Paying cleaning subcontractors by proof of work
A small operator told me this summer that he knew he was losing money on his subcontractors and could not tell where. His fix was one blunt rule: no photo, no pay. I think he is right, and here is how I would set it up.
He runs a floor care company with a handful of subcontractors moving between his buildings. Some buildings get service three days a week and some get it every day. Each building pays a day rate to whoever works it. On paper that is simple. In practice, somebody helps another guy for half a day, and at the end of the month both of them invoice for the full day. Do that across a few buildings and a few weeks and he was paying one and a half times for a lot of days.
He could not prove it either way. When he asked, each of them had a story, and he had nothing to check the story against. His subcontractor bill moved by thousands of dollars from one month to the next and he honestly did not know which month was the real one. That is a terrible place to run a business from. You cannot price a new building if you do not know what the old ones cost you.
So his rule is that the subcontractor picks the day, takes the picture at the building, and submits it. No picture, they do not get paid for that day. When somebody pushes back, his answer is the one I would give. If there is no picture and you never logged the day, how do you expect me to know you did the building?
Why I agree with him
I ran a cleaning company for a long time, with a lot of people in a lot of buildings. The honest workers never minded proof. The ones who complained about it were almost always the ones it was going to catch. A photo rule protects the good subcontractor as much as it protects the owner, because the good one stops getting lumped in with the person padding the invoice.
It also changes what month end feels like. Without proof, paying subcontractors means phone calls, arguments and a lot of "I'm pretty sure I was there that Tuesday." With proof, you add up the days that have photos and multiply by the rate. The operator put it well. He wants to get to the end of the month and not have to ask anybody what they did, because the totals are already there.
How to set it up so it is fair
Put it in writing first. The subcontract agreement should name each building, the rate per day or per visit, what the photo has to show and when claims are due. Nobody should hear about the photo rule for the first time when a payment comes in short.
One building, one day, one claim. If two people work a building together, they agree the split before they submit, or you set the rate per person from the start. Most overlap comes from leaving that question open.
Ask for a photo of the work and skip the selfie. A picture of the subcontractor in the lobby proves they showed up. A picture of the burnished corridor or the cleaned garbage room proves the job got done, and it gives you something to compare when the customer calls about that corridor a week later.
Leave room for real life. Phones die, and some basements and parkades get no signal. Give people until the end of the day, or the next morning, to send a missing photo. The rule is there to catch days that never happened, and it should never punish somebody for a flat battery.
Then check some of it yourself. A photo proves a visit. It does not prove the building meets the standard in your contract. Keep inspecting the buildings on a regular cycle so you know the work behind the photos is good. The guide on how often to inspect a cleaning site covers how many visits a building needs by how often it is serviced.
A word on subcontractors and the law
I am not an accountant, and where you operate matters. The line between a subcontractor and an employee affects tax, insurance and how much you can direct someone's work. Before you build a pay system around subcontractors, sit down with your accountant and make sure the people you are paying that way count as subcontractors.
The same idea, one level up
Your customer has the same problem with you. They pay a monthly invoice and mostly take it on faith that the work was done. A photo on every visit and a scored inspection on a regular cycle give them the same thing a photo rule gives you: a record they can check. I wrote about that in the guide to proof of service in commercial cleaning, and the cleaning supervisor daily report is a good place to start if your supervisors still send their notes by email. For the bigger picture on keeping a growing crew honest, see quality control for a cleaning business, and cleaning software with photo proof explains how a photo gets attached to every failed line on an inspection.
Common questions
How should a cleaning company pay its subcontractors?
Against a rate agreed in writing, per building and per visit or per day, and only for visits that have proof attached. The proof can be as simple as a dated photo of the finished work taken on site. The rate, the proof required and the payment dates should all be in the subcontract agreement before the first shift.
What counts as proof of work for a cleaning subcontractor?
A photo taken at the building on the day, showing the finished work in a specific area, is the most practical. A photo of the floor they burnished or the garbage room they cleaned says much more than a selfie at the front door. Some companies add a signed site log or a supervisor inspection on top.
Is it fair to withhold pay without a photo?
It is fair if the rule is written down, agreed before the work starts, and applied to everyone the same way. It is not fair to spring it on a subcontractor at month end. Give people a way to fix a missing photo the same day, like a dead phone battery, so the rule catches claims that never happened and not honest mistakes.
How do you stop two subcontractors from billing for the same day?
Each building gets one day rate, and each day at that building gets one claim with one set of photos. If two people work the building together, they agree on the split before submitting, or the rate is set per person per visit from the start. Overlap only happens when nobody is tracking which visit belongs to whom.
Do cleaning subcontractors need to be treated differently from employees?
Yes, and the rules depend on where you operate. Whether someone is a subcontractor or an employee affects tax, insurance and how you can direct their work. Talk to your accountant before you set up a pay system for subcontractors, because getting the classification wrong is far more expensive than any overlapping invoice.