Almost every argument between a cleaning contractor and a client comes back to the same document. Was the break room fridge in scope? Was “weekly” supposed to mean every Monday, or any day that week? Who pays for the paper towels? If the scope of work answers those questions clearly, the argument is short. If it does not, it can cost a contract.
A good janitorial scope of work, sometimes called janitorial specifications or a statement of work, does three jobs at once. It tells the contractor what to price, tells the cleaners what to do, and tells the client what they are paying for. This guide covers what to include, with a sample frequency table you can adapt.
1. Facility description
Start with the facts that drive the price:
- Address and building type
- Total cleanable area and the breakdown by area type (offices, restrooms, kitchens, lobbies, corridors, stairwells, storage)
- Floor types in each area
- Number of restrooms and fixtures
- Typical occupancy and visitor numbers
- Floors, lifts and any areas with restricted access
Attach a floor plan with areas marked if you can. It removes a surprising amount of ambiguity.
2. Service days and hours
State which days service is provided, the hours the crew may be on site, and any holidays or shutdown periods. Note any day-porter or daytime cover separately from the main cleaning shift. If service windows are tight, say so, because a short window can require a larger crew even when the total hours are the same.
3. Tasks and frequencies by area
This is the heart of the document. List the tasks for each area type and how often each is done. A table is easier to price, easier to train from and easier to check than paragraphs of prose.
Here is a shortened example for an office building:
| Area | Task | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Offices | Empty bins and recycling, replace soiled liners | Daily |
| Offices | Vacuum traffic lanes and open areas | Daily |
| Offices | Dust clear desk surfaces, sills and ledges | Weekly |
| Offices | Vacuum edges and under desks | Weekly |
| Restrooms | Clean and disinfect toilets, urinals, sinks and counters | Daily |
| Restrooms | Restock soap, paper towel and toilet tissue | Daily |
| Restrooms | Mop floors with disinfectant | Daily |
| Restrooms | Wash partitions and walls top to bottom | Monthly |
| Kitchen | Clean counters, sink, microwave and appliance exteriors | Daily |
| Kitchen | Clean fridge interior (contents removed by client) | Weekly, Fridays |
| Lobby | Clean entrance glass and door hardware | Daily |
| Lobby | Damp mop hard floors | Daily |
| All hard floors | Machine scrub and recoat | Twice a year |
| All carpets | Hot-water extraction | Twice a year |
| All areas | High dusting of vents and light fittings | Quarterly |
Two rules make this table work:
- Every frequency should be checkable. “Weekly, Fridays” is better than “weekly”. “Twice a year, in January and July” is better than “periodically”.
- Every task should be observable. If an inspector cannot tell whether it was done, it does not belong in the table in that form.
If you need a starting point, our free cleaning checklists break tasks down by daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly for offices, washrooms, classrooms, clinics, retail, gyms, hotels, restaurants and warehouses. The office checklist maps closely onto the table above.
4. Quality standard and inspections
Define what “clean” means and how it will be checked:
- The standard. Many contracts reference the APPA custodial appearance levels, for example Level 2 for public areas and Level 3 for back-of-house. Others define a pass/fail checklist.
- Inspection frequency. How often the contractor inspects, and how often the client joins a walk-through.
- The pass threshold. The score that counts as meeting the standard, and which failures are critical on their own.
- The remedy. How quickly failed items are re-cleaned, and what happens after repeated failures.
Our guide to building a janitorial inspection checklist goes into scoring methods and thresholds in more detail.
5. Supplies, consumables and equipment
Spell out who provides what. This one section causes more invoices to be disputed than any other.
- Cleaning chemicals and tools: usually the contractor.
- Consumables (toilet tissue, paper towel, hand soap, liners, sanitary bags): either side, but say which, and whether the contractor restocks from the client’s store.
- Equipment (vacuums, auto-scrubbers, extractors): usually the contractor; note any client-owned machines and who maintains them.
- Storage: the janitor closet, its location, and whether it has a sink and power.
- Product requirements: green-certified chemicals, fragrance-free products, or specific disinfectants the client requires, and how safety data sheets will be kept on site.
6. Staffing, training and security
- Minimum staffing levels or a staffing plan
- Supervision: who supervises, how often they visit
- Training requirements, including chemical safety
- Background checks, clearances or site inductions required
- Uniforms and identification
- Keys, access cards and alarm codes: who holds them, how they are signed out, and what happens if they are lost
7. Communication, issues and response times
Define how the client reports a problem and how fast the contractor responds. For example: urgent issues (a spill, a blocked toilet, a biohazard) attended within a set number of hours during service hours; routine requests by the next scheduled visit. Name a single contact on each side.
8. Reporting and proof of service
Say how the client will know the work was done. This might be a cleaning log for each area, inspection reports, a monthly summary, or access to a live dashboard. Be specific about what is recorded, how often it is shared, and how long it is kept.
The weakest version of this section is a paper sign-off sheet, which is easy to fill in after the fact. A stronger version is a timestamped log tied to each area and each cleaner, such as QR code cleaning logs, which gives both sides the same record to look at when there is a question about a missed clean.
9. Extra work and exclusions
List what is not included, such as exterior windows above the ground floor, post-construction cleaning, biohazard clean-up, pest control or moving furniture. Then state how extra work is requested, approved and priced: an hourly rate, a per-task price list, or a quote each time. An approval step in writing protects both sides.
10. Term, price and adjustments
Contract length, notice period, how and when the price can change (for example, if minimum wage rises), payment terms, and insurance requirements. If you are the contractor, make sure the price actually reflects the scope you have just written. Our step-by-step guide to bidding commercial cleaning jobs shows how to turn this document into labour hours and a monthly price.
Phrases to avoid
These words appear in a lot of scopes of work, and nearly all of them cause trouble later:
- “As needed” or “as required”. Needed according to whom? Replace with a frequency, or with a trigger the cleaner can see (“when bin is more than half full”).
- “Clean” on its own. Say what clean means for that item: dusted, wiped, disinfected, vacuumed, mopped.
- “Periodically” or “regularly”. Give a number and, ideally, a month or a day.
- “All areas”. Fine for some tasks, but list exceptions such as server rooms, labs, executive offices and secure storage.
- “Supplies included”. Chemicals only, or every roll of paper in the building? Say which.
Keep the scope alive
A scope of work written at the start of a contract and never opened again drifts away from reality. Occupancy changes, a floor is refitted, a client asks for the kitchen to be done twice a day and nobody updates the paperwork. Review it at least once a year, and every time the building or its use changes, and agree the changes in writing. When the scope, the schedule your crew works to and the price all match, there is very little left to argue about.