Surely cleaning is a manual labor job and requires the basics; a mop, brush or a cloth? Where does IT and software fit into this? Well, with many new and innovative IT and software products constantly coming onto the market keeping abreast of these is the first thing office cleaning companies need to do.
But are any of them any good and what use are they to office cleaning companies ? Well cleaning often does come down to manual labor and there are many innovative products used in the process of cleaning itself (many of which we have covered here before) but cleaning companies need, for good or bad, a high level of understanding of IT and software if they wish to compete in today's ever increasing competitive market place.
Due to the number of people involved when running a cleaning company and the complexity of trying to keep abreast of legislation and to be able to access data rapidly and accurately IT and software is going to be inevitable.
Firstly all cleaning companies need a CRM or customer relationship manager program, these come in many flavors but all do essentially the same thing, they mean (if you ensure you update it) you have access to your customers details and usually prospective clients, for cleaning companies this would be details such as telephone numbers, addresses, areas to be cleaned, frequency of cleaning etc.
Once you have a good organized CRM in place you will need a to have something similar to organise and collate the data required for employing cleaners .
This information could be fitted into some CRM systems but as you need to pay your staff you will need some payroll software to work out wages and keep up with constantly changing legislation.
To save on duplicating data we here at ICS found it easier to use the payroll software as a CRM for the office cleaners we employ, this has all their contact details as well as the information required to pay them; paye details and hourly rate etc.
With this in place office cleaning companies are staring to get organised and may be able to start the business of cleaning! However there are the usual admin software tools that will be required to deal with day to day admin side of the business, this will require some sort of office suite so you can email and send correspondence.
Most cleaning companies will at some point have to invest in some accounting software, any sound business needs to have an understanding of its cash flow and financial status.
You will also need to be able to raise invoices to get paid, then track and enter payments made to suppliers.
There are many accounting packages out there but take some time and choose carefully because the initial set up is rather painful and will probably put you off changing so try to chose once and correctly.