SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Commercial Arrays

Commercial Solar Cleaning Software: The Complete Guide to Running Commercial Array Accounts

Most solar cleaning companies start on houses. A homeowner calls, you count the panels, you clean them, you take a card and you come back in six months. Then one day a warehouse owner calls, or a church, or a man who owns eleven self-storage buildings, and the job looks very different. There are more panels, more people involved, more rules about when and how you get on the roof, and a bill that has to go to an accounts payable inbox instead of a kitchen table.

This guide walks through how commercial work runs inside SolarCleaningBossPro from the first quote to the renewal a year later. It is the starting point for the rest of this series. For the short version of what the software does for commercial work, see the commercial solar cleaning software page.

What Makes Commercial Solar Cleaning Different

A commercial array is not just a bigger house. A few things change at once:

• One customer, many sites. An owner may have a warehouse, two office roofs and a carport. They want one relationship and usually one bill.
• Access is controlled. Roof hatches, keys at the front desk, sign-in sheets, escorts and locked spigots are normal.
• Timing matters. Parking lots fill up, schools have classes, churches have services, and offices do not want water running past the front door at 8am.
• The payer never sees the roof. The person approving the invoice wants proof the work was done, not a promise.
• The schedule repeats. Commercial arrays are often cleaned quarterly, and a missed quarter is the fastest way to lose the account.

Spreadsheets and paper can carry a couple of commercial accounts. Past that, keys get lost, quarters get missed, and the bill goes out six different ways. The rest of this guide covers how each of those problems is handled.

Setting Up the Account: One Client, Many Addresses

In SolarCleaningBossPro, a commercial customer is one client with as many addresses as they own or manage. Each address is its own site on the map, with its own panel details:

• Number of panels
• Mount: roof, ground mount or carport
• Roof stories (1-story, 2-story, 3+ story) and pitch (low, steep or flat roof)
• Extras such as bird proofing, critter guards or an inspection
• Access notes: where the hatch is, who has the key, where to sign in, which spigot to use

Those details are entered once and show on every visit after, both under the address on the office lists and on the tech's phone. A card might read “312 panels · Roof · 1-story · Flat roof · Inspection.”

Tag the client Commercial so you can filter for it later, and use custom fields for things commercial customers care about, such as a facility manager's name, a purchase order number or the accounts payable email. The setup is covered step by step in One Account, Many Addresses: Setting Up Commercial Solar Cleaning Clients.

Quoting Commercial Arrays

Commercial quotes are built from the same service list you use for homes: a per-panel price, a minimum charge, add-ons for stories or steep pitch, bird proofing per panel, critter guards and inspection. On a 300-panel flat roof, the per-panel line does most of the work. On a carport, you might add a line for an early-morning start. The prices are yours to set.

The estimate goes to the customer, they approve it online, and the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job. No retyping the quote into the calendar. For property owners with several sites, quote each address so the approved work lands on the right building. More on that in Quoting Commercial Solar Arrays: Per-Panel Pricing, Add-Ons and Online Approval.

Quarterly Plans and the Waiting List

Commercial arrays usually run on a quarterly plan. In SolarCleaningBossPro, recurring cleanings are set by the minimum number of days between visits: 90 for quarterly, 180 for twice a year, 365 for yearly. When a site comes due it lands on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every cleaning that is due.

Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, and overdue once a site is past a 7-day grace period. That color is what keeps the church from being forgotten. Nobody has to keep a calendar of which building was cleaned in which month. The plan brings it due on its own, and the office drops it onto a truck and a day.

Scheduling, Routes and the Commercial Truck

A common setup once commercial work grows is one truck on homes and one on commercial arrays. The Scheduled List and dispatch board show jobs by day, filter by truck, and set route order either by hand or with auto-route (Closest First or Furthest First from the shop).

For commercial routes, the order by hand often wins. The carport goes first, before the lot fills. The office building goes after 5pm or on Saturday. The warehouse with a dock entrance can go mid-morning. Whatever order the office sets on the board is the order the crew sees on their phones.

On Site: Access Notes, Photos and the Tech App

The tech app runs in the browser on iPhone and Android and can be installed to the home screen. Techs sign in with your company login and a personal PIN, see the day's jobs in route order, tap the navigation button, and read the panel details and access notes on each card. They tap Start, Skip or Complete, take before-and-after photos, and clock in and out. Crew GPS shows on the office map.

On commercial jobs, two parts of that matter most. The access notes, because a crew that cannot find the hatch is a crew standing in a parking lot getting paid. And the photos, because the owner or facility manager is almost never on the roof. A set of before-and-after photos saved with each job is proof of service. Owners who want to see the difference in output can compare their own production app before and after a cleaning.

Billing: One Statement per Account

Homes usually pay by card on file when the job is complete. Commercial accounts usually want a statement. Set a client to Monthly billing and they get one statement each month covering every building or site cleaned that month, with each line labeled with the address. Invoices carry line items and sales tax, customers can pay online, and past-due follow-up handles the ones that sit.

That single statement is often what wins a property owner over. Accounts payable gets one document, the owner can see each building on its own line, and you are not chasing six invoices for one customer.

Talking to Facility Managers

Two-way texting from the office keeps commercial jobs moving. “We're scheduled Tuesday at 6am, can maintenance turn on the north spigot?” gets an answer faster than a voicemail. Replies come back to the office, where anyone can see them. Automated reminders and alerts go out by text and email too. Each plan includes a monthly text allowance (500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received on Start, Pro and Crew).

What This Software Is Not For

SolarCleaningBossPro is built for solar cleaning companies working homes, businesses, carports, farms and property owners with many buildings. Large utility-scale solar farm contracts, with their own bidding, compliance and reporting requirements, are outside the typical use. If that is your main market, read Utility-Scale Solar Farms: An Honest Look at Where This Software Fits before you decide.

Where to Go Next

The rest of this series goes deeper on each piece: winning the first accounts, warehouses, carports, schools and churches, farms, office parks, property owners with many buildings, statements, quarterly plans, roof access, photos, crew size and renewals. Plans are $59, $89 and $199 per month (Start, Pro and Crew), and commercial accounts work on every one. To see everything in one place, head back to the commercial solar cleaning software page.