Scheduling and RUT invoicing for cleaning firms
Offices every evening, homes every other week, move-out cleans whenever they appear. The base repeats — it is the sick calls, the keys and the RUT lines that cost time.
A week in a cleaning company
Most cleaning companies have two kinds of customer: businesses and housing associations on running contracts, and private people buying home or move-out cleaning with RUT. The contracts give the week its shape. The deviations eat the time.
- 01
The work comes in
A new contract usually starts with a site visit and a price per visit or per month. Home cleaning is sold by the hour or as a fixed price per visit, move-out cleaning as a fixed price by the size of the home.
Where it breaksThe contract is in an email, the price in a spreadsheet and the key in a drawer — three places to look when the customer calls.
- 02
The week is planned
The cleaner who usually has the customer should have them again. Every other week, certain weekdays, evenings in offices. Sickness and holidays move shifts every single week.
Where it breaksThe schedule is rebuilt in Excel or on a whiteboard, and the change made at seven does not reach whoever is already on their way.
- 03
The cleaning is done
Staff move between addresses with keys, door codes and alarm codes. The time on site is what the customer pays for and what the wages are built on.
Where it breaksHours arrive as texts or notes at the end of the week and somebody in the office types them in.
- 04
The hours are approved
Somebody in the office goes through the week: do the hours add up, is anything missing, did a visit run over.
Where it breaksWithout a clock-in on site there is nothing to compare against, so a deviation surfaces only when the customer questions the invoice.
- 05
Invoicing
Business customers get one invoice a month. Private customers get one per visit or per month with RUT deducted — and the company claims the rest from Skatteverket.
Where it breaksRUT is computed in a spreadsheet, sometimes on the wrong base, and the invoicing program knows nothing about which hours were actually approved.
Built for Swedish rules
The rules behind a cleaning invoice
RUT is what separates a cleaning invoice from an ordinary one. The deduction is generous but narrower than many think, and the mistakes show only when Skatteverket replies.
- RUT: 50 per cent of the labour
- The deduction is at most 50 per cent of the labour cost including VAT, and it is taken off the invoice. Materials, travel, equipment and administration do not qualify. The customer must turn 18 by the end of the year, and the work must be done in or near their home.
- What counts as cleaning
- Simpler cleaning, window cleaning and move-in or move-out cleaning in the home qualify. Stairwells and shared laundry rooms in apartment buildings do not, nor does heavy cleaning with advanced equipment. Cleaning after building work is, according to Skatteverket, ROT work — 30 per cent, not 50.
- The ceiling per person
- ROT and RUT together may be at most 75 000 kronor per person and year, of which at most 50 000 ROT. The ceiling is shared with every other company the customer uses that year.
- Getting paid by Skatteverket
- The customer must pay electronically. You apply only once the work is done and paid for, by 31 January of the year after the payment, and the company must be approved for F-skatt. You have to document the hours worked and the type of work, and report the material cost per service.
- Construction cleaning for builders
- If you sell construction cleaning to a company that itself sells construction services, the reverse charge applies: the invoice carries no VAT, states the buyer’s VAT number and refers to the reverse charge. Other cleaning is invoiced at 25 per cent VAT.
Checked against the authorities’ own pages — Skatteverket, Arbetsmiljöverket and the county administrative boards — in October 2026. This is a summary, not tax advice: in a single case the authority’s text decides, and amounts and rates change.
The same week in Closepact
Every row below is built, and carries the module and tier it needs. What is not built is in the next section.
- Contracts that write their own jobsScheduling & work orders · Väx
- A recurring job holds a rule — every week, every other week, certain weekdays, every month — with a start and an end date. Jobs are written out 1–120 days ahead every night, and the rule can be paused over the summer without losing it. They arrive without staff on them; you put the cleaner on.
- The schedule, with the clashes visibleScheduling & work orders · Start
- The week on one board, one row per person. Double bookings and shifts outside somebody’s employment are errors you confirm; absence and shifts outside working hours are warnings. None of it stops you — you see it before you save.
- Clock-in at the doorScheduling & work orders · Väx
- The cleaner clocks in in the field app. The position is taken the moment the button is pressed and the server compares it with the fence on the address — coordinates and a radius set in the panel, or fetched from the street address. With no signal the clock-in queues and counts from the tap; with no position the shift starts anyway, and the row is stored as unknown — never as “outside”.
- Keys, codes and checklistsScheduling & work orders · Start
- Access notes — where the key is, which entrance, the alarm code — sit on the service address. They go out in the email when somebody is assigned the job and show in the field app to whoever is booked on it, and to nobody else in the field. The office can put a checklist on a job, and its required items must be ticked before the job can be marked done.
- Approval before the invoiceScheduling & work orders · Start
- A time entry closes as submitted. Whoever holds the approval permission signs the week off in one go; a rejected row goes back with a written reason. Approved time cannot be changed without first being rejected.
- RUT on the invoiceInvoicing & receivables · Väx
- Finished jobs for the same customer can be gathered onto one invoice at once. Labour and materials land on separate lines, the deduction is 50 per cent of the labour including VAT on a negative line of its own, the buyer’s personnummer is printed as Skatteverket requires, and the state’s share posts to 1513 so the ageing report does not chase the customer for it.
Honest about the edges
What Closepact does not do for cleaning companies
This is here because it is cheaper to read now than to discover after the contract is signed.
Closepact does not send the RUT claim to Skatteverket — Skatteverket has no API for it. It builds the claim file from paid RUT invoices, with the hours and material cost per service, and you import it in Skatteverket’s e-service and sign with BankID. Credited invoices and part payments are filed there by hand.
The annual ceiling of 75 000 kronor is not applied. It depends on what other companies have already claimed for the same customer this year, which this system cannot see, and the invoice says so.
Recurring jobs bring no staff and no checklist with them from the rule. There are no checklist templates; the office puts the checklist on each job.
No automatic clock-in when the cleaner arrives — the field app is a web app, not an App Store app, and iOS gives it no position in the background. And an address without coordinates has no fence: the position is stored but nothing is compared, so enter or fetch the coordinates in the panel.
The customer gets no booking confirmation or reminder from Closepact, and there is no online booking — it is marked “planned”.
The reverse charge for construction cleaning is not handled: the invoice does not print the reference. Invoices like that have to be issued elsewhere for now.
What it costs a cleaning company of 14
Twelve cleaners in the field and two in the office. All fourteen log in to the schedule — the cleaners to clock in and see their jobs, the office to plan and approve. The two in the office invoice.
Väx in both modules, because recurring jobs and GPS-verified clock-in start at Väx in the schedule, and RUT starts at Väx in invoicing. Two modules take 15 per cent off the whole amount.
Prices in SEK per month excluding VAT, on an annual agreement. Each module has a 14-day trial, no card. Seats are counted per module, the way the calculator on the pricing page counts them.
Per month, priced the way the pricing page prices it
| Scheduling & work orders · Väx | 1 150 kr |
|---|---|
| 14 users · base fee 619 kr, 5 users included · 9 more at 59 kr | |
| Invoicing & receivables · Väx | 279 kr |
| 2 users · base fee 279 kr, 5 users included | |
| Modules | 1 429 kr |
| Bundle discount 15 % | −214 kr |
| Per month, excl. VAT | 1 215 kr |
Buy one. Buy two. Buy all three.
Each module is whole on its own. Together they stop being three systems exporting files to one another.
Common questions
Questions cleaning companies ask
How does the RUT deduction work on the invoice?
The invoice is written for the full amount. The labour and any materials sit on separate lines, and the deduction is 50 per cent of the labour cost including VAT. It appears as a line of its own with a negative amount under the work, and the customer pays the rest. A cleaning product cannot carry the deduction even if somebody ticks it, because the line type decides. The state’s share stays as a receivable on account 1513 until Skatteverket pays. Once the customer has paid, Closepact builds the claim file, which you import and sign in Skatteverket’s e-service, and Skatteverket’s decision is booked against 1513 when it comes.
Can the cleaning staff see the schedule on their phones?
Yes, in the field app: the coming seven days, with the address, a link to directions and, for jobs they are booked on, the access notes. That is where they clock in and out, tick off the checklist, add materials and photos, and take the customer’s signature if you want one. Clock-ins and clock-outs work without coverage and are sent when the signal returns, counted from the tap; the checklist, photos and signature go when the job is reported done, which needs a connection. The app is installed from the browser to the home screen; it is not an App Store or Google Play app.
Does every cleaner need their own licence?
Only the ones who log in. A person can sit in the schedule as a resource, with working hours and absence, without an account — but whoever clocks in in the field app has an account and counts as a user. Scheduling & work orders includes five users in the base fee and then costs per user. A crew sharing one phone can pick who is clocking in, but the phone itself has to be signed in to an account.
What happens when a cleaner calls in sick?
You record the absence — sick, holiday, leave or training — with a start and an end time, so half a day can be expressed. Bookings that clash with it show as warnings in the conflict overview above the calendar, and you drag them to somebody else on the board. If you move a visit to somebody already booked at that time, you get an error you have to confirm before it saves. The system does not suggest a replacement; it shows the conflicts and you choose.
Can we invoice stairwell cleaning to a housing association?
Yes, but without RUT. The deduction covers work in or near a home the buyer lives in, and Skatteverket explicitly excludes cleaning shared spaces in apartment buildings, such as stairwells and laundry rooms. The association is not a private person either. The invoice is an ordinary one at 25 per cent VAT — conveniently a recurring invoice that is sent by itself each month. Your reference and the association’s sit in fields of their own on the invoice.
What would it cost us?
The worked example above — twelve cleaners and two in the office, Väx in scheduling and invoicing — comes to 1 215 kr a month excluding VAT, after the 15 per cent bundle discount. Count the people who actually log in: somebody who is only planned costs nothing. Each module has a 14-day trial with no card, and you can start with the schedule alone and add invoicing later; the discount starts with the second module.
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