[Window Washers]

A bit disapointed in Ewan and Marks spiteful comments.As regards knowing Matt's round better than i do my own he has said many times that he spends the whole day in one street, and may only move the van six times in totall.Other than that and the fact that ewan means plateau when he says pinnacle i've just been through todays stuff, of the the three rounds home was zero, area two 202, and area one,127.(two men).Both areas are fiveish miles opposite sides of me, and none of the jobs are close.

Thanks Ian.

your right, my days are just in the same street, most days my van stays put and doesnt get moved, my worse day for van moves is 4 or 5 moves, depends if i am being lazy

what he is forgetting to say is that hes on the dole, he cleans his neighbours windows, and may have to push the van as it does not start up, so pushes up the road a few times  :

[leapstallbuildings]

Something that I do practice regularly is having end of day "filler" jobs - preferably in the area that I'm working or possibly close to home.  This is particularly so at this time of year when darkness arrives sooner.
What I mean is that I try to avoid starting a block of work if I feel that I would be unable to finish it.  Instead, I will drive elsewhere (hopefully just a few streets over) and do a couple of standalones.  That way, I can do a full block of work the next working day instead by starting it earlier in the day.  Supplying a 6 weekly service (which is actually 6 - 8 weeks) allows me a bit of flexibility to work in this manner.
I think it's important to build a bit of flexibility into the round otherwise you can just become a slave to your own business.

[ftp]

Good point that, the flexibility I mean. Many of us start out to be 'Mr Reliable' and clean on specific days. This is great for a while untill you want time off then you are stuffed like Slumpy chasing your workload and creating holes in the next cycle. The relaxed guys although less reliable don't have any problems catching up (in reality they never catch up) but lose money for the weeks they never worked.

[Clive McDonald]

Some very good posts ftp and leaps. I agree with almost everything leaps has said here and previously, my only resevation is that he works from a spreadsheet. When i first started i tried (and pretty much failed it was just a list of names really) to knock a spreadsheet up in excel. I realise that leaps has done a pretty good job on this and is therefore a smart cookie. Even so i refuse to believe that even einstein himself could build a spreadsheet able to compete with the versatility of a dedicated programme.

Buying george was one of the best fifty quids i ever spent. It saved me hours and hours and hours of tedium sorting this out, probably in a similar way to leaps.Because of comments on this forum( when this forum is good it is very good) i forked out £200 for wcpro. I am only a novice at it but already feel that i can manipulate and manage my business data even better.Of course i know that what mark dew says is right, but it is far easier to implement a selective strategy (just over six hours by the way but this is not an earnings post) using a programme.

Ewan, digs aside, how do you organise your work?

[Clive McDonald]

My mistakes
1. Not writing down custies name (Unfindable credit transfer payments)
2.Not getting phone nos. (can't easily chase the debt)
3.Not chasing debts and writing quite a few off
4.Not keeping good reconcilliation records of who has paid and who hasn't

Best decisions
1.Hot system
2.Electric re-wind red ash reels
3. Listening to the forum (ie. someone might have a better idea than me, or accepting i could be wrong)
4.Systems, not just wc pro, but investing in a large address stamp for envelopes as an example, and a smaller stamp with my account details for the back of cheques has proved a time saver. I would also probably include in this my visit cards.

[Clive McDonald]

Thanks to all who posted, to think out loud on this forum and have feedback continues to help me.

Clive