contact information, card on file and billing preference sit on the client. Tag the client Commercial, or create a tag that fits how you think about them. Custom fields can hold anything else you need, like the property manager who handles a particular building. The mechanics are covered in One Account, Many Addresses: Setting Up Commercial Solar Cleaning Clients.

Rentals With Tenants

Landlords with rental houses add a wrinkle: the person living at the address is not the person paying. Tenants still need to know when you are coming so the dog is inside and the gate is open. Put the tenant's contact and any access notes on the address. The landlord stays the client and gets the bill.

Before the visit, text the tenant or the landlord from the office to give notice. Some landlords want to handle tenant notice themselves. Ask, and note their preference in the access notes.

Tenants also change. When a lease turns over, the new tenant may have a dog, a different gate code or a locked side yard. A tech who finds something new should write it in the job notes so the office can update the address before the next visit. The owner will appreciate hearing about it too, especially if the change affects how the crew gets to the panels or to the water.

Bringing the Buildings Due Together

If every building is on the same plan, say twice a year at 180 days between visits, and they were all cleaned in the same week, they will come due on the Waiting List in the same week. That lets the office schedule them as a batch. If the buildings are spread out, auto-route (Closest First or Furthest First from the shop) puts them in a sensible order on the day.

Some owners want different schedules per building: a dusty warehouse quarterly, the office buildings twice a year. That works too. Each address carries its own plan, and each comes due on its own.

One Statement, Every Building

Set the client to Monthly billing and the owner gets one statement each month covering every building or site cleaned that month. Each line is labeled with the address, so the owner, or their bookkeeper, can see exactly which property each charge belongs to. That matters to owners who track expenses per property.

Without that, a property owner with ten buildings gets ten invoices. Ten emails, ten payments, ten chances for something to slip. One statement is easier for them and easier for you. More detail is in Monthly Statements per Account: One Bill for Every Commercial Solar Site.

Proof for an Owner Who Is Not There

Property owners almost never meet the crew. Before-and-after photos taken in the tech app and saved with each job show the work at each building. When the owner asks about one property, you pull up that address and its photos.

Two-way texting from the office keeps the owner in the loop without phone tag. “All six rentals are done this week. Photos are saved with each job. The statement will cover all six at the end of the month.”

Growing With the Owner

When the owner buys another building, add it as another address under the same client, quote it, and it joins the schedule and the statement. When they sell one, take that address off the plan. To see how property owners fit with every other kind of commercial work, go back to the commercial solar cleaning software page.