SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Commercial Arrays

One Account, Many Addresses: Setting Up Commercial Solar Cleaning Clients

The most common mistake when a solar cleaning company takes on commercial work is setting each building up as its own customer. It works for a month or two. Then the owner wants one bill, the contact person changes and you have to update eight records, and nobody can say how much the account is worth. Getting the structure right on day one saves a lot of cleanup later.

The Structure: Client on Top, Addresses Underneath

The examples in Property Owners With Many Buildings: One Solar Cleaning Customer, Many Roofs show why this matters. This article is the how.

In SolarCleaningBossPro, the client is the person or business you deal with and bill. Addresses are the places you clean. One client can have as many addresses as they need. Think of it this way:

• On the client: the business name, the main contact, phone and email, billing preference, card on file, tags and custom fields.
• On each address: the panel details, access notes, recurring plan, map pin, job history and photos.

Change the contact once on the client and it is right for every building. Change a gate code on one address and only that building's note changes.

Step 1: Create the Client

Add the business as a client with the name the accounts payable people will recognize. Use the main contact for texts and emails, usually the facility manager or owner. Tag it Commercial so you can filter commercial accounts on lists and reports, and so it never gets mixed in with residential reminders that do not fit.

Add custom fields for what this customer needs: a PO number, an accounts payable email, a regional manager, a tax-exempt note. Custom fields are yours to define. More on them in Tags and Custom Fields for Commercial Solar Cleaning Accounts.

Step 2: Add Each Site

Add every building or array as an address. Be specific in the address line when buildings share a street number: “Building B” or “North Carport.” Each address lands on the map.

If the customer gave you a list of twenty sites in a spreadsheet, you do not have to type them. A CSV import brings them in, and imported addresses are placed on the map automatically.

Step 3: Fill In the Panel Details

On each address, or on the first job there, enter:

• Number of panels
• Mount: roof, ground mount or carport
• Roof stories: 1-story, 2-story or 3+ story
• Pitch: low, steep or flat roof
• Extras: bird proofing, critter guards, inspection
• Access notes: hatch, keys, sign-in, spigot, roof access side, gate code, dog

These are entered once and show on every visit after, under the address on office lists and on the tech's phone. If you do not know the panel count yet, fill it in after the first visit.

Step 4: Set the Plans

Each address gets its own recurring plan, set by minimum days between visits: 90 for quarterly, 180 for twice a year, 365 for yearly. Most commercial arrays run quarterly. A customer can have a dusty carport on 90 days and a roof on 180. When each site comes due, it shows on the Waiting List map. One-time cleanings work too, for a customer who wants to try you first.

Step 5: Set the Billing

For a commercial account with several sites, set the client to Monthly billing. They get one statement each month covering every site cleaned that month, with each line labeled by address. For a smaller business that prefers it, the card on file can be charged when each job is completed instead. Invoices include line items and sales tax either way.

Ask the customer how they want to be billed before the first visit, not after. Some companies need a purchase order number on every statement. Some want the bill sent to an accounts payable inbox rather than to the facility manager who hired you. Some have a vendor setup form you need to fill out before they can pay you at all. Write the answers into custom fields on the client so nobody has to ask again next year, and so the statement goes where it needs to go the first time.

What You Get From Doing It This Way

• One bill for the customer, which is usually what they asked for.
• One contact to update when the facility manager changes jobs.
• One history for the whole relationship, so you can see what the account is worth.
• Separate site records, so the crew knows exactly which roof they are on and the photos stay with the right building.

When the customer adds a site, add an address. When they sell one, take it off its plan. To see how this structure supports the rest of commercial work, from quotes to statements, visit the commercial solar cleaning software page.