Accountants for Window Cleaning Companies

External window cleaning is outside the Construction Industry Scheme. HMRC excludes the external cleaning of the glazing of buildings and structures by name.

That covers the bulk of what most firms do. Weekly and monthly rounds, commercial contracts, high level pole work, cradle work on office blocks. None of it is a construction operation.

There is one exception, and it is the one that catches commercial firms out.

Builders’ cleans are inside the scheme

Cleaning the inside of buildings after construction work is a named construction operation. It is in scope.

So a firm doing sparkle cleans and post-construction cleans on a new development is inside CIS for that work, even though the same firm’s weekly office round is outside it. The developer or main contractor should be verifying you and deducting on the labour element of those invoices.

Plenty of window cleaning companies do this work every month without registering, because they think of themselves as cleaners rather than as anyone connected to construction. It usually surfaces the first time a main contractor’s accounts department runs a verification and comes back with 30%.

Two things follow.

Split the work at invoice stage. A post-construction clean on a new build and a quarterly clean of the same building once it is occupied are different animals under the scheme. Your invoices need to make clear which is which, and you should not be putting both on one line.

VAT follows CIS scope. On builders’ cleans within the scheme, for a contractor who is not the end user, the domestic reverse charge applies and you do not charge VAT. On the ordinary round, you charge VAT normally. Firms that pick one treatment and apply it to everything are wrong on half their invoices.

If you subcontract the post-construction work to other cleaners, you may be a contractor under the scheme yourself, with verification and monthly returns to run.

Recurring revenue is the whole business

Window cleaning is one of the few construction adjacent trades where the money is contractual rather than project by project. That changes what the accounts need to tell you.

Round income and retention. The number that matters is what proportion of last year’s customers are still on the round. A firm losing 15% of its contracts a year and replacing them is standing still while looking busy. Most operators cannot produce that figure, because nothing in the bookkeeping tracks it.

Deferred income. Annual and quarterly contracts billed in advance are not revenue on the day the money lands. The unearned portion is a liability until the work is done. Get this wrong and your profit looks better than it is early in the contract year and worse than it is later, and your corporation tax position moves with it.

Price per drop. A large contract with a difficult access arrangement can earn less per visit than a small easy one. Until the costing goes down to the visit, you cannot see which contracts to renegotiate at renewal.

Cash collection. Commercial contracts on 30 or 60 day terms sit very differently in the cash flow to a domestic round collected on the day. A shift in the mix towards commercial work makes a growing business feel tight.

Kit, height and training

Access equipment. Reach and wash systems, purified water plant and tanks, telescopic poles, cradle equipment, scissor lifts and cherry pickers are plant and qualify for capital allowances. Vans do too, as commercial vehicles. Where lifts are hired rather than owned, the cost sits in the job rather than on the balance sheet, which is worth knowing before you buy.

Working at height. IPAF and PASMA certification, harness and rope access training, and the refreshers both need. Training your employees is an allowable cost, and on commercial tenders it is often the thing that gets you on the approved list, so it earns its keep twice.

Water and mileage. Purified water production, van fuel, round routing and vehicle wear are the costs that quietly decide margin on a low ticket, high frequency business.

What we do

Separate the work that sits inside CIS from the work that does not, and get you registered and filing if the builders’ clean side of your business needs it.

Get the VAT treatment right across both, including the reverse charge on post-construction work.

Account for contract income properly, so deferred revenue is not flattering your management figures.

Give you round level profitability and a retention figure you can actually act on at renewal time.

And the standard work underneath it. Everything else you would expect as well. Year end accounts, corporation tax, VAT, payroll and self assessment.

Who we work with

UK commercial cleaning and window cleaning limited companies turning over between £500,000 and £5 million. We work across the whole UK.

Common questions

Does CIS apply to window cleaning?
Not to external window cleaning. HMRC excludes external cleaning of the glazing of buildings from the scheme.

So why has a main contractor deducted CIS from us?
Almost always because the work was an internal clean after construction, which is a construction operation and inside the scheme. If it was an ordinary external clean, they have it wrong and it is reclaimable.

Do we need to register for CIS?
If you do builders’ cleans or post-construction cleans for developers or main contractors, yes. If you only do occupied buildings and domestic rounds, no.

Do we charge VAT on a builders’ clean?
Where the work is inside CIS and the customer is not the end user, the reverse charge applies and you do not charge VAT. On the ordinary round you charge VAT in the normal way.

Can we claim a reach and wash system against tax?
Yes, as plant. The van and the water treatment kit qualify as well.

Book a call. If you do post-construction cleans, we will tell you whether you should be registered for CIS and what your current invoices are getting wrong.

Book a call