SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Recurring Cleanings

Not Due, Due Now, Overdue: Reading the Pin Colors on a Solar Cleaning Plan Map

A map full of pins is only useful if you can tell at a glance which ones need attention. On the SolarCleaningBossPro Waiting List, every plan cleaning is colored by where it stands: not due yet, due now, or overdue. Those three colors are the fastest way to see whether your recurring customers are being served on time.

Where the Colors Come From

How Recurring Solar Cleanings Come Due on the Waiting List covered how plan cleanings land on the map. The color of each pin comes from one comparison: how many days have passed since the last completed cleaning, against the plan's minimum days between visits.

A twice-a-year home cleaned 150 days ago is still counting toward 180. A quarterly array cleaned 92 days ago has passed its 90. A yearly home cleaned 375 days ago is past 365 and past the grace. The colors make that visible without anyone doing the math.

Not Due Yet

A not-due-yet pin is a plan customer whose minimum days have not passed. They are on a plan, the clock is running, and there is nothing to do yet.

These pins are still useful. If a truck has room on a route and a plan customer two doors down is close to due, you can choose to clean them early, as long as the customer is happy with it and it makes sense for their panels. Since the next count starts from whenever the cleaning is completed, cleaning a little early simply shifts the plan forward.

Use judgment. A twice-a-year customer cleaned two months early has paid for a cleaning they may not have needed yet, and that is not a good look.

Due Now

Due now means the plan's minimum days have passed and the cleaning is ready to schedule. This is the normal working state of the Waiting List. Most of the week's routes come from due-now pins grouped by area.

A due cleaning does not have to be done that day. That is what the grace is for. It gives the office room to group due homes into sensible routes instead of chasing each address the moment it turns.

Overdue and the 7-Day Grace

If a due cleaning sits past a 7-day grace without being completed, it turns overdue. Overdue pins stand out from everything else on the map.

Overdue usually means one of a few things:

• A rain week pushed the route and these homes did not get rescheduled.
• A visit was skipped for a locked gate or nobody home, and the follow-up slipped.
• The busy season simply got ahead of the office.

Whatever the cause, overdue pins are the first ones to schedule. They are the customers most likely to notice they have been forgotten, and they are a plan you are at risk of losing. Skipped visits have their own guide in Skipped Visits on a Recurring Solar Cleaning Plan: Rain, Locked Gates and Nobody Home.

Using the Colors to Plan a Week

A practical order for building the week from the map:

• Overdue first. Put every overdue pin on a truck and a day.
• Due now, grouped by area. Fill the rest of each day with clusters of due homes, and give commercial arrays their own truck or day.
• Not due yet, only to fill. Use nearby not-due-yet pins to round out a route when it helps the customer.

Then auto-route each truck Closest First or Furthest First from the shop, or set the order by hand.

What the Colors Tell You About the Business

Over a season, the colors also tell you something about the business. A map with a few overdue pins after a storm is normal. A map that is overdue across whole neighborhoods means you have sold more plans than your trucks can serve, and it is time to think about another tech or another truck day.

On the other side, a map with almost nothing due for weeks in midwinter tells you when you have room for one-time work, commercial projects or a push to sign up new plan customers. More on that in Keeping the Solar Cleaning Schedule Full Year-Round With Recurring Plans.

The colors also help when a customer calls. If a homeowner asks when you are coming, the office can find their pin and see right away whether they are counting down, due now or late. That makes for an honest answer, and a quick apology and a firm day when the pin is overdue.

Three Colors, No Spreadsheet

Not due, due now, overdue. That is all the office needs to keep every plan on time. To see the Waiting List alongside plans, billing and the tech app, visit the recurring solar cleaning software page.