[jo5hm4n]

So just had a thought.  Lets imagine at some point in the future CleanerPlanner just goes bust or shuts the business and all the servers down without warning.

For those of you who A) use CleanerPlanner and B) have atleast 50% of your customers on GoCardless via CleanerPlanner

What would you personally do?

Do you have up to date back ups of the cleanerplanner data?  I forget to back mine up often....

What software would you migrate to if cleaner planner shut down over night?

I'm just curious as i realised today that all my eggs are in one basket holding all our customer data in CleanerPlanner if they ever go down im Bolloxed too be honest.  I know there is other software out there i'm just not familiar with other companies that offer a similiar service to CleanerPlanner especially regarding the Automated GoCardless transactions.

Cheers guys.

[NWH]

Oh no not pen and paper and giving your bank details to get paid lol,on a serious note I would think that’s a worry if you have loads of customers on that.
The biggest of websites etc have crashed as we well know.

[Richard iSparkle]

It’d be a problem for sure

I had my office burn down after 4 years in business and lost all our records.

I’d paid a computer guy the month before to arrange an automatic backup every evening, but it turns out that hadn’t worked either

We ended up driving the routes we work abs door knocking everyone

We lost about 20% of the business and it killed off another business I had over the next 3 years and put me back probably 5 years in this one with the debt I accumulated

Nowadays I’m fully cleaner planner and don’t backup… so I need to sort that

If it happened we have all our customers on our direct debit system so could email them and write to them

Also all our quotes are emailed out and we get contact details when they request the quote so we would be able to recover emails and phones off this too… as well as service information

It’s be a problem but we’d do ok

The good thing is with a monthly charge like cleaner planner, it’s in their interest to keep the business ticking over so very unlikely to go down and not recover. Especially as it’s one of the leading systems we have

With the old systems that charged a one off price there was effectively and incentive to stop supporting them

[NWH]

How much is that a month then.

[Ched]

Not sure on CP but in Squeegee you can create a backup and then follow the link in the email to download it. I take a backup once a week just in case. I believe CP and Squeegee will import a backup from each other software.

Always good to have backups. I put my backup in a OneDrive account and on local machine.

[Arnold Palmer]

I must admit, I'm lax with backups.

[Splash & dash]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

[zesty]

Never used it 

[zesty]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

Same.

[jo5hm4n]

It’d be a problem for sure

I had my office burn down after 4 years in business and lost all our records.

I’d paid a computer guy the month before to arrange an automatic backup every evening, but it turns out that hadn’t worked either

We ended up driving the routes we work abs door knocking everyone

We lost about 20% of the business and it killed off another business I had over the next 3 years and put me back probably 5 years in this one with the debt I accumulated

Nowadays I’m fully cleaner planner and don’t backup… so I need to sort that

If it happened we have all our customers on our direct debit system so could email them and write to them

Also all our quotes are emailed out and we get contact details when they request the quote so we would be able to recover emails and phones off this too… as well as service information

It’s be a problem but we’d do ok

The good thing is with a monthly charge like cleaner planner, it’s in their interest to keep the business ticking over so very unlikely to go down and not recover. Especially as it’s one of the leading systems we have

With the old systems that charged a one off price there was effectively and incentive to stop supporting them

This sounds awful i am glad you pulled through in the end.  You can backup CleanerPlanner i did it today just before i created this thread but i rarely backup maybe every 6 months if i can remember too.

I know what you are saying, but worse things have happened.  Who knows what the future holds, CleanerPlanner could easily go down.  I mean if the company isn't growing, then in reality its slowly shrinking.  I hope its growing but who knows really.

I just wanted to think about it and maybe plan a backup.  I'm going to think about this some more and find out if theres a better way to create a backup thats more user friendly if this was to ever go down etc.

[jo5hm4n]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

Can i ask what do you use then?  Just an advanced Excel spreadsheet or something?  4,500 clients is a lot so im curious how you are managing that with a system that cannot go down.  Sounds good.

[Splash & dash]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

Can i ask what do you use then?  Just an advanced Excel spreadsheet or something?  4,500 clients is a lot so im curious how you are managing that with a system that cannot go down.  Sounds good.

Yes spread sheets my wife runs the office and  paper work takes her two hours a week to do the weekly lists , update who has paid ( mainly BACS payment)  and then each days work is stuck in a page per day diary one for each vehicle day s work sheets are on our phones , easy peasy, we have a master copy in the office just in case , but in 23 years it’s never been needed .

[Richard iSparkle]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

Paper records can be stolen, can be lost, and can be destroyed… see my post re my fire 🔥

I also reckon you spent more than 2 hours a week sorting paper work  around your cleans.. who’s been done, what calls, who owes what etc etc

And even 2 hrs a week isn’t free. It’s about 9 hrs a month which min wage would cost you about £90 Worth of work

All methods have their advantages and for sure pick the one that works for you..

[dazmond]

So just had a thought.  Lets imagine at some point in the future CleanerPlanner just goes bust or shuts the business and all the servers down without warning.

For those of you who A) use CleanerPlanner and B) have atleast 50% of your customers on GoCardless via CleanerPlanner

What would you personally do?

Do you have up to date back ups of the cleanerplanner data?  I forget to back mine up often....

What software would you migrate to if cleaner planner shut down over night?

I'm just curious as i realised today that all my eggs are in one basket holding all our customer data in CleanerPlanner if they ever go down im Bolloxed too be honest.  I know there is other software out there i'm just not familiar with other companies that offer a similiar service to CleanerPlanner especially regarding the Automated GoCardless transactions.

Cheers guys.

Just back up your data on a regular basis....your worrying about something that's not even happened!

I'm sure cleaner planner would notify us if they were winding down....

[windowswashed]

I used window cleaner pro when it came out, it was pretty good until it kept becoming unusable, gave up with it in the end. I wouldn't trust app run based programs even if they was free.

One man band now and George is fine for me personally. Text all customers with one standard text, most customers pay promptly by BACS. Back up daily on a usb  stick and the cloud.

No having to worry if internet has gone down or an app has stopped working, there is more peace of mind knowing my work database is safe and free from monthly payment plans.

It's not about saving money or a quicker, more practical window cleaning program, it's about using what is reliable and trusted and does what I need. I'm old fashioned in many ways but I like it that way, old school.

[Splash & dash]

This is exactly why we don’t use theses app based programs your  business is in the hands of some 3rd party that you have no control over what’s so ever and anything could happen with loss  of data , breach of GDPR  , and a host of other issues  they arnt needed we have over 4,500 clients and it takes less that 2 hours per week to organise all the relevant paperwork , and it’s free ,cannot crash, be lost  or stolen  , nk brainer .

Paper records can be stolen, can be lost, and can be destroyed… see my post re my fire 🔥

I also reckon you spent more than 2 hours a week sorting paper work  around your cleans.. who’s been done, what calls, who owes what etc etc

And even 2 hrs a week isn’t free. It’s about 9 hrs a month which min wage would cost you about £90 Worth of work

All methods have their advantages and for sure pick the one that works for you..

The master copy is kept in a safe it won’t get stolen from that . It honestly takes 2 hours per week maximum after each job has been done it’s ticked by the staff member that’s done  it and if they pay  cheque or cash that’s also ticked on the sheet , wife then just transfers the ticked bits to the master copy and checks bank account and crosses off the ones that have paid  by BACS , next weeks lists are printed off and just repeat simple . Each to there own but it works out cheaper and no issues compared to app based products ,

[dazmond]

Sometimes you just need to have faith in these companies....if your regularly backing up your data you have absolutely nothing to worry about...

If you don't watch it you ll be giving yourself an anxiety attack worrying about things that haven't happened!it's a waste of your time and energy...

[zesty]

The reason I’ve never bothered with cleaner planner or the like, is purely because I don’t need it.

All my work is written down, and on my phone.

I see who’s paid me by checking my statement each evening. It’s simple.

My schedule is simply via a calendar.

Been this way since I was 18. Never had an issue.

I mean it clearly works for lots of window cleaners, but I really don’t see the point in it!

[dazmond]

Cleaner planner is great,I've been using it for years.....I love it....much better than the George program I used to use and a zillion times better than pen and paper records!

[Spruce]

I'm still using George. Every time I close down George I copy and send the backup file to Onedrive. If George Systems shut up shop we have a complete copy of everything on a backup drive. So as long as George works on Windows we will be fine.
Before using Onedrive I emailed myself a backup file every now and again which wasn't good enough.