It’s no secret that contract cleaners are under growing pressure to provide ever expanding benefits to clients. Mobile Quality Audits, Customer Portal and Time & Attendance have been hot topics in the last few years, and as a result an ever-growing number of software providers have popped up in these areas.

Cleaning Companies that adopt these “quick-and-easy” solutions without applying structural system change gain little to no benefit. They may offer a new feature to clients, but at what price? It’s added yet another system to learn, feed and manage onto an ever-growing list. If your business is in this cycle, the following may sound familiar:

• Finding accurate reports quickly is impossible, because they need to be manually created from various systems. They may not always be accurate either!
• Information is entered into many systems. There is always a lag!
• Contract information is scattered all over the place. Excel, Outlook, Finance & Payroll each hold pieces of the puzzle. There is no one version of the truth!
• There is no clear indication of what is being missed, you only find out when clients complain

No isolated piece of software, however innovative it may be solves the problem of an unstructured, unintegrated system strategy. So, what does the solution look like?

1 – Fully Integrated: Operations, Payroll and Finance

How many systems in your business holds the following Site based information?

• Budgets
• Invoicing (Contracted, Additional Work, Stock Recharge)
• Periodicals
• Quality Audits
• Materials, Consumables and Recharge Stock with SDS’s
• Staff Rosters with Award Details
• Employee training records
• Equipment items and T&T dates
• Subcontractor agreements
• Profit & Loss Reporting

Having one solution to control this vital record and all transactions related to it, is the foundation of a healthy cleaning company. This is a principle that cannot be ignored.

Now consider Additional Chargeable Work. How many systems are involved in the following process?

• Quoting the client for the work
• Raising a Work Order and scheduling it with staff or a subcontractor
• Confirming the work has been performed to standard and completing it
• Invoicing the client
• Paying the staff or subcontractor and not exceeding budget
• Tracking the client’s payment of the invoice
• Accruing for the costs if the subcontractor has not invoiced yet
• Submitting BAS/TPAR/STP to the ATO

If the answer is not one, then the foundation is not set for efficient transaction processing in your business.

One of our clients, David Johnson who is the General Manager at Zippy Cleaning & Maintenance Services describes the benefits of an integrated solution as follows:

“To have been able to eliminate three software packages into one has been a game changer for Zippy, this has allowed us to see our business in real-time with data we can trust. “

2 – Out-of-the-box software that fits your Cleaning Business

It’s vital to select software that was designed for your industry, because it comes with features designed the way you need it. All of our clients have been through the experience of “bending” Standard Accounting, Payroll or CRM systems to cater for the idiosyncratic nature of the cleaning industry.

These attempts cost a lot of money and time! It’s an endless money pit which is exacerbated when one of the systems needs an upgrade. Implementing new systems is hard enough, so make sure the solution you choose delivers from day one.

3 – Mobilize your field staff, properly

The need for Quality Audits brought many new apps to the market. Field staff quickly jumped on the opportunity to throw away paper forms and replace them with PDF generating apps that emailed clients completed forms. As these Apps brake rule number one (having an integrated solution) they provided no additional features that could assist Managers in other areas of their work.

What about the other functions Area Managers perform?

• Raising quotes
• Raising additional Work Orders
• Completing jobs including Periodicals
• Raising Stock Orders
• Tracking site budgets
• Raising Service Requests such as customer complaints and following them to completion
• Completing staff training forms whilst on-site

It’s not feasible to have a separate App for each of the above. So, the only solution is one Mobile App that does it all as part of an integrated solution.

How can we help?

Facility ERP specialises in providing Fully Integrated ERP Solutions to the Cleaning Industry. Our clients take systems seriously by building efficiencies from the ground up.

Templa CMS is a Contract Management System designed for the Cleaning Industry. It does not have to be bent to fit your business, like most off the shelf applications. The benefits are clear:

• It is designed specifically for contract cleaning and reflects cleaning pay structures
• You no longer need to enter the same client data to multiple systems, saving time and reducing the potential for administrative errors
• You further reduce admin by computerising time consuming tasks such as ordering and invoicing consumables
• ‘Touch of a button’ reporting means you know the cost of your pay run before you process it. In fact, all costs and revenues can be budgeted and analysed down to site level
• Area Managers can view and amend payroll data online and in real time, saving their time and your payroll department’s time
• You can schedule known future events in advance such as annual contract increases or periodic work, reducing the risk of clients not being charged correctly or at all
• Field managers perform site-based tasks on their mobile devices, with data transmitting automatically to and from HQ
• You can share key information with clients, fostering more trusting relationships

Where to start?

If you are serious about giving your business the right system foundations, give us a call. We will arrange a consulting session to tell you where the issues lie and what can be done to resolve them.

Some of the leading Commercial Cleaning Companies in Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland and Island have laid the foundation for their business to grow with our solutions.

Call us on 03 8899 6683 or email info@facilityerp.com.au