SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Moving Solar Cleaning Billing Off Paper and Spreadsheets

Plenty of solar cleaning companies run on paper and spreadsheets: a carbon-copy ticket book in the truck, a spreadsheet of customers and when they were last cleaned, invoices typed up on the weekend, and a notebook of who still owes. It works, until the business grows past what one person can keep in their head. Then jobs go unbilled, checks go missing and the weekend disappears into paperwork.

Clear Roles Make the Switch Easier

If more than one person handles billing, the roles in Who Touches the Money: Office Roles and Billing in a Solar Cleaning Company are worth settling before the switch. Moving off paper is a chance to decide who does what, instead of copying old habits into new software.

Step 1: Get Your Customers In

Start with your customer list. Export your spreadsheet as a CSV and use the CSV import in SolarCleaningBossPro. Addresses are placed on the map automatically, so your customers show up where they are, ready for routing. Tidy the spreadsheet before importing: one row per address, clear names, phone numbers and emails in their own columns.

For customers with several properties, like landlords or property owners, set them up as one client with many addresses. If they will be on monthly statements, note that now.

Step 2: Build the Service List

Next, the prices. Write your service list the way you want it to appear on estimates and invoices: per-panel cleaning, minimum charge, story and steep-pitch add-ons, bird proofing per panel, critter guards and inspection. Then set your sales tax. If your paper tickets used a single lump price, this is the moment to break it into lines customers will understand.

Step 3: Add Panel Details

This is the step that makes billing automatic later. For each customer, enter the panel details on their job: number of panels, mount (roof, ground mount or carport), roof stories, pitch, extras and access notes like the spigot location or gate code. Once entered, they show on every visit after and drive every invoice.

You do not have to do all of them in one sitting. Enter details for the customers due soonest first, and fill in the rest as they come due.

Step 4: Set Up Plans

For recurring customers, set the plan by minimum days between visits: 180 for twice a year, 365 for yearly, 90 for quarterly commercial arrays. Use the last cleaning date from your spreadsheet so each plan comes due at the right time on the Waiting List. That spreadsheet column of last-cleaned dates is about to retire.

Step 5: Collect Cards as Cleanings Come Due

Do not try to move every customer to card on file in one week. As each customer comes due:

• Text them a few days ahead with the customer app link and a short note that they can add a card for automatic payment.
• Include the same link on their invoice after the cleaning.
• Let customers who prefer paying by hand pay online in the app instead.

New customers sign up through the website sign-up form, which captures a card from day one. Over one full cleaning cycle, most of your list moves over.

Step 6: Retire the Ticket Book

Once techs are running their day on the tech app, with jobs in route order, panel details on each card and Complete creating the invoice, the paper ticket book has nothing left to do. Keep old paper and spreadsheet records for your accountant, but stop adding to them. Running two systems side by side for long is how jobs get billed twice or not at all.

Pick a clean cutover date, ideally the first of a month, and from then on everything goes through the software.

Before that date, collect what is still owed under the old system. Make a list of open invoices from your notebook or spreadsheet and follow up on them the old way until they are paid or written off. Starting fresh with a clean slate is much easier than trying to move half-paid paper invoices into new software.

What Changes After the Switch

The first thing most owners notice is the weekend coming back. No more typing up a week of tickets. Invoices go out when jobs are done, cards are charged at completion and past-due follow-up runs on its own. The second thing is knowing where the money is: open invoices, declined cards and monthly statements are in one place instead of three notebooks.

If you are still comparing options, the next guide, Choosing Solar Cleaning Billing Software: What to Check Before You Switch, lists what to look for. For the full billing picture, visit the solar cleaning billing software page.