Room-by-room cleaning checks with a photo
A cleaning log sheet QR code replaces the paper grid taped behind the washroom entrance. You know that grid. Six rows of initials, all in the same pen, ticked at the end of the shift or all at once on Friday. Anyone can write on it, it records nothing you can check, and by mid-month it is wet and half torn.
The trouble comes with the first complaint. A tenant says the third-floor washroom was out of soap all week. A health inspector asks when the staff room was last done. A cleaning company says its crew was there and the building says it was not. You walk up, look at the sheet, and it tells you only that someone had a pen. If you pay for cleaning at a site you rarely visit, that sheet is all you have to go on, and the crew is no better off, because honest work looks the same as a row of guesses.
A commercial cleaning log app you never install, step by step
The word app is only half right here. Nobody downloads anything. The phone's camera opens a web page.
- Make one point for each room or washroom. Start from a template so that they all share the same rules.
- Print the codes 6 or 12 to a sheet and fix each one inside its room.
- Set the allowed hours to your cleaning window. A code has one window a day. A visit outside it is still recorded, and flagged.
- The cleaner scans the code, taps Completed or Not completed, and adds a photo if the point asks for one.
- Not completed asks why, and opens a follow-up that stays open until the room is done.
- Set how many days may pass between visits. A room with no completed visit one day past that shows up in the daily summary.
- Read the daily summary email: visits not completed, open follow-ups, and rooms nobody reached.
A template is a copy and not a link. If you change it, apply it again to the rooms, and the new rules reach them all while each room keeps its code.
Brief the crew before the codes go up. Say what the record is for: it shows the work they did, and it protects them when a complaint is wrong. Show them that a broken dispenser belongs under Not completed with a reason, and not left out. A log that only ever says Completed tells you less than one that reports problems.
Worked example: Larkmoor Cleaning
Larkmoor Cleaning holds the contract for two office buildings with 38 washrooms and 6 kitchenettes across 11 floors. Its evening crew of 7 works from 18:00 to 23:00.
Larkmoor puts 44 codes up in one Saturday morning, from one template. Each asks for a photo of the sinks or counter. The template allows 18:00 to 23:00, Monday to Friday, and expects a visit every 3 days, so a quiet weekend does not raise a flag.
On a Wednesday evening, a cleaner on floor 7 taps Not completed because a dispenser is broken, and adds a photo. The site supervisor sees the follow-up and has it repaired on Thursday. The next completed visit closes it at 19:21.
The next week, the summary lists the floor 4 kitchenette: no completed visit for more than four days. The supervisor finds that a new cleaner did not know the room existed. The client's building manager gets a monthly PDF of all 44 points. When a tenant writes to complain about a washroom on floor 9, the manager opens the point and sees the 12 most recent visits, with the times and photos.
Names and numbers are examples.
Recommended settings for a washroom cleaning log
| Setting | Recommended, and why |
|---|---|
| Photo | Required in washrooms and kitchens, taken of the sinks or counter and never of people. Optional in offices, where a picture adds little and slows a long round. |
| Location check | Off for rooms in one building. A phone cannot tell one floor from the next, so the check adds nothing here. The code's own spot inside the room does more. |
| Scan in and out | Off for quick rooms. Turn it on for a deep clean with an expected length, say 40 minutes, so that one under 20 is reported as too short. |
| Approvals | Approve the cleaning company by its email domain. Flag anyone else, and do not turn them away: a porter covering a shift should still leave a record. |
| Alerts | Not completed in the daily summary, set for the whole account. A broken dispenser at 21:00 can wait for the morning, and one list reads faster than a dozen emails. |
| Allowed hours | The cleaning window, so a visit made outside it is flagged and you can ask why. A code has one window a day, so make it wide enough for a second clean. |
| Expected visit | Every 3 days on a five-day week, so a weekend does not raise a flag. Longer for rooms that need less. |
What it does not do
There is no checklist of tasks for each room. A visit has one answer, Completed or Not completed, with a reason, a note and a photo. If you need sinks, mirrors and floors ticked one by one, this is not that form. Put the list on the wall by the code.
The expected-visit rule counts days and not hours. It will not flag a missed mid-afternoon clean on a day when the room had a morning visit.
It does not measure how clean a room is. It records the visit, the answer and the photo. A photo is a view of one moment.
It does not plan shifts or order supplies. A shortage reported in a follow-up still needs someone to act on it.
Questions
Do cleaners need an account or a password?
No. They confirm their email once on their phone with a 6-digit code, and the phone is remembered. After that a scan takes a few seconds. Cleaners never pay and never install an app.
Can I see when a washroom was last cleaned?
Yes. Each point keeps its full history, with times and photos. Open the point and the latest visit is at the top, whether the complaint came in this morning or last month.
What happens when we change cleaning companies?
The rules and the history stay with each point in your account. Approve the new company by its email domain, remove the old one, and the codes stay on the wall.
Can a cleaner report that supplies ran out?
Yes. They mark the room Not completed and give the reason, such as no soap or no paper. That opens a follow-up, which stays open until the next completed visit there, so the shortage is not lost in a message.
How do I print codes for a whole building?
Tick the points and print them 6 or 12 to a sheet. Cut them, laminate them if the room is damp, and fix each one inside the room it belongs to.
Should the code be inside the room or outside?
Inside, and away from the entrance if you can. A code in the corridor can be scanned while walking past. One at the far end of the room means the cleaner went in.
Start with one free code
No credit card. Workers never pay and never install an app. Pricing is per code, in US dollars, with unlimited workers.