Guides
Window cleaning bookkeeping: job records and cash flow
Window cleaning bookkeeping: capture six job details, review the books monthly, forecast thirteen weeks of cash, and manage invoice collection.
What to take away
- Profit and cash are different problems. This trade earns steadily and collects unevenly, so the second one is what closes companies.
- Separate the accounts on day one. Mixing personal and business money makes your first year of records useless for pricing.
- Record at the job, not at the weekend. Reconstructed numbers are the reason most owners cannot say what a job costs.
- Build a thirteen-week cash view. It is the only forecast a small route business genuinely needs.
- No figure, rate or threshold appears here. Take tax and accounting questions to a qualified professional for your own jurisdiction.
This is general business guidance rather than tax or accounting advice. Requirements differ by jurisdiction and change, so confirm anything consequential with an accountant.
The five accounts to keep apart
- A business checking account that everything passes through
- A separate account for tax money, moved across on a schedule you keep
- A personal account that receives a regular draw rather than ad hoc transfers
- A card used only for business purchases
- A reserve that is not touched for ordinary shortfalls
The tax account is the one that saves people. Money set aside as it arrives is money that does not have to be found later.
Five accounts, five jobs
Account
- Business checking
- Everything passes through
- Tax account
- Set aside on a schedule
- Personal account
- Regular draw, not ad hoc
- Business card
- Business purchases only
- Reserve
- Not touched for shortfalls
What it is for
- Business checking
- Tax account
- Personal account
- Business card
- Reserve
What to record, and when
Six things per job, captured on site:
Six fields per job
- Arrival and departure time
- Travel time to the job
- Materials used
- Amount invoiced
- Date invoiced and date paid
- Return visit needed
- Arrival and departure time
- Travel time to the job
- Amount invoiced
- Date invoiced and date paid
- Whether a return visit was needed
Everything else in your bookkeeping is derived from these plus your purchases. Capture them at the job, on a phone, before driving away. Nobody has ever reconstructed accurate travel time on a Friday evening.
The standard a system has to reach is described in the Internal Revenue Service recordkeeping guidance, which sets out the expectation that a business can show income and expense clearly and can support what it claims with documents.
The monthly routine
A fixed day each month, same order, roughly two hours once it is established.
The monthly routine
- Reconcile bank to month end
- Categorize every transaction
- Chase unpaid past terms in writing
- Move the tax set-aside across
- Revenue and cost by service type
- Update thirteen-week cash view
- Write two sentences on changes
- Reconcile the bank account to the last day of the month.
- Categorize every transaction. Nothing left as uncategorized.
- Chase everything unpaid past its terms, in writing, without apology.
- Move the tax set-aside across.
- Produce revenue and cost by service type.
- Update the thirteen-week cash view.
- Write two sentences on what changed and what you will do about it.
Step seven is the one that turns bookkeeping into management. Without it, the month is filed rather than read.
The thirteen-week cash view
This is the single most useful financial tool for a small route business, and it fits on one screen.
Thirteen-week cash view
- Cash at start of each week
- Expected receipts, realistic payment dates
- Committed paymentspayroll, vehicle, insurance
- Variable paymentsfuel, consumables, subcontractors
- Cash at end of each week
Across thirteen weeks, list:
- Cash at the start of each week
- Expected receipts, based on when invoices are actually likely to be paid rather than when they are due
- Committed paymentspayroll, vehicle, insurance, rent, loan payments
- Variable paymentsfuel, consumables, subcontractors
- Cash at the end of each week
Two rules make it honest. Use realistic payment dates from your own history rather than your terms. And update it weekly, because a forecast built once is a document rather than a tool.
What you are looking for is the lowest point. If that number is uncomfortable, act six weeks early rather than during the week it happens.
Getting paid faster
Collection in this trade is mostly a process problem rather than a customer problem.
Collection as a process
- Invoice same day work is done
- Take payment on site where possible
- Put terms on the agreement
- Set up recurring payment methods
- Chase on a schedulereminder, call, notice
- Apply your stop-work limit consistently
- Invoice the same day the work is done, not weekly.
- Take payment on site where the customer is present and willing.
- Put terms on the agreement rather than discovering them at the first late payment.
- Set up recurring payment methods for recurring work, which is what makes a route bankable.
- Chase on a schedulea reminder the day after terms expire, then a call, then a written notice.
- Know your own limit for stopping work on an unpaid account, and apply it consistently.
The last one is uncomfortable and it is the reason some companies carry a customer for months. Deciding the rule in advance removes the emotion from the moment.
Seasonality, planned rather than survived
Most window cleaning books have a strong season and a weak one. That is not a problem in itself; being surprised by it is.
Three habits handle it. Build the reserve during the strong months deliberately rather than hoping something is left. Schedule vehicle and equipment spending into the strong months. And look at each month against the same month last year, because comparing a January to a June tells you nothing except what the calendar did.
The financial records nobody thinks about
Your books are not the only records with financial consequences. Insurance certificates, equipment inspection logs and training sign-offs all become financial documents at the moment something goes wrong, because they decide whether a claim is paid. A compliance checklist for new owners lists the certificates and inspection logs.
Your customer and financial data system holds addresses, access codes and photographs of people's homes.
The small business cybersecurity quick start guides from the National Institute of Standards and Technology set out the basics in a form a small company can apply. The small and medium business material from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency covers the practical steps.
Individual accounts, multi-factor authentication, backups you have tested restoring, and prompt removal of access when somebody leaves.
What to hand to an accountant
Hand over the filing and the tax structure. Keep the reading.
An owner who cannot say from memory which accounts are recurring, which service line earns most per hour, and what the lowest point in the next quarter looks like has outsourced the wrong half of the job. The accountant's work is compliance; the cash view is management, and nobody outside the business can do it for you.
Where the numbers go
Bookkeeping feeds directly into three other decisions.
The per-job records here are the raw material for the measures and thresholds set out in the software and KPI guide, which is also where the system holding them is chosen. Cost per job depends on what you run and what it consumes, which is decided in the equipment and setup choices.
Labor is usually the largest line. The pay structure and turnover behind it, covered in the hiring and training guide, move accounts more than any other decision.
Whether the seasonal pattern in your cash view is normal or a warning depends on the shape of demand where you work, part of understanding the market you serve.
Common questions
Do I need an accountant from the start?
For structure and tax filing, usually yes, and the fee is small against the cost of a bad structure. For daily bookkeeping, not necessarily, provided you actually do it.
Cash or accrual accounting?
That depends on your jurisdiction, your size and your circumstances, and it is exactly the question to ask an accountant rather than an article. What matters here is that the choice is deliberate.
How much should I keep in reserve?
Enough to cover the lowest point in your thirteen-week view with room to spare. That is a calculation from your own numbers rather than a rule of thumb, and it changes with the season.
What is the most common bookkeeping mistake in this trade?
Not recording travel time. It makes every job look better than it was, which then makes every price look adequate when it is not.
