Carpet cleaning is a different business from recurring house cleaning wearing similar clothes. The work is largely one-off or annual rather than fortnightly, it is priced by room or by square foot rather than by the hour, the van carries equipment whose running cost is real, and the job leaves the customer with a wet floor and a drying time they have to be told about. Software built for maid services will schedule it and price it badly, and this page is about which of those differences actually cost you money.
Pricing by room, by square foot, and by minimum
Carpet work is quoted from a measurement rather than from a duration, and almost every quote has a minimum charge underneath it because the setup time does not shrink with the job. Software that only prices by the hour will make you convert every quote by hand. What you want is a rate per room or per square foot, a stated minimum, and surcharges for the things that genuinely take longer: stairs, heavy soiling, furniture moving, pet treatment.
Machine time, and the cost nobody puts in the price
A truck-mount or a portable extractor has a purchase price, a service interval and a fuel or power cost, and every job consumes a slice of all three. Most carpet businesses price labour and chemicals and treat the machine as already paid for, which works until it needs replacing. Putting an equipment cost per job into the costing is unglamorous and it is the difference between a business that can replace its machine and one that finances it.
Chemicals, the record you are required to keep, and the one you should
Cleaning chemicals in a workplace fall under OSHA's hazard communication standard, which requires labelling, safety data sheets and employee training. That is a legal floor. Above it, recording which product went on which carpet is what protects you when a customer says the colour changed, and it is a field a general scheduling tool will not have.
Drying time and the customer conversation
The most common complaint in carpet cleaning is not the clean, it is the wet. Software that sends a finishing message with the expected drying window and what not to do until then removes most of those calls. It is a small automation with a large effect on how the job is remembered, and it costs nothing to set up once.
Questions people ask about carpet cleaning business software
Can I use maid-service software for carpet cleaning?
For the diary, yes. For the quote, poorly: you will be converting room counts into hours by hand every time.
Should equipment cost go in the job price?
Yes, as a per-job figure. Divide the machine's replacement cost by the jobs you expect from it and put that number in the costing.
Do I need safety data sheets if it is just me?
The hazard communication standard applies to employers with employees exposed to hazardous chemicals. Even where it does not bind you, having the sheets to hand is what you will want the day someone reacts to a product.