“What Should I Add in Office Cleaning Contracts?” | Professional Cleaners

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Are you looking for “what should I add in office cleaning contracts?” as a professional cleaner?  Well you’ve come to the right place!

Cleaning contracts can be a simple one-page document or 10 pages full of details explaining what you’ll clean and the type of towels you’ll use to clean.  Lol!!! The details are really up to you.  However, here are 10 components you should always add in office cleaning contracts, no matter what.

 

Regardless if you’re performing a one time post-construction cleaning or a move-out cleaning, every cleaning service agreement should have these outlined basics.  It’s crucial for you and your customers.

 

If you’re performing recurring commercial office building cleaning services, you most definitely should have a signed and detailed document.  It should highlight everything from the start and end dates to the work specifications.

 

“What Should I Add in Office Cleaning Contracts?” 

1. Name both parties entering the contract.  List the name, address, phone number for both, you and your customer.  Also list the service location, which may be different than their main office/ billing location.
2. The proposal. Clearly state what you propose to do.  Outline exactly what you’re doing.  General cleaning, detail cleaning, post construction cleaning – make it plain and simple what you’re doing.
3. Write out how often things will be cleaned.  This is especially useful if your job site calls for specifications such as nightly trash removal, vacuum 3 times a week, or clean windows weekly.  (It’s best to state the frequency of everything you will do.  Including an office building cleaning schedule could be useful to keep all expectations disclosed.)

*** By the way, if you are looking for a fantastic way to collect job site information to bid your next commercial cleaning site, check out the office Customer Profile Worksheets that we used.

 

These sheets helped us to identify the problem areas of each office.  Helped to keep track of the square footage for each room for future detail cleaning or even special sanitizing services.  And, they made it easy to create office cleaning checklists too.

 

4. Start and end date.  All janitorial service contracts should have an end date and most definitely a start date.  It keeps everything binding.
5. Agreed Payment.  An agreed upon payment amount needs to be clearly written out in the contract.  It’s also acceptable to have added charges for additional work orders.  Example:  If you were contracted to provide general cleaning for an office building for $1,000 per month, but the owner wanted carpet cleaning and disinfecting services added.  You can add a line to stipulate that carpet care services will be an additional $600 per cleaning.  This happens all the time.
6. Terms of Payment.  If you invoice every 30 days, you should include that in the cleaning contract.  Also include the net payment, it could be 10, 15, or 30-day net.  It is important to add this information in the cleaning service contract.  Also, state if there will be a late payment penalty and by how much.  Additionally, you can add a line that says early payments receive a 1.5% discount.  (That’s completely up to you.)
7. Signatures authorizing the agreement.  Both parties, you, the professional cleaner, and your customer, should sign the service contract.
8. Copies of license, insurance, bond, special certifications can also be included. It shows your legitimacy and authority.
9.  References.  Some companies will go as far as including a list of their other customers to show that they’re trustworthy and reliable.  Hey, it never hurts.
10. Termination clause.  If anything happens with you or with your customer, there needs to be something in writing that is fair for both parties.  No contract should continue if either party needs to end it.   And, if you chose, you can state any cancellation fees.

 

There are also service contract legalities that should not be ignored.  Depending upon your local business affairs office, find out what is absolutely necessary for you to add in professional office cleaning contracts.

 

Due to recent events, (2020), it may be wise to research what has changed for the cleaning industry when signing long-term contracts.  Stay informed with the current trends.

 

If ever you need to know what is legal and what is required for a legal service agreement, simply Google it for your particular service area.  Also, a great resource to help small professional cleaning services with cleaning contracts is SCORE.

 

Score.org is a great resource for small professional commercial cleaning services looking for direction, resources, workshops, tips and tools.  They also provide mentoring for new professional service-based businesses.  Most programs are free or at a low cost and they offer online learning centers. Click the link and check them out!

 

 

Ultimately, having an office cleaning contract protects your business in 2 ways. 

• Explains the expectations for both you and your customers.
• Legalizes your agreement for compensation for services rendered.

 

What matters most is the business relationship between you, the cleaning contractor, and your customer.  The professional office cleaning contract should reflect a mutual exchange of value between you both.  Trust me, it really makes a difference to have everything in writing.

 

In our personal experience, we almost lost our most lucrative commercial cleaning contract.  And, if we didn’t have a sound contract in place before our customer had a takeover, we would’ve lost over $12,000.00 a month and had to lay off 5 employees.

So, having important information in your commercial cleaning contracts is important.

 

I don’t want you to read and click away, take a peek at this take-a-way assignment so that you can apply what you’ve just read.

 

TAKEAWAY: Before you go on your next commercial cleaning walk-through, research your local business affairs office, (city, state, county, or province), to find out what is legal to have in a professional office cleaning contract.  Then, consider adding the 10 components outlined here in this article.  Next, grab your INSTANT ACCESS DOWNLOAD, customer profile worksheets for office cleaning.  Lastly, create your very own cleaning contracts.  Since this is for your business, you can get as detailed as you like.

 

 

Conclusion, “What Should I Add in Office Cleaning Contracts?”

As listed above, add the name of both parties, addresses and service location, terms of service – be as detailed as you want, or not.  Write down the start and end dates, payment amount with net terms and late payment penalties.  It is nice to add your business’ license, insurance/ bond, certifications and references too.  But, what will seal the deal is both parties must sign the document!

 

Until next time,

Happy cleaning!!

 

 

“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” — Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker

 

 

I grew my office cleaning side hustle into a ½ million-dollar corporation with the partnership of my husband and our amazing staff. In 2020, I retired my service-based business to shift my focus and passion from serving cleaning clientele to serving cleaning business owners.

 

Utilizing my 27+ years’ experience, I offer free and paid products exclusively for cleaning business owners and cleaning side hustlers at A Janitor’s Story® Website and my VIP Group Coaching Membership App.

 

I’ve served other cleaning pros by helping them to turn one time cleaning jobs into high paying recurring customers, create excellent client retention practices, develop hiring systems that really work, build marketing techniques that convert and so much more.

 

If this is a place you’d like to explore, I’d love to serve you too. Simply sign up to my free weekly email newsletter for tips and inspiration. I can’t wait to meet you inside.