From spreadsheets and paperwork to a platform that runs the business
How we helped Clean Bees replace a decade of manual processes with a custom platform managing 40+ operatives, hundreds of recurring jobs, and every step from rota to invoice.
The Challenge
A growing business held together by spreadsheets
Clean Bees was founded in Bristol in 2014 as a commercial cleaning company. For the first few years, spreadsheets and shared documents were enough. But as the business grew past 40 operatives working across dozens of sites, the cracks became impossible to ignore.
The team was managing everything manually: who was working where, what jobs were coming up, whether work had been done to standard, and whether the right clients were being invoiced for the right hours. Information lived in people's heads, in email chains, and in spreadsheets that were constantly out of date.
⚠️ Rotas and scheduling were managed in spreadsheets that only one person fully understood
⚠️ No visibility on where operatives were or whether jobs had been completed
⚠️ Quality control relied on trust with no systematic proof of work
⚠️ Invoicing was manual and lagged behind work being done
⚠️ Payroll required cross-referencing multiple documents and was error-prone
⚠️ Recurring work for weeks ahead was hard to visualise and plan
⚠️ New client sites were difficult to onboard without more admin overhead
"We'd reached a point where the business couldn't take on more work because the admin was the bottleneck, not the cleaning. We were spending more time managing spreadsheets than managing the actual service."
The Solution
A platform built around how the business actually runs
Rather than forcing Clean Bees into an off-the-shelf tool, we spent time understanding how the business operated day to day from office scheduling through to operatives completing jobs on-site. Then we built a platform that matched those workflows exactly.
The system evolved over time as the business grew, starting with the most painful process and expanding to quality control, invoicing, payroll, and reporting. Today it is the operational core of the business.
✅ Rota & resource planning: drag-and-drop scheduling with clear forward planning.
✅ Native mobile app for operatives: check-ins, completion logs, photo uploads, issue flags.
✅ Quality control & proof of work: checklists and evidence on every job.
✅ Recurring work visibility: clear view of planned recurring jobs months ahead.
✅ Automated invoicing: generated from completed work records.
✅ Payroll integration: hours flow directly from app into payroll.
✅ Reporting & intelligence: real-time dashboards on performance and profitability.
Mobile app screens composite (check-in, proof of work, job details)
How We Built It
Phased delivery, starting with the biggest pain
We did not build everything at once. We started with the process causing the most pain and expanded in phases as confidence grew.
Phase 1
Scheduling & rotas
Replaced the master spreadsheet with visual scheduling.
Phase 2
Mobile app & proof of work
Field app for check-ins, checklists, and photo evidence.
Phase 3
Quality control
QC workflows with scoring and management oversight.
Phase 4
Invoicing & payroll
Connected completed work directly to invoicing and payroll.
Phase 5
Reporting & growth
Dashboards enabling data-driven growth decisions.
The Results
What changed
The platform did not just replace spreadsheets. It changed what the business was capable of. Clean Bees can now take on work it could not handle before, with quality, billing, and staffing all under control.
✓ Took on larger contracts that were previously impossible to manage manually
✓ Eliminated spreadsheet-based processes across operations
✓ Reduced invoicing errors and lag
✓ Operatives now have clear schedules on mobile
✓ Quality control is systematic and evidenced
✓ Payroll reconciliation dropped from hours to minutes
✓ Management gained real-time visibility across the business
✓ Profitability improved through better resource and site performance insight
Built With
Technology
You do not need to know what these mean, but here is the stack.
Next.jsReact NativeNode.jsPostgreSQLAWSStripeREST APIsPush notifications
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