Cleaning Business Software Tackles Top Janitorial Company Challenges

Is your cleaning business struggling to survive the challenges in our post-Covid world? The number of U.S. commercial cleaning businesses has increased by 20% since 2019, and the global cleaning service market is expected to expand by 86% between now and 2032. Janitorial companies face stiff challenges in our post-Covid world and must adapt quickly to gain a competitive edge. The best solution for your janitorial business is a cleaning business software that tackles these obstacles.

Challenges Faced by Cleaning Businesses

The aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly altered the cleaning industry. A cleaning business owner must overcome obstacles such as labor shortages, employee retention, customer satisfaction, supply chain disruptions, changing regulations, and shrinking profit margins. Janitorial contractors must navigate these trials while balancing a global shift to green cleaning practices and adopting evolving cleaning technologies, including robotics, AI, augmented reality, drone cleaning, and software-driven cleaning equipment.

If you want to set up and run a successful cleaning business, you will need a janitorial software program to address these issues.

The Best Cleaning Business Software Tackles the Top Issues

Cleaning business software emerges as a game-changer, providing a centralized platform to manage diverse aspects of the business efficiently. The best janitorial software has the essentials to tackle the top challenges of janitorial companies - accurate time-tracking and accountability, enhanced field communication with mobile app availability, job scheduling with late and no-show alerts, labor cost reporting, profit forecasting, remote employee monitoring, and employee time theft prevention. By the end of this blog post, you will have a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and features of the best cleaning business software.

Key Takeaways

• Industry Challenges: The commercial cleaning sector faces significant post-Covid challenges, including labor shortages, employee retention issues, and the need to adapt to evolving technologies and green cleaning practices.

• Critical Solution: Cleaning Business Software: To overcome these challenges and gain a competitive edge, cleaning business software emerges as a game-changer, providing a centralized platform for efficient business management.

• Top Benefits of the Best Janitorial Software Solution: Accurate timekeeping and accountability, accurate labor cost reporting, profit forecasting, enhanced field communication, job scheduling with late and no-show alerts, remote employee monitoring, easy payroll preparation and exports, and employee time theft prevention.

Do you want to ensure that your employees are always at the job site when clocking in?

Contents:

• The Top 8 Benefits of the Best Cleaning Business Software
• 1 - Accurate Time Tracking and Accountability
• 2 - Real-Time Labor Cost Reporting
• 3 - Exclusive Job Cost Forecasting
• 4 - Enhanced Field Communication
• 5 - Job Scheduling Software With Late and No-Show Alerts
• 6 - Real-Time Remote Employee Monitoring
• 7 - Easy Payroll Preparation and Exports
• 8 - Employee Time Theft Prevention
• Summary
• FAQs

The Top 8 Benefits of the Best Cleaning Business Software

Three million people work in the United States cleaning industry. Do you use in-house management tools like handwritten timesheets to track time and spreadsheets to schedule cleaning jobs? Your business survival hinges on using cleaning software to help manage employees.

Cleaning business software, a type of field service management software, is designed to streamline daily operations and help janitorial service companies run more efficiently. The top 8 features and benefits of this management software include:

• Accurate time tracking and accountability

• Enhanced field communication with mobile app availability

• Job scheduling with late and no-show alerts

• Labor cost reporting

• Profit forecasting

• Remote employee monitoring

• Easy payroll preparation and exports

• Employee time theft prevention

These features make cleaning business software solutions indispensable tools in tackling the top challenges of janitorial service providers.

Let's examine these janitorial tools more closely, and specifically, how the cleaning business software Chronotek Pro addresses the issues.

1 - Accurate Time Tracking and Accountability

A cleaning business software with GPS mobile timekeeping offers many solutions that address the top challenges of your cleaning business. The automated timekeeping solutions offered by Chronotek Pro help by:

How Pro's Janitorial Software Solution Helps Businesses

• ensuring precise labor cost calculations by employees, cleaning services, projects, and tasks

• promoting employee accountability with improved oversight

• helping janitorial businesses effectively manage their labor costs

• reporting and tracking employee infractions

• preventing overtime spending

• detecting employee time theft

• automatically capturing Department of Labor required employee drive time

• ensuring compliance in other employee-related areas

• cultivating employee retention for employees who want to capture accurate hours

• handling California overtime

Rising labor costs are one of the top challenges for cleaning companies. Accurate timekeeping provided by cleaning business software helps janitorial contractors control and reduce labor expenses. This control over labor costs helps manage and mitigate their shrinking profit margins, which hover around 7%. A customer survey revealed that most of Chronotek's customers saved at least 5% on labor expenses, and 20% saved more than 10%.

Let's delve into labor cost reporting.

2 - Real-Time Labor Cost Reporting

We conducted a survey a few years ago and asked our customers one question - "If you see that a job cost you $100 more this week than last week, what would you do about it?"

One customer responded, "I would dig in to see if there were variables that would have affected the hours used. After researching the cause, I would find places to cut costs to get us back on track."

We built Chronotek Pro cleaning business software for this customer.

Chronotek Pro's cleaning business software solution offers an array of labor cost reporting tools essential for managing a service business's financial aspects. These job-costing tools eliminate your need to "dig in." Pro gives you real-time visibility of labor dollars spent at each job site by day, week, and pay period broken out by tasks, such as carpet cleaning, floor cleaning, etc. Pro breaks down these labor dollars by regular, overtime, travel, and paid time off. A job costing analysis screen reports when jobs go over budget.

Live Labor Cost Reporting

The Chronotek Pro image below shows a list of jobs with the following labor cost information:

• The total daily and weekly labor costs for each job compared to their budgets

• The total daily and weekly labor costs across all cleaning jobs compared to their budgets

• The weekly hours breakdown by regular, overtime, travel, and PTO (if applicable)

• The screen can also show labor dollars by employee and future scheduled labor dollars, including overtime and travel

Additionally, Chronotek Pro's cleaning software offers several other daily and weekly reports by employees and customers.

In sum, Chronotek Pro's cleaning business software has an arsenal of job-costing tools that helps janitorial companies attack and defeat their biggest enemy - shrinking profit margins.

Let’s examine how you can better make money by seeing the future.

3 - Exclusive Job Cost Forecasting

One of the top challenges for cleaning businesses involves customers awarding contracts to the lowest possible bids. Competition is fierce! One of the best solutions for remaining competitive in a tight market is seeing your future labor dollars.

Chronotek Pro's job scheduling software integrates job budgets and employees' pay rates into its profit-tracking features. The employee pay rates are "loaded," meaning your total labor cost for an employee includes:

• base rate +

• payroll taxes (7.65%) +

• workers' comp +

• benefits.

You'll know who is scheduled for cleaning jobs, their pay rates, the frequency of the cleanings, your job budgets, and your desired profits. Chronotek Pro's cleaning software takes your work plan and forecasts your future spending, revealing if you will make or lose money and if you have unplanned overtime and travel pay. Adjust your schedules when you see job budgets turning red and get back on the profit track.

You can also track time for independent contractors without using "loaded pay rates" and without accruing overtime.  

Seeing the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end is your secret weapon to topple the top challenges in your cleaning business and the best way to recession-proof your business. The future is just a few clicks away.

4- Enhanced Field Communication

Did you know that 86% of employees and executives report poor communication and collaboration as the main reasons for workplace failures? Yet, effective communication can raise productivity by 25%. Enhancing team communication and collaboration is crucial for the success of commercial cleaning businesses. Cleaning business software addresses this need by offering mobile app accessibility and real-time updates on task assignments and progress.

With better communication and collaboration tools, cleaning companies can improve client happiness, streamline operations, and foster a positive work environment for their employees.

Let's examine how mobile app accessibility helps cleaning businesses in two essential areas: field communication and field management.

Better Communication

The smartphone app of Chronotek Pro's cleaning business software has team and job boards and company-wide and private messaging for maximum team engagement. This enhanced field communication allows high-level collaboration as supervisors and employees stay connected throughout the day.

Employees remain engaged with an open flow of communication with their supervisors, including opportunities for feedback, updates, and questions. Supervisors can post job instructions on job boards and keep each team member apprised of important events on team boards. Good communication promotes employee retention for your janitorial company.

Improved Field Management

The Chronotek Pro smartphone app has activity feeds and push notifications to keep remote supervisors on top of employee clock-in events and infractions throughout their shifts. The supervisor's app also flags warnings about employee activity for the supervisors to review.

5 - Job Scheduling With Late and No-Show Alerts

Using cleaning business software to schedule cleaning jobs can organize business operations and reduce the stress of overseeing cleaning services. Chronotek Pro's cleaning software has scheduling tools that integrate job budgets with schedules to forecast how you allocate your labor dollars.

Chronotek Pro's scheduling software offers the following benefits that help cleaning businesses overcome their top challenges:

Pro's Smart Scheduling Tools

• Shows future scheduled labor cost allocation across jobs to combat shrinking profit margins

• Forecasts future scheduled overtime and travel hours

• Promotes customer retention with late and no-show alerts and by revealing gaps in job coverage. Customer approval is essential as repeat business contributes the most significant portion of revenue at 37%, while the majority of the workload, 55%, is attributed to recurring and maintenance services. 

• Maximizes productivity by helping operations run smoothly and seamlessly, particularly beneficial in times of labor shortages, as 61% of contractors said staffing was a significant risk to growth in 2024

• Aids in employee monitoring

• Ensures that managers assign cleaning jobs to employees with the proper skills and certifications

Let's discuss how Chronotek Pro's cleaning software is an eye in the field for commercial cleaning businesses. 

6 - Real-Time Remote Employee Monitoring

Commercial cleaning businesses have a unique challenge managing remote employees - employees are mobile, and you can't be everywhere. Nagging questions plague your sleep:

Do your cleaning employees clock in away from the jobsite?

Do they leave the jobsite while on the clock?

You need GPS employee management software that calms the chaos and returns control to you.

Chronotek Pro's cleaning software has GPS technology that can detect when an employee breaches the jobsite geofence while still on the clock. Pro sends a real-time push notification to the employee's supervisor and flags the admin site with a "left job" issue tile. Admins can see the employee's time card map, which shows where the employee traveled while on the clock.

Cleaning business software is essential for addressing challenges like customer approval, quality control, and dwindling profit margins. Your success depends on the level of real-time visibility your mobile timekeeping software provides. Answers should be just a few clicks away.

7 - Easy Payroll Preparation and Exports

Live, online time cards are ready when you are. Supervisors and payroll administrators using the best software for janitorial management can consistently approve online timesheets without waiting to retrieve handwritten weekly time records.

Automating and streamlining the payroll process - timesheet collection, editing, approval, and processing, saves admin time (which saves money) and saves money in an unexpected way - costly admin mistakes. Reading and typing mistakes can cost up to 8% of your annual gross payroll.

Chronotek Pro's cleaning software has employee pay profiles that tailor pay rates for specific cleaning services. Make databases featuring pay codes and distinct pay rates for particular cleaning jobs, and quickly transfer the information to your payroll services using matching pay codes. For exempt individuals such as contractors or salaried employees, establish profiles that automatically exempt their hours from overtime calculations, ensuring a clear separation during payroll preparation.

Chronotek Pro has several payroll company exports to simplify payroll processing. You can stop manually entering employee hours into these payroll services: ADP, Paychex, Paycom, and PDP.

Adopting automated cleaning business software to eliminate human error with timesheets is a low-hanging tactic for eliminating payroll waste. All commercial cleaning businesses should take advantage of this software.

8 - Time Theft Prevention

Did you know that employee time theft costs U.S. employers more than $400 billion annually in lost wages and productivity?

Let that sink in.

Now ask yourself, how much of that $400 billion is your share, and how is it impacting your struggling profit margins?

A cleaning business with remote employees requires the best solutions to track and manage its workforce. One form of time theft is when employees clock in away from the jobsite location. Your cleaning company can't afford it when employees clock in from their cars either.

How does a janitorial manager ensure employees are in the building ready to work when they clock in? With cleaning business software that understands you.

TimeTiles™ by Chronotek Pro

TimeTiles™ are 2" square clock-in tiles that use NFC technology to ensure your employees are at the jobsite when clocking in. Employees must tap the TimeTiles™ with the Chronotek Pro app to clock in. NFC is Near Field Communication, and the emphasis is on near. Your employees can't clock in from their cars.

Guaranteeing your employees are in the building to clock in and maximize their work time is essential to containing shrinking profit margins and maintaining client satisfaction.

Summary of the Best Cleaning Business Software

Field service companies have faced many top challenges in the post-Covid era, such as labor shortages, employee retention, evolving technologies, and green cleaning practices. These challenges will persist in a very competitive environment. Cleaning business software is essential to address these issues and gain a competitive edge in a rapidly growing industry.

Chronotek Pro's cleaning business software has many key features to tackle the top challenges of janitorial businesses, including:

• accurate timekeeping and accountability
• visible labor cost reporting
• exclusive profit forecasting
• enhanced field communication
• job scheduling with late and no-show alerts
• remote employee monitoring
• easy payroll preparation and exports
• employee time theft prevention using TimeTiles™.

Choosing the right cleaning business software depends upon your company's needs and goals. Do your due diligence. Compare features and pricing, ask pertinent questions about pricing structure, customer support, job cost reporting, no-show alerts, compliance, and time theft prevention. Then adopt and adapt!

Help is just a few clicks away for your cleaning business.

FAQs

Q: What challenges do cleaning businesses face in the post-Covid era?

A: The industry grapples with issues such as labor shortages, employee retention, changing regulations, supply chain disruptions, shrinking profit margins for cleaning services, and the need to adapt to evolving cleaning technologies and green practices. Choosing a cleaning business software is a step in the right direction.

Q: How have U.S. cleaning businesses grown since 2019?

A: The number of U.S. cleaning businesses has increased by 20% since 2019. The global cleaning services market is expected to expand by 86% between now and 2032.

Q: Why is cleaning business software a game-changer for cleaning businesses?

A: Cleaning business software is a cloud-based platform and is a game-changer as it provides a centralized platform to efficiently manage various aspects of the business, addressing challenges like labor management, communication, and financial operations. The best solution will equip you to get more business.

Q: What are the benefits of cleaning business software?

A: The benefits of cleaning business software include accurate timekeeping, enhanced field communication, job scheduling with alerts, labor cost reporting, profit forecasting, remote employee monitoring, easy payroll preparation, exports, and employee time theft prevention.

Q: How can cleaning business software address labor shortages and employee retention issues?

A: By offering key features like accurate timekeeping, accountability, scheduling, and enhanced field communication, the cleaning business software helps your cleaning business effectively manage your workforce and cleaning services and promotes employee retention. 

Q: How does Pro's cleaning business software contribute to accurate timekeeping?

A: Chronotek Pro utilizes GPS timekeeping to ensure precise labor cost calculations, promote employee accountability, and prevent issues like overtime spending and employee time theft. GPS tracking is essential for your cleaning business with remote employees.

Q: How does Pro's profit forecasting help cleaning businesses in a competitive market?

A: The profit forecasting feature integrates job budgets, schedules, and employee pay rates to predict future spending, helping cleaning business owners remain competitive by making informed decisions and adjusting schedules as needed.

Q: How does field communication help a cleaning business succeed?

A: Chronotek Pro's app improves team communication, collaboration, and real-time updates on janitorial services, leading to improved customer satisfaction, streamlined operations, and a positive work environment. It's time for your cleaning business to ditch personal group texts and emails. 

Q: How does cleaning business software improve job scheduling, especially with late and no-show alerts?

A: Cloud-based cleaning business software helps organize operations by providing job scheduling tools that allocate labor dollars efficiently, promote customer retention with alerts, and maximize productivity during labor shortages.

Q: How does Pro's cleaning business software prevent employee time theft?

A: Chronotek Pro's cleaning business software uses TimeTiles™—2" square clock-in tiles with NFC technology—to ensure employees are on-site when clocking in, preventing time theft by restricting clock-ins from locations outside the job site. TimeTiles™ are the most important tool to come along for your cleaning business since the Hoover. 

Help is just a few clicks away for your cleaning business.