SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Billing Twice-a-Year and Yearly Solar Cleaning Plans Without Chasing Anyone

Recurring plans are the backbone of a solar cleaning business. A homeowner who signs up for a cleaning twice a year is worth far more over time than one who calls once and forgets about you. But recurring customers only stay profitable if billing them takes almost no effort. If every visit means a fresh invoice, a reminder and a wait, the plan stops being easy money.

The Payment Side Is Already Set

The tools that make recurring billing easy are the ones covered so far: card on file, auto-charge at completion, and the app described in Online Payment in the Customer App: Letting Solar Cleaning Customers Pay in a Few Taps. This guide puts them together for the customers you will see again and again.

Plans Come Due on Their Own

In SolarCleaningBossPro, recurring cleanings are set by minimum days between visits: 180 days for twice a year, 365 for yearly, and 90 for quarterly commercial arrays. When a plan comes due, the cleaning lands on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every cleaning that has come due. Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, or overdue past a 7-day grace.

That matters for billing because a cleaning that never gets scheduled never gets billed. With plans coming due on their own, nobody has to remember that the Garcias are due in April. The office routes them, the crew cleans, and billing follows.

The Same Invoice Every Visit

The panel details on a recurring job — panel count, mount, roof stories, pitch and extras — were entered once and show on every visit after. So the invoice for visit five looks just like the invoice for visit one: the same panel line, the same 2-story add-on, the same tax. Customers who see the same total every time stop checking every invoice, and that is exactly what you want.

The things that should change between visits are the things that actually changed: a one-time bird-proofing install, an added inspection, or new panels added to the system. Anything else on a recurring invoice that looks different from last time deserves a second look before it goes out.

Card on File Is the Whole Game

For recurring customers, card on file turns billing into nothing. The plan comes due, the crew cleans, the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and the card is charged. The customer gets their alerts on service day, their invoice and photos after, and never has to do anything.

Make card on file the default for plan customers. When they sign up for a twice-a-year or yearly plan on the website sign-up form, the card is captured then. Customers who came from an estimate can add one in the customer app before their first visit.

Long Gaps Need a Little Care

Yearly plans have one weakness: a lot can change in a year. Cards expire. Customers move. Gate codes change. Before a yearly customer comes off the Waiting List, it helps to:

• Send a text a week or two ahead: “Your yearly panel cleaning is due. Reply if anything has changed, like a new gate code.”
• Remind them they can update their card in the app if they have a new one.
• Check whether last year's invoice was paid.

These few minutes prevent most declined charges and wasted trips. See Declined Cards on Solar Cleaning Jobs: What Happens Next and How Customers Update Their Card for what to do when a charge fails anyway.

Changing Prices on Plan Customers

Eventually, you will need to raise prices. Fuel, water filters, brushes and insurance all go up. For recurring customers, handle it with notice:

• Update your service list with the new prices.
• Tell plan customers ahead of their next visit, by text or email, what the new price will be and when it starts.
• Apply the change from that visit forward, never on a visit already scheduled at the old price.

Plan customers rarely leave over a clearly announced increase. They leave when the charge on their card is a surprise.

Pausing and Cancelling

Customers sell their homes, go away for a season or decide to clean their own panels. When someone cancels, close the plan so it stops coming due on the Waiting List, and make sure there are no open invoices left. If they are moving, ask whether the new owner might want to keep the plan. A sold house with solar on the roof is a warm lead.

For the full billing system, from card on file to monthly statements, visit the solar cleaning billing software page.