PressureWashingBossPro Blog — Crew App

Start, Skip, Complete: The Three Buttons That Run a Pressure Washing Day

A crew app can have a lot of screens. The ones that matter during a washing day come down to three buttons on each job: Start, Skip and Complete. Everything the office knows about the day, and a good part of what the customer hears, comes from those taps.

Before the First Tap

By the time the washer is ready to tap Start, they have read the job details, the access notes and the history covered in Past Notes on the Job: What the Last Wash Tells the Next Pressure Washing Crew. They know what was sold, how big it is, where the water is and what happened last time.

Now the job begins, and the three buttons take over.

Start: The Crew Is on the Job

Tap Start when the work actually begins, not when the rig is still three blocks away. Start tells the office this job is underway, so anyone in the office knows where that rig is in its day without calling.

A good habit is to take the before photos right around the time you tap Start, before the first drop of water hits the surface. Once the driveway is half clean, the before photo is gone for good.

Skip: The Job Is Not Happening Today, and Here Is Why

Not every job gets done. Washers skip jobs for reasons that are usually outside their control:

• Weather. Rain, or wind strong enough to blow soft wash mix where it should not go.
• No water. Spigot dead, shut off, or locked with no key.
• No access. Gate code changed, dog in the yard, cars left on the driveway.
• Customer request. The homeowner walks out and asks to reschedule.

The important part of Skip is the note. “Skipped” tells the office nothing. “Skipped, spigot shut off at the street, customer not home” tells the office exactly what to text the customer and when to put the job back on the schedule. A photo helps too. The details of skipping well are in Skipping a Wash for Weather, No Water or No Access, and Noting Why.

Complete: The Work Is Done

Complete is the big one. When the washer taps it, several things happen at once:

• The office sees the job done, with the photos and notes attached.
• The invoice is created from the job, with its line items.
• The card on file can be charged, so the customer is paid up before the rig leaves the curb.
• Recurring work resets. A monthly storefront will come due again on the Waiting List after its minimum days between visits.

Accounts set to Monthly, such as a restaurant group or an HOA, are not charged at each stop. Their completed jobs roll up into one statement at the end of the month, with each line labeled by address.

Because Complete creates the invoice, it should only be tapped when the work matches the job. If the crew added a patio the customer asked for on site, the office should have added it as a line item first. If part of the job was not done, note it before tapping Complete.

Common Mistakes With the Buttons

A few habits cause most of the confusion in the first weeks:

• Tapping Start in the truck. The office thinks the crew has been on the job for twenty minutes when they were still parking. Tap it when the work begins.
• Forgetting Complete. The crew finishes, packs up and drives off. The job sits open, no invoice is created and the card is not charged. Make Complete the last thing before the rig moves.
• Completing a half-done job. If the driveway could not be done because of a parked car, note it first so the office can adjust the invoice and schedule a return.
• Skipping without a note. The office ends up calling the washer to ask why, which is the phone call the app was supposed to prevent.

Why Three Buttons Is Enough

Washers are working with wet hands, gloves and a running pump. Every extra step in an app is a step that gets skipped. Three buttons cover the three things the office needs to know about any job: it started, it is done, or it is not happening and here is why. Notes and photos fill in the rest.

It also makes training simple. A new washer can learn Start, Skip and Complete in the first hour of a ride-along, and the rest of the app follows from there.

What the Customer Sees

The customer does not see the buttons, but they feel them. On-the-way and arrived texts go out automatically as the crew works the route, and once the job is complete, the invoice shows in the customer app where they can pay it or see that their card was charged. A customer who gets an arrived text, then a paid invoice an hour later, has no reason to call the office.

For the rest of what the crew does on the phone, see the pressure washing crew app overview.