When a cleaning visit gets canceled

A last-minute cancel is expensive in a way the calendar does not show.

The crew loses the pay they counted on for that morning. The slot sits empty, and by then it is too late to fill it the old way, with a round of phone calls. Then there is the fee conversation. Most owners skip it, because it feels awkward to chase a customer for money they did not see coming.

Owners on Reddit and on Indie Hackers kept describing that same morning. A late cancel, an empty hour, and a fee that never quite gets charged. I wrote it up in the open, and owners wrote back, on I built a $60k/mo point of sale business starting in high school. Now I'm starting over at $0 with cleaning companies. I built two things from what they said.

A late fee you choose to charge

In Settings, under Late cancellation fee, turn on Charge a late cancellation fee. It stays off until you turn it on. It starts at 24 hours' notice and $50 when you bill in US dollars. You can change both. A location can set its own numbers, or leave them blank and follow the company.

The fee applies when the cancel has less notice than that window. Cancel with exactly that much notice, or more, and there is no fee. The visit's own invoice is voided. If you charge the fee, it is a separate invoice called Late cancellation fee.

A person always makes the call. The app never charges the fee on its own, on the web or on the phone. You can charge the card on file, waive the fee, or cancel and leave the fee waiting. Someone who can take payments charges it or waives it. Owners, managers, and estimators can cancel the visit and leave the fee waiting. Read-only users cannot cancel. If there is no card on file, cancel and send a payment link. The link goes by email, and by text when texting is set up and the customer agreed.

The customer still gets their own note that the visit was canceled. The fee amount is in that note only when you charged it in the same step. A charge you make later sends its own receipt. The fee does not appear on the quote, so tell the customer the window and the amount yourself, before you need them.

You hear about it

Tell me when a visit is canceled starts on. Owners and managers get an email and a notice in the bell titled Visit canceled. On Pro and Business, the same switch also sends a text when texting is set up. The cleaner assigned to that visit is not on the list. The customer is not told a second time from this switch, and nothing from it lands in their conversation.

When a person cancels, the notice names them. When the system cancels a visit, it does not name a person.

The steps are in Handling cancellations.