Best Janitorial Apps with Payroll Management

inding the best payroll management software as a growing company in the janitorial industry sometimes means finding the best operational platform overall. Instead of using single-point solutions for all aspects of daily operation, a cloud-based business management platform goes beyond streamlining payroll to optimize:

• Labor management

• Estimating

• Job costing

• Invoicing

• Reporting

This guide compares the top janitorial software platforms, including use cases and payroll capabilities. 

Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of August 2023.

Best janitorial apps with payroll management: Comparison table (with ratings & pricing)

This table summarizes the top eight janitorial software with payroll management features. As you can see, there’s great variety in which market segments each software caters to. 

Of course, a table provides only a high-level view. A deeper understanding of software requires understanding the use case for which the platforms were designed and how well they solve it.

Best janitorial payroll management apps by use case

Every cleaning company has unique needs based on size, growth rate, and software already in place. Therefore, it’s essential   to understand what use cases each janitorial software best fits.

• Aspire— Best overall janitorial software with payroll management

• Janitorial Manager — Best for small to midsize commercial or specialty cleaning companies

• Swept — Best for commercial cleaning companies that want to grow rapidly

• Jobber — Best for small-business owners and entrepreneurs who want a better work-life balance

• EPAY HCM — Best for companies with large workforces and complex pay rules

• Fieldpoint — Best for companies that prioritize flexibility and customization 

• Scheduling Manager by Thoughtful Systems — Best for companies that want email marketing capabilities in their janitorial software

• Smart Service — Best for businesses dedicated to running QuickBooks

Knowing each janitorial software’s best use case helps identify the best software solution for your unique business needs.

Platform #1: Aspire

Aspire is an enterprise-grade field service platform for janitorial companies. Its cloud-based business management software helps cleaning companies visualize operations data in real time, empowering cleaning business owners to manage resources more efficiently to reduce waste and grow profitability.

Image Source: Aspire

Aspire is a robust core-operating system for mid- to enterprise-level janitorial companies. Its broad sets of features include:

• CRM

• Scheduling

• Job costing

• Estimating

• Invoicing

• Reporting

Because Aspire draws financial data from across an organization, the accounting and payroll functionality delivers unparalleled value for users. 

With the ability to manage everything from streamlined workflows to clean financial records, Aspire is a software investment built to last. 

Top payroll management features

• Accurate payroll export files: Real-time tracking, management, and submission of employee hours worked in the field, thanks to one of the cleaning industry’s best janitorial apps. 

• Payroll integrations: Aspire’s preferred integrated payroll provider is Integrated Payroll Services (IPS). However, users can export payroll data from Aspire to submit to other payroll processors or use the open API capabilities for custom integrations.

• Accounting integration: Aspire offers native integrations with QuickBooks and Acumatica. Enterprise-tier clients can build custom workflows with integrations to their preferred accounting platform.

• Accurate financial data: Aspire pushes only a limited set of financial data (vendor invoices, A/R deposits, end-of-month reports) to accounting systems. A one-way push of data instead of a two-way sync avoids syncing errors and ensures accurate financial data across platforms.

• Efficient workflows standardized processes: Defined accounting workflows based on industry best practices for higher and more consistent profits.

Downsides to consider

As an end-to-end platform designed to be the center of a cleaning company’s operations, Aspire could cause some disruption during implementation and launch, depending on a company’s existing technology stack. 

Also, Aspire is built for mid- to enterprise-tier companies, so small- to medium-sized businesses may find its broad feature set overwhelming. Those companies should look at Crew Control, a lighter version of the Aspire platform.

Pricing

Aspire stands out from the competition because plans include the same core functions and unlimited users. This pricing structure allows cleaning businesses to grow confidently without increasing software costs in the future.

• Corporate: For commercial cleaning businesses with a minimum annual revenue of $5 million

• Enterprise: For commercial businesses with annual revenue above $15 million

For smaller cleaning companies, Aspire offers:

• Crew Control: $30 per month per crew

• Crew Control Plus: $50 per month per crew

Platform #2: Janitorial Manager

Janitorial Manager is cloud-based janitorial software “designed by janitors for janitors.” The company positions itself as a solution for service contractors and cleaning companies that handle public facilities and large venues.

Image Source: Janitorial Manager 

Janitorial Manager’s work management system offers many of the features cleaning company owners would expect from janitorial software, such as:

• Time tracking

• Inspections

• QR coding

• Checklists and instructions

• Bidding

• Reporting

As for payroll, Janitorial Managerintegrates with several popular payroll management platforms.

Top payroll management features

• Payroll integrations: Export partners include ADP, Paychex, and Paylocity software solutions.

• Time tracking: Providing multiple ways for employees to clock in and out reduces errors and makes payroll go smoother.

• Accounting integrations: Integration with QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online expands financial management capabilities.

Downsides to consider

Janitorial Manager isn’t as built out as Aspire. That could be a good thing for small- to midsize cleaning businesses that need a lightweight option or shops whose specialty work doesn’t fit the workflows of an enterprise solution. 

Janitorial Manager doesn’t have the same product investment as other software platforms, like Aspire, so it lacks the ease of use that a well-designed user interface provides.

Pricing

Janitorial Manager does not list pricing on its website, explaining it customizes its prices for each customer. Price discovery starts with filling out an online form, eventually leading to a personalized proposal.

Comparing Janitorial Manager and Aspire

Aspire surpasses Janitorial Manager by offering several key features, including:

• An end-to-end janitorial business software platform plus API integrations that let cleaning businesses build the payroll workflow that works best for them. Janitorial Manager offers a fixed set of payroll integrations, not to mention an open API for custom payroll integrations. 

• Flexible billing, invoicing options, and payroll management support a more robust accounting workflow overall than Janitorial Manager.

• On-demand pay is an option for processing payroll with IPS, Aspire’s payroll partner.

See how Aspire stacks up against top commercial cleaning and janitorial software solutions on this comparison hub. See more Janitorial Manager alternatives, too.

Platform #3: Swept

Swept is an all-in-one operational software for growth-seeking commercial cleaning, office cleaning, and janitorial businesses. It focuses on helping owners scale through efficiency, promising to save them seven hours per day while reducing employee turnover and increasing customer retention. 

Image Source: Swept

To help business owners achieve those kinds of efficiencies, Swept offers an expansive feature set, including: 

• Messaging 

• Supply tracking

• Route integration

• Real-time reporting

• Work orders and one-time services

• Mood reporting

That last one, mood reporting, asks cleaners how they feel after their shift. Swept claims that one question results in 91% higher employee retention for its customers than the industry average.

Top payroll management features

• Time theft prevention: Geofencing puts virtual boundaries around work locations, then tracks if clock-ins and clock-outs happen inside or outside the job site. 

• Simplified approval and pay of travel tim: When a cleaner punches out at their current location, travel time automatically begins and stops when they punch in at their next destination. 

• Schedule variance reporting: Visualizing time worked versus time scheduled uncovers performance issues and training opportunities.

• Payroll reporting: Cleaning companies approve hours, export a PDF or CSV file, then upload it to their payroll system.

• QuickBooks Online integration: Time entries automatically sync, saving time and reducing errors.

Downsides to consider

Swept’s feature set seems to promise more than it delivers. Look at Capterra, where Swept’s features scored 3.8 stars—one of the lowest category scores among providers on this list. 

Those frustrations include Swept’s payroll, too. One reviewer wrote, "Payroll is still difficult. Trying to determine if someone is close to overtime or having to approve every shift manually is difficult."

Pricing

Swept pricing varies based on the size of your business and specific needs. For pricing details, interested consumers must request a quote online. 

Comparing Swept and Aspire

Aspire’s enterprise-grade platform helps large cleaning companies manage their workforces while empowering growth. Swept, by comparison, is better suited to companies who want to grow and scale rapidly, even if it means waiting for some software features to mature fully. 

This difference can be seen by the out-of-the-box features Aspire offers that Swept doesn’t, such as:

• A CRM centralizes your customer support and management, visualizing the sales opportunities in your current pipeline.

• Job costing tracks materials, labor, and other expenses in real-time and at every level, from job to crew, branch, or district, so you maintain profitability. 

• Estimating tools such as templates and kits consider actual production factors, not best guesses.

See how Aspire stacks up against top commercial cleaning and janitorial software solutions on this comparison hub, or check out other Swept alternatives.

Platform #4: Jobber

Jobber appeals to small field service businesses and entrepreneurs, including janitorial and cleaning service companies. The web-based software emphasizes ease of use, smoother workflows, and time back with family.

Image Source: Jobber

Jobber lives up to its selling points by giving cleaning company owners the tools of a larger organization. That way, even small companies can automate tasks and deliver customer experiences the way larger organizations do. Some of Jobber’s features include:

• Real-time notifications

• CRM

• Invoicing and follow-ups

• Online booking

• Credit card processing

• 20 built-in reports

As for payroll, Jobber’s timesheets help businesses prepare and confirm payroll with easy inputting, editing, and approvals. Timesheets are available on Jobber’s Connect and Grow plans. 

Top payroll management features

• Time tracking: Edit, review, and approve team hours. Employees clock in and out of jobs via an app. Pre-built timesheet reports summarize labor costs. 

• Job costing: Jobber automatically calculates job profitability based on your tracked costs, including labor. 

• QuickBooks Online integration: Payroll processes quickly, as approved hours sync with QuickBooks.

Downsides to consider

Jobber is more of a jack-of-all-trades platform for the service trades than a purpose-built software for the cleaning and janitorial industries. As a result, Jobber isn’t very customizable or flexible, as evidenced by its limited payroll integrations.

Pricing

Jobber’s pricing covers several plans:

• Lite: $9 per month for one user

• Core: $69 per month for one user

• Connect: $169 per month for up to five users

• Grow: $349 per month for up to 15 users

Discounted pricing is available for annual subscriptions. Cleaning and janitorial business owners can also try Jobber before committing by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

Comparing Jobber and Aspire

Like Aspire, Jobber streamlines scheduling, work orders, crew management, invoicing, and payment processing. It even streamlines customer communication and follow-ups. But Aspire goes further with features such as: 

• Real-time job costing for better resource management so your team can make responsive decisions to minimize labor costs and eliminate waste

• Customizable reporting with 360-degree data querying for greater insight into your business and unprecedented control

• Purchasing management to take control of your inventory

See a full comparison on this Aspire vs. Jobber page.

Platform #5: EPAY HCM

EPAY Systems is an HR and payroll software designed for mid- to large-scale employers of distributed hourly workforces. Its platform offers two solutions. 

The first, EPAY HCM, packages human capital management (HCM) software and payroll management. The second, EPAY Time & Attendance, is workforce management software designed to decrease labor costs by up to five percent. 

Image Source: EPAY Systems

EPAY HCM delivers a set of enterprise-level HR and payroll features, which makes sense since it’s built to support workforces of up to 10,000 employees:

• Recruiting and applicant tracking

• Employee onboarding

• HR management

• Benefits administration

• Payroll and tax management

• Time and attendance tracking

EPAY Time & Attendance complements EPAY HCM with a focus on tracking and managing employee time. One of its main benefits is compliance. The flexibility of EPAY Time & Attendance makes it easy to configure complex rules from overtime laws, union contracts, multiple job sites, and other factors. 

Top payroll management features

• Enterprise-level HR and payroll system: Designed to handle thousands of employees across multiple locations.

• Full-service payroll and tax-filing support: Complex issues are handled swiftly.

• Multiple time-collection methods supported: Biometric time clocks with fingerprint recognition, telephone time tracking (integrated voice response), mobile time tracking apps, and online time tracking with a computer or tablet.

• Rapid! Visa Pay Cards: Saves payroll costs, such as printing checks, by depositing employees’ pay directly to their pay cards.

• On-demand pay: A financial wellness benefit that boosts recruiting and retention. Available at no cost to employers 

Downsides to consider

EPAY HCM offers a powerful payroll solution, which may be overkill for some commercial cleaning and janitorial companies. Also, how EPAY Systems packages its platform into separate HCM and workforce management systems could create an awkward fit for some businesses.

Pricing

EPAY Systems does not list pricing on its website for its HCM or workforce management solutions. Those interested in pricing should contact EPAY online.

Comparing EPAY and Aspire

Aspire is tailored to the specific needs of cleaning and janitorial businesses. EPAY, by comparison, is built for the generalized operations of large enterprises with many hourly employees. 

Put another way, many janitorial companies are likely to find EPAY oversolves some problems while leaving others untouched. For all of EPAY’s capabilities, it’s missing some critical operational features that are nonnegotiable for janitorial software:

• Crew management, including route optimization and instant schedule visibility with weekly and monthly calendar view

• Billing and invoicing, including a customer portal for easy credit card and ACH bank transfer payment

• Estimating with unlimited templates and product kits to get bids out the door faster

• CRM with email and calendar integrations and full sales pipeline visibility so commercial cleaning companies can deliver five-star service across the board

See how Aspire compares with other top commercial cleaning and janitorial software solutions on this comparison hub.

Platform #6: Fieldpoint

Fieldpoint is field service software designed for mid- to enterprise-scale businesses across various industries. What makes Fieldpoint stand out is how customizable it is. 

Businesses build their workflows by picking the modules they need to integrate with — and bridge the gaps between — their existing CRM, accounting systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Image Source: Fieldpoint

Fieldpoint’s modular approach adds up to a deep library of features to pick and choose from, such as:

• Scheduling and dispatch

• Work order management

• Contract management

• Mobile field app

• Quoting and estimating

• Job costing

As for payroll management, Fieldpoint pairs its integrations with a single timesheet system that simplifies payroll processing.

Top payroll management features

• Single timesheet system: Enables businesses to create payroll batches ready for industry-standard payroll systems.

• Tax system integration: Ready-to-go integrations with businesses' existing tax systems automate calculations across their ERP software.

• QuickBooks integration: Out-of-the-box integration helps better manage cash flow and operational efficiency through reduced errors and fewer hours needed to fix them.

• Open API: Additional integrations are possible thanks to API support, making it possible to build highly customized workflows.

Downsides to consider

Fieldpoint will be too customizable for some cleaning and janitorial business owners, especially those who aren’t tech-savvy or are more interested in seeing ROI than perfecting their workflows. Payroll is a good example since it will require integrating other tools to process fully.

Pricing

Fieldpoint doesn’t mention pricing on its website or software sites likesuch as Capterra or G2.

Comparing Fieldpoint and Aspire

Fieldpoint and Aspire have many of the same capabilities. Like EPAY, Fieldpoint supports a wide range of field service businesses. That means some parts of the Fieldpoint platform don’t launch as smoothly for cleaning companies compared to janitorial software like Aspire:

• Aspire includes a cloud-based CRM with robust data security; Fieldpoint integrates with existing CRMs.

• Aspire packages key janitorial features such as job costing, labor management, and estimating; Fieldpoint offers them as separate modules.

• Aspire is backed by over 100

   reviews

   

  on Capterra; Fieldpoint has just over 10.

See more comparisons of Aspire with other top commercial cleaning and janitorial software on this comparison hub.

Platform #7: Scheduling Manager by Thoughtful Systems

Scheduling Manager from Thoughtful Systems is business management software for field service companies, including maid and janitorial services.

Image Source: Thoughtful Systems

Though it serves a wide range of industries, Thoughtful Systems has been developing custodial and janitorial software for over 25 years. That’s reflected by a comprehensive feature set, including:

• Automated bidding and estimating

• Payroll management

• Employee and asset tracking

• CRM

• Job scheduling

• Email marketing

Scheduling Manager deploys as either a desktop- or web-based software solution. Both versions sync with employees’ mobile app, SM-Mobile, available for both Apple and Android devices.

Top payroll management features

• Automated payroll: Payroll information is automatically recorded when jobs finish, so payroll reports are ready to run at the end of the month.

• Automated timekeeping: Data imports from field workers’ SM-Mobile app.

• Multiple pay rates: Hourly, overtime, pay-per-job, commission.

• Multiple types of pay: Bonuses, deductions, tips, fixed pay, combinations.

• Export payroll data to popular platforms: ADP, Paychex, QuickBooks, and more.

Downsides to consider

Though most of Scheduling Manager’s Capterra reviews are positive, critical remarks consistently point to a software experience rich with features but inflexible and hard to navigate.

Pricing

Thoughtful Systems does not mention pricing for Scheduling Manager on its website, but its features list shows five plan options. There’s also a free trial available. 

Comparing Scheduling Manager and Aspire

Both Scheduling Manager and Aspire appeal to cleaning company owners who want fully integrated janitorial software. Each offers the management tools and integrations needed to optimize workflows and drive operational efficiency. The chief difference is one appears to be more battle-tested:

• Aspire has a 4.5-star rating based on more than 100 Capterra

   reviews; Scheduling Manager has a 4.4-star rating based on just over 20

   reviews.

• More than 800 clients trust Aspire to manage more than $6.4 billion in total revenue. Scheduling Manager doesn’t share the same data about its customer base, and has published just one case study.

• Aspire is purpose-built for mid- to enterprise-level janitorial, landscaping, and paving businesses; Scheduling Manager caters to more than 50

   industries.

For more comparisons of Aspire and other janitorial software, visit this comparison hub.

Platform #8: Smart Service

Smart Service is field service management software for QuickBooks that janitorial companies can use to run some of their operations, especially on the scheduling and dispatch side. 

This integration benefits both software solutions. For instance, Smart Service imports customer data from QuickBooks to power scheduling and routing. Smart Service then exports job data to QuickBooks in real time, making functions like payroll and invoicing much smoother.

Image Source: Smart Service

Even though it’s layered over QuickBooks, Smart Service delivers many of the same features as other janitorial software platforms:

• Scheduling

• Routing

• Dispatching

• Time tracking

• Invoicing

• Messaging

As for payroll management, Smart Service enhances existing payroll workflows by updating data in QuickBooks in real time. That automation reduces the likelihood of errors, leading to faster payroll approvals.

Top payroll management features

• Keep your payroll process: Your existing financial and accounting workflows are undisturbed by Smart Service so that you can continue with your preferred payroll solution. Because Smart Service is an integration with QuickBooks, it should enhance existing payroll workflows by capturing accurate data.

• Digital time tracking: Fewer errors and fewer hours when approving payroll than paper-based time tracking.

• QuickBooks integration: Data instantly syncs in QuickBooks to support fast, accurate payroll processing and reporting.

Downsides to consider

Smart Service requires a commitment to QuickBooks, which isn’t going to work for all cleaning businesses. Also, Smart Service is not as built out as other janitorial software solutions. 

While Smart Service has most of the core features business owners would expect, it’s also missing some, like estimating and job costing.

Pricing

Smart Service does not list pricing on its website but does offer a pricing calculator. Interested businesses enter their number of concurrent office and field employees, along with their contact info, to receive pricing.

Comparing Smart Service and Aspire

Smart Service delivers impressive features that business owners want in janitorial software, all as an integration with QuickBooks. Still, being a QuickBooks add-on has limitations. Aspire offers several must-have features that Smart Service lacks, such as:

• Job costing

• Scheduling and route optimization

• Estimating

• CRM

More comparisons of Aspire and other janitorial software solutions are available on this comparison hub.

Looking for janitorial software with payroll management?

The best janitorial software with payroll management depends on the specific needs of each business, and the range of options is extensive.

There are janitorial software solutions designed for small-business owners who want better work-life balance, enterprise-grade platforms for companies doing $5 million or more in annual revenue, and everything in between. 

That said, there are core capabilities every janitorial software should include, such as:

• Tracking time and attendance, payroll reporting, and invoicing

• Offering a CRM to manage customer relationships or integrating with an existing CRM 

• Estimating and job costing for better labor management and profitable job bidding

See why Aspire’s janitorial software is among the most capable on the market with a free demo.