Cleaners
What belongs on a cleaning invoice
Four things that decide whether a cleaning invoice gets paid or gets a phone call. The generator further down opens with the lines already in it.
Regular work should be invoiced on a fixed cycle, and the invoice should say which period it covers. “Weekly clean, 4 visits, September” is a line that gets paid; “cleaning” is a line that gets queried.
One-off deep cleans and end-of-tenancy work are a different product from a regular clean and should never appear at the regular rate. The hours are longer, the standard is different, and the customer is usually a landlord rather than the occupier.
Materials are usually yours and usually invisible. If you supply them, say so once on the invoice — it is a reason your figure is higher than the person quoting labour only.
Key holding and access arrangements are worth a line on the first invoice of a contract. It records what was agreed at a time when nobody is arguing.
Where a clean was refused entry or the property was not as agreed, invoice the visit and note why. A cleaner who absorbs a wasted journey to keep the peace teaches the client that a wasted journey is free, and it will happen again next month.
Note the number of hours and the number of cleaners. A team of two for three hours and one cleaner for six are the same figure and a completely different service, and only one of them explains why the house was done before lunch.
The lines below are real work at plausible quantities, and deliberately carry no prices. A price is a local fact about a local market, and a made-up one would be worse than none.