Pressure washing KPIs: five pairs to read together each month

What to take away

Why a number needs a partner

Every monthly KPI is blind to something, so read each one beside the number that sees it. Contribution cannot see volume, utilization cannot see quality, and rework cannot see damage nobody reported. A pair turns a warning into a first action instead of a meeting.

The money pair: contribution with payment speed

Contribution per productive hour tells you which service lines pay, and days to payment tells you whether that pay turns into cash. Each needs the other, and contribution also needs the schedule. Read them together every month before you touch a price.

Contribution per productive hour is job revenue minus variable job cost, divided by the total hours the job consumed, including setup, drive and administration. When a service line falls below your own stated floor for two consecutive months, review it rather than repeat it. A strong figure alone proves little.

The blind spot is volume. Contribution says nothing about whether you have enough work, and a strong figure on three working days a week is a business in trouble. Read it beside the schedule before you cut or keep a service line.

Days to payment is the average number of days from invoice to payment received. Profitable work invoiced on long terms can still leave you unable to make payroll. When the average moves beyond your terms, act on the specific accounts rather than on the average.

Its blind spot is profitability. Fast payment on work priced below your floor is a quick route to a smaller business, so check the contribution figure before celebrating a short payment time. One number gives the speed of cash and the other gives its worth.

The speed pair: utilization with rework rate

Utilization rises when the day is used well, but it can also rise by rushing, and rushing is what damages surfaces. Pair it with rework rate before you reward a higher result. Utilization is productive hours divided by paid hours, so every idle paid minute lowers it.

Drive time and setup, refills and waiting all consume paid hours that produce nothing, so this number holds a large opportunity. When utilization drops below the level your pricing assumed, rebuild the schedule before changing any price. The price was set on an assumption about the day, and the day is what moved.

Utilization cannot tell good work from fast work. Rework rate is callbacks divided by jobs completed. A callback consumes a full setup and a full drive and produces no revenue, so it lands entirely on the margin of the jobs that did pay. When it rises above your stated level, schedule training rather than discuss it.

The competency structure in the hiring and training guide gives that training a shape. Training is the first action because a skill can be signed off, and a signed-off skill is something you can check month after month.

Jobs per working day is jobs completed divided by days worked. It is a fast proxy for route density and scheduling health, and it is easy to collect. When it falls while job sizes have not grown, look at the map before looking at the crew.

The count ignores job size entirely. Four small jobs and one large one are not comparable, and this number treats them as four to one, so read the count beside the hours worked.

The selling pair: booking rate with inquiries

Estimate-to-booking rate is jobs booked divided by estimates given, and it shows whether quoting and pricing are landing with the customers you reach. Count inquiries beside it, because the rate cannot see the stage before the estimate. Together the two show where selling is lost.

A business losing most inquiries before an estimate is ever given can have an excellent booking rate and very little work. When the rate drops more than your own tolerance from its usual level, review recent lost quotes before changing any price.

Repeat rate within a season is customers who book a second time within a season, divided by customers served. It separates a business that is accumulating an asset from one that refills a calendar every spring. The hardest number to fake, it is the one to trust most.

When repeat rate sits below your target, the fix is the interval conversation at completion, not more advertising. That argument is developed in the marketing and growth guide. The number lags, because this season's result reflects last season's work.

The quality pair: rework with claims

Rework rate counts only damage the customer noticed and reported. Water driven behind siding does not appear as a callback; it appears months later as a claim. Read the rework figure beside your record of claims, because the number is blind to exactly the failures that cost the most.

This is the biggest blind spot of the seven. A low rework rate is not proof of sound work, so keep the claims record on the same page as the callbacks when you review the month. Then the late failures stay visible next to the early ones.

Turning the pairs into habits

Where the numbers come from

All seven are computed from job records: times, quantities, revenue, cost and outcome. The IRS says you may choose any recordkeeping system suited to your business that clearly shows your income and expenses, and the same system should hold the job records.

Because these records include customer addresses, access notes and payment details, protect them accordingly. The FTC's guide to protecting personal information for business says unencrypted email is not a secure way to transmit information, so do not send customer records that way. What the job-record system should capture is covered in the software and record guide.

Common questions

What is a good value for any of these?

Nobody can publish one that is evidence about your business. Establish your own baseline over a season, then set thresholds relative to it.

Should I track revenue per month?

It is worth watching and it is a poor decision metric, because it moves with weather and season rather than with anything you controlled.

Why is customer satisfaction not on the list?

Because it is measured badly by most small businesses and it is partly captured by repeat rate, which is behavior rather than opinion.

How long before these numbers mean anything?

A season for the lagging ones, a month for utilization and jobs per day. Start collecting before you start interpreting.