SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Billing From the Truck: The Owner-Operator's Solar Cleaning Payment Routine

A lot of solar cleaning companies are one person and one truck. The owner quotes the jobs, climbs the ladders, runs the pure-water system, answers the phone between roofs and does the books at night. For that owner, billing has to fit into the gaps of a full day on the tools, or it does not happen at all.

The Same Billing, Just One Person

Everything covered so far, ending with Billing Solar Cleaning Customers in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, applies to a one-truck business too. The difference is that there is no office to hand things to. The routine below is built so the phone in your pocket does most of the office work.

Before the Season: Set It Up Once

An hour of setup saves a hundred evenings. Before the busy season:

• Build the service list. Per-panel price, minimum charge, story and steep-pitch add-ons, bird proofing per panel, critter guards, inspection.
• Set your sales tax after checking with your accountant.
• Put the sign-up form on your website so new customers sign up and leave a card on file without a phone call.
• Import your existing customers with a CSV import. Their addresses are placed on the map automatically.
• Enter panel details on each job: panel count, mount, roof stories, pitch, extras and access notes like the spigot location and gate code.

In the Morning: Check the Day

Open the Scheduled List and look at the day's route. Before leaving the shop, glance at which stops have a card on file and which do not. For the few without one, you know an invoice will need paying by hand. A quick text the night before (“See you tomorrow. You can add a card in the app so we can charge it when we're done”) often fixes that before you arrive.

On the Roof: Complete Is the Invoice

On each job, the routine on the phone is short: Start when you arrive, before photos, clean, after photos, Complete. When you tap Complete in the tech app, the invoice is created from the job with the right lines, and the card on file can be charged. You are paid before the ladder is back on the rack.

The customer gets their on-the-way and arrived texts automatically, and the invoice with photos after. You never had to stop and type anything.

If you cannot do a job because of rain, a locked gate or no water at the spigot, tap Skip with a note. No invoice, no charge, and the note reminds you why when you reschedule.

Between Roofs: Answer Questions by Text

Owner-operators lose a lot of time to phone calls they cannot take on a ladder. Two-way texting from the office side of SolarCleaningBossPro lets you answer billing questions when you are back on the ground, in writing, with the job's photos and invoice right there. Customers who want to pay just pay in the customer app, so you do not have to take card details by phone.

At the End of the Day: Ten Minutes

Before you head home, spend ten minutes on the money:

1. Check that every job you finished shows Complete. The last stop of a long day is the one most often missed.
2. Look at any charges that failed and text those customers the link to update their card.
3. Send estimates for anything you noticed on roofs today, like pigeon nests that need bird proofing.
4. Look at tomorrow's route.

That is the whole day's billing. No kitchen-table invoicing session, no stack of paper tickets in the cupholder.

Once a Month: The Review

Set aside half an hour at month end to look at what was billed, what was collected and what is still out. The checklist is in The Month-End Billing Review: A Short Checklist for Solar Cleaning Owners. For a one-person business, this is also the time to put money aside for slow months and taxes.

Growing Past One Truck

The nice thing about this routine is that it grows with you. When you add a second truck and a tech, they log in with your company login and their own PIN, see their own route, and tap Complete the same way you do. Their jobs are invoiced and charged just like yours. Your billing does not change; there is simply more of it. For how billing scales from one truck to many, see the solar cleaning billing software page.