Cleaning inspection form
A blank form is easy to find. Further down this page there is a filled one, from an office building that scored 70 percent, so you can see what the notes are supposed to look like.
The difference between a form that works and a form that gets signed without being read is how the lines are written. A task reads as an instruction and invites a tick. An observable state reads as a question with one right answer.
Dust the baseboards is a task. Baseboards free of mop splash and build-up is a state. Standing in a corridor, two people can disagree about whether the baseboards were dusted, because neither of them was there. They cannot really disagree about whether there is mop splash on them.
That is the whole design principle behind the form below. Everything else is scoring discipline: Pass, Fail or N/A on every line, no partial credit, a photo on every failure, and N/A used honestly rather than as a way to avoid a hard call.
Entrance and Reception
- Entry glass and door hardware free of marks on both faces
- Mats lifted and the floor beneath cleaned
- Reception surfaces and seating dusted, including undersides
- Entry floor clean to the wall line, no build-up at the threshold
Offices and Work Areas
- Desks and clear surfaces dusted without disturbing personal items
- Touchpoints cleaned: door handles, light switches, shared equipment
- Waste and recycling emptied, liners fitted, bin exteriors clean
- Floors vacuumed or mopped including under desks and along baseboards
Restrooms
- Fixtures clean under the rim, at the base and at the floor seam
- Sinks, counters, taps and mirrors clean and streak-free at an angle
- All dispensers stocked to full and feeding correctly
- Floor mopped to the wall, drains clear, no odour at floor level
Break Area and Kitchen
- Counters, sink and taps clean, no residue at the backsplash joint
- Appliance exteriors and handles cleaned, microwave interior as contracted
- Tables and chairs wiped including legs and the underside of table edges
- Waste and organics emptied, no residue in bin bases
Corridors, Stairs and Floors
- Corridor floors clean edge to edge, corners and edges included
- Handrails and door frames wiped along the top and underside
- Stairwell treads and landings free of debris
- Hard floor finish uniform, no mop haze or streaking under overhead light
Detail and Condition
- High dusting current: vents, light fixtures, tops of frames and ledges
- Glass partitions and interior windows free of hand marks
- Janitor closet tidy, chemicals labelled, mop heads hung to dry
- Building damage, leaks and failed lighting reported rather than cleaned around
General checks (site-wide)
- Previous inspection deficiencies verified as fixed
- Every fail on this form has a photo attached
- Any N/A carries a written reason
- Service log signed with date, time and inspector name
- Score calculated as passed items divided by items scored, excluding N/A
How often to inspect
| Weekly | High-traffic sites and any site inside its first 90 days |
| Biweekly | Standard commercial offices with a stable record |
| Monthly | Low-traffic sites and small accounts with no open complaints |
| On complaint | Any site that generates a customer complaint, inspected within 48 hours |
A completed form, for reference
This is a worked example rather than a real customer record. It shows the level of detail a note needs before it is useful to the person who has to go back and fix it.
| Entrance and lobby | Entry glass free of handprints on both facesInside face, lower half. Photo attached. | Fail |
| Walk-off matting flat, edges down, underside clean | Pass | |
| Reception counter edges and front panel free of marks | Pass | |
| Elevator lobby | Door tracks free of grit and debrisBoth cars, ground floor. Grit packed at the ends of the track. | Fail |
| Cab walls and handrail free of smudging | Pass | |
| Restrooms | Fixture bases and floor seam free of scale and residueMen's, centre stall. Photo attached. | Fail |
| Dispensers stocked and operating | Pass | |
| Partition doors and tops free of dust | Pass | |
| Kitchen and coffee station | Sink, faucet and splash area free of residue | Pass |
| Under-counter bin housing clean inside and out | Pass | |
| Loading bay | Bay floor swept, no standing debrisBay closed for structural work. Confirmed with building manager. | N/A |
What makes a note useful
Look at the three failure notes in the example. Every one of them answers where, and two of them answer which. Inside face, lower half. Both cars, ground floor. Men’s, centre stall.
Compare that to what most forms actually come back with, which is the word glass, or windows dirty. A cleaner reading that has to guess, and the guess is usually the outside of the entry doors, which was fine. Then the same line fails again next week and everybody concludes the cleaner is not listening.
Notice also that the loading bay is N/A with a reason attached. That reason is doing real work. Without it, a manager reviewing the month sees a line that was skipped and has no way to tell whether it was skipped honestly.
Scoring, and what to do with the number
Passes over the total of passes and fails, with N/A lines removed from the sum. Seven passes, three fails and one N/A gives 70 percent.
The number on its own is close to meaningless. Its value is comparative, which means the form has to be run the same way every time by everyone, or you are comparing inspectors rather than buildings. Set a floor, treat anything below it as a return visit rather than a note, and watch the direction of travel across a quarter. A site drifting from 95 to 88 over three months is a more urgent problem than a site sitting flat at 84.
For the full site checklist this form is drawn from, use the commercial cleaning inspection checklist. To score the program rather than the building, use the cleaning quality control checklist, and the quality control guide covers how the two fit together.
Common questions
What should a cleaning inspection form include?
Site name, date, time, and who inspected it. Then the areas of the building, each with its own lines written as observable states rather than tasks. Each line takes Pass, Fail or N/A, and every Fail needs a note and a photo. At the bottom, the score, the items that need a return visit, and a signature line if your customer expects one.
Should a cleaning inspection form use a score out of five?
No. Pass, Fail and N/A on every line, with no partial credit. A five-point scale lets everybody settle on a three, which reads as acceptable and changes nothing. A binary result forces a decision, and a decision is what produces a fix.
How do you calculate an inspection score?
Passes divided by the total of passes and fails. Leave N/A lines out of the sum entirely so a closed loading bay or an out-of-service fixture does not drag the score down for something the crew cannot control. In the example on this page there are 7 passes, 3 fails and 1 N/A across 11 lines, which gives 7 out of 10, or 70 percent.
Does every failed item need a photo?
Yes, and it is the single rule that changes the most. A written note is one person's account of a wall. A photo of the wall ends the conversation before it starts, it tells the cleaner exactly what to go back to, and it means you can show a customer what you found rather than describe it.
Who should complete the inspection form?
Someone other than the person who did the cleaning. A cleaner self-checking against the same list is a good habit and it tells you they understand the standard, but it is not an inspection, because nobody fails themselves.