How to write a cleaning contractor invoice

What goes on a cleaning contractor invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a cleaning service document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Attach the schedule of what a visit includes. Rooms, tasks and frequency. It is the entire defense against was that included.
2. Date every visit on a contract invoice. Four dated lines beat one monthly total every time.
3. Price one-off deep cleans by the job, not the hour. Nobody wants an open-ended hourly count on a deep clean.
4. State whether materials and equipment are included. It is a common gap in a cleaning quote.
5. Bill extras as their own lines. Oven, carpets, windows and appliances are add-ons, not part of a standard visit.
6. For move-out work, reference the property and the check-out. That invoice is going to a landlord or an agent, not the person who booked it.

The lines a cleaning contractor invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Cleaning service. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $825 before tax.

How to write a cleaning invoice, step by step

1. List the visits from your calendar with dates. Open the cleaning service invoice and enter the regular cleans as a count with the dates in the description. Four visits on the 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th cannot be disputed; cleaning services for August can.
2. Price the deep clean as one job. A deep clean is sold on what gets done, not how long it took, so it is one line with a short list: inside the oven, fridge, baseboards and blinds.
3. Add extras the customer asked for on the day. Carpet and upholstery cleaning, inside windows or a garage go on as their own lines. Extras added verbally are the ones customers forget they asked for.
4. State the supplies position. Either bill supplies as a line or write that they are included. A customer who supplies their own products should see that on the invoice too.
5. For move-outs, add the property and check-out date. Landlords and tenants both need the address and the date the clean was done before inspection. Set 14 days and send it the day the keys go back.

Cleaning invoice example, filled in

One month for a regular customer, with the weekly cleans dated, a deep clean before guests arrived, and the living room carpet done on the same day. Each visit has a date, so the customer can match it to their own calendar.

Subtotal $825, tax $82.50, total $907.50. The regular clean line carries the dates in its description, which is what turns a monthly total into something a customer can check. The deep clean is priced by the job, so it would cost the same whether it took five hours or seven.

Regular contracts, and making a recurring invoice unanswerable

A cleaning contract is the easiest recurring invoice to write and the easiest to have queried, because nothing on it changes and the customer stops seeing the value.

Invoice monthly with each visit dated as its own line and the standard schedule referenced. Keep the wording identical month to month. The consistency is the point: an invoice that looks the same every month reads as a service running properly.

Where a visit was missed or moved, show it with the reason rather than adjusting the total silently. Customers rarely object to the money and almost always object to a change they discover rather than one they were told about.

Deep cleans, move-out and pricing a job nobody can estimate by eye

A one-off clean is quoted before anybody has seen the state of the property, which is why hourly pricing on this work is a trap for both sides.

Price by the job against a stated scope, with the property size and the rooms listed. Then state your position on condition: where a property is materially worse than described, additional hours are chargeable at your stated rate with the customer agreement. That sentence is what saves a job that turns out to be twice the work.

Move-out is a special case because the real reader is a landlord or agent deciding on a deposit. Reference the property address, the check-out date and the scope covered, and keep the itemization detailed, because the invoice is being used as evidence that the property was professionally cleaned.

Materials, consumables and commercial contracts

Cleaning is one of the few trades where a customer genuinely may not know whether the products are meant to be theirs or yours, and it is worth removing the doubt in writing.

State it on the quote and repeat it on the invoice: materials and equipment supplied, or consumables provided by the client. On commercial work, consumables like paper, soap and bin liners are usually a separate recharged line and should be shown with quantities.

Commercial contracts also need the site, the contract reference and the period covered, with terms in days. An office manager approving a monthly cleaning invoice wants to see the period and the schedule, and nothing else.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how cleaning contractors price the work

Cleaning is priced per visit against a written schedule, or by the job for one-off work. Hourly pricing survives only in ad hoc domestic work, because everywhere else it gives the customer an open-ended number they cannot approve in advance.

Whichever model, the schedule is what makes the invoice unanswerable. A customer reading cut, wipe, vacuum, bathrooms, kitchen with four dated visits pays it without thinking. A customer reading cleaning services, one month, asks what they got.

Working out what to charge

Cleaning prices depend on your area, the size of the home and how often you visit, so no figure on a web page fits your round. The service price calculator builds a per visit price from your own time and travel, and the recurring invoices page sets up the monthly invoice once.

Getting paid once it is sent

Regular customers are best billed monthly in arrears on a fixed date; new deep clean customers pay a deposit when they book, because a one-off job is the one most likely to be cancelled on the morning. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether a cleaning contractor gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost cleaning contractors money

• Cleaning services as the only description. Nobody can tell what was included.
• Undated monthly totals. The customer cannot confirm the visits happened.
• Hourly pricing on deep cleans. An open-ended figure the customer cannot accept in advance.
• Materials position unstated. An argument at the door on the first visit.
• Move-out invoices with no property reference. Useless as the evidence the customer actually needed.

Cleaning service invoice questions

Free cleaning contractor invoice template

The free cleaning contractor invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 20 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for cleaning contractors

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to cleaning contractors rather than in general. The four marked links open with cleaning service already selected.