Bids are a two-day scramble
Square footage by surface, fixture counts, frequency, loaded labor, supplies, margin. Every RFP wants it this week, and the walkthrough notes are on your phone.
Commercial janitorial
Win the building. Cover the shift. Prove the clean.
A janitorial contract is won on a bid you had to produce in two days, kept by documentation nobody has time to write, and lost on one 6pm no-show. Timber prices the walkthrough off production rates, bills the recurring scope on time, and keeps a record you can put in front of a property manager.
Per sq ftBids built on production rates, not a hunch
RecurringMonthly billing that goes out without a chase
On recordInspections and complaints closed in writing
Why this desk
Why cleaning companies lose accounts they were cleaning fine.
The work was done. There was just nothing to show the property manager when he decided it was not.
Scope creep is unpaid work
“While you are here, can you do the windows.” It becomes permanent, it never becomes a line item, and by month six you are cleaning a bigger building for the old price.
One no-show is the whole account
A cleaner does not show at six. Nobody finds out until the tenant emails at eight the next morning. That is the story the property manager tells at renewal.
Complaints leave no trail
The lobby was raised in March, handled by a supervisor, never written down. At renewal it is your word against a memory, and the incumbent always loses that.
The method
How Timber runs it.
01
Bid the building
Walkthrough photos, a floor plan, or just the numbers you wrote down. Timber breaks it into cleanable areas, applies your production rates, and prices the frequency the RFP asked for — plus the periodics that are the actual margin.
- Areas and fixture counts
- Frequency options priced side by side
- Strip and wax, extraction, windows as lines
02
Staff the schedule
Shifts across every building on one board. Timber knows who is trained for the medical site and who has the floor machine ticket. When somebody calls out, it drafts the coverage message to the people who can actually take it.
- Multi-site shift board
- Training and clearance per site
- Call-out coverage drafted in minutes
03
Bill it and prove it
Recurring invoices go out on the day they should, extras attached to the request that caused them. Supervisor inspections and tenant complaints land on the account with photos, so renewal is a document instead of an argument.
- Monthly recurring, plus periodics
- Extra work traced to who asked
- Inspection scores and closed complaints
On the board
What sits on a janitorial board.
Same operator for eight offices on a nightly and one hospital wing with a compliance binder.
Office and multi-tenant
- Nightly scope priced by area and frequency
- Day porter as its own line
- Tenant requests routed, not lost
- Periodics scheduled a year ahead
Medical and clinical
- Terminal clean scope and checklists
- Training and clearance tracked per cleaner
- Documentation the facility can audit
- Incidents written up the same shift
Schools and public
- Term-time and break schedules
- Summer deep-clean as a bid of its own
- Background checks on file per site
- Board-facing reporting
Post-construction and turnover
- One-off cleans priced from photos
- Rough and final phases separated
- Punch-list rework tracked
- Invoiced before the GC closes the job
From inbound to close
A walkthrough on Tuesday. A bid the property manager can read Wednesday.
Most cleaning bids lose on presentation, not price. A number with the areas, frequencies and production assumptions behind it reads like a company that will still be there in year three.
- Walkthrough photos and counts in
- Areas, frequencies and periodics priced off your rates
- You set the margin and the exclusions
- Bid, contract, recurring invoice and inspection schedule from one record
On the desk
What the operator actually does.
Bids from a walkthrough
Photos, a plan, or scribbled counts become areas and fixtures. Frequency options price side by side so the client picks a level instead of haggling a total.
Periodics as revenue
Strip and wax, carpet extraction, window and pressure washing sit on a schedule with a price. The margin work stops being the thing you forgot to sell.
Coverage when somebody calls out
Timber knows who is trained for that site and who is not already working. It drafts the message. You send it and the shift is covered before the tenant notices.
Cleaners by text
Check-in, check-out and photos by SMS or WhatsApp, in the language they use. No app install for a workforce that turns over twice a year.
Inspections that exist on paper
Supervisor walks score against the scope you sold. Complaints get logged, assigned and closed. Renewal becomes a file, not a feeling.
Recurring billing without a chase
Monthly contracts invoice on schedule, extras attach to the request that caused them, and late accounts get a drafted reminder instead of silence.
The cleaning is not the problem.
Commercial cleaning is a business with dependable revenue and terrible margins, and the margin does not leak on the floor. It leaks in the office: a bid built on a guess, a scope that grew for free, a shift nobody covered, an extra job nobody invoiced, and a renewal conversation with no documentation behind it.
The owner of a thirty-cleaner company is usually the estimator, the scheduler and the account manager at the same time. Adding a coordinator is a real salary against a thin margin, so instead the bids go out slower, the periodics go unsold, and the complaints get handled verbally.
Timber takes that desk. It prices the walkthrough against your production rates and shows the assumptions. It runs one shift board across every building and knows who is trained for which site. It invoices the recurring scope on time and attaches the extras to whoever asked for them. And it keeps the inspections and complaints in writing, so when a property manager says nobody cleaned the lobby in March, you can open March.
Still yours
What stays human.
01
The margin
Timber prices from your rates and shows the math. What you mark it up to is your call, and it will not quietly discount to win.
02
Who you hire
It tracks training, clearance and availability and proposes coverage. Hiring, firing and who you trust in a medical suite stay with you.
03
The client relationship
It drafts the difficult email about scope creep. You decide whether this account gets the firm version or the gracious one.
Cleaning company owners
Send us one walkthrough.
Send photos or counts from a building you are bidding, plus the production rates you use. We will price it and show you the areas and assumptions behind the number. If your rates say we are wrong, we would rather find that out now.
- We price a real building, not a demo file
- Every area and assumption shown
- Thirty minutes, no deck
Or write ivan@felicita.group
Also on Timber
Other desks the operator covers.
FAQ
Common questions
Still deciding? Book a demo and we'll walk through your workflow live.
Contact our teamCan it really bid from a walkthrough?
It turns photos, a plan or your counts into cleanable areas and fixtures, then prices with your production rates. You correct the areas it got wrong — every one is shown, not buried in a total.
Do my cleaners need an app?
No. Check-in, check-out and photos come by SMS or WhatsApp. That matters when your workforce turns over and installs nothing.
How does it handle multiple languages?
Crew messages can go out in the language that cleaner reads. Replies come back into one thread in the office.
Can it invoice recurring contracts?
Yes — monthly recurring for the base scope, with periodics and extra work as separate lines tied to whoever requested them.
What about scope creep?
When a request arrives outside the contracted scope, Timber flags it and drafts either a change order or a polite decline. It will not silently absorb work you are not paid for.
We run forty buildings. Does it scale?
One shift board across every site, with training and clearance per building. Supervisors see their sites, you see all of them.
Put the office side on an operator.
Walkthrough in, defensible bid out. Shifts covered, periodics sold, and a renewal file that argues for you.