Due diligence
The Office Cleaning Contractor Checklist
Before you appoint an office cleaner, there are five things worth settling: the frequency your headcount actually needs, what the specification covers, who is vetted and how, what the insurance certificates say, and who walks the floor after month three.
- Frequency comes from headcount, not floor area
- What a real office specification has to list
- The vetting evidence to ask for, by name
- Who audits the floor once the novelty wears off
Operating since 2015
One documented cleaning standard, applied site by site across Sydney and regional NSW
- Police-checked cleaners
- Vetted and inducted before they set foot on your site
- $20m public liability
- Certificates of currency issued before the first shift
- Rolling agreement, no lock-in term
- Scope and price in writing within 24 hours
What should you check before appointing an office cleaner?
Check five things. First, the frequency: it is set by headcount rather than floor area, so a contractor quoting from a floor plan alone has not understood the job. Under roughly twenty-five staff, two or three evenings a week usually holds; above that, or wherever there is a busy internal kitchen, nightly is the honest answer.
Second, the specification. It should list per-visit tasks — waste, kitchen, washrooms, floors, touchpoints, meeting rooms — separately from weekly and periodic work such as high dusting, air vents, carpet extraction and hard-floor treatment. Third and fourth, the vetting and the insurance: ask for the police check register naming the people who will attend, and for certificates of currency for public liability and workers compensation.
Fifth, the audit. Establish who inspects the floor after the first month, how often, and whether you are sent the findings when nothing is wrong. Clean Best Australia writes a specification per tenancy from an evening inspection, issues an eight-document compliance pack at mobilisation, and audits every floor monthly.
- Operating since 2015Trading continuously since 2015
- Police-checked cleanersWorkplaces, clinics, campuses, buildings and homes
- $20m public liabilityPlus workers compensation for every person on the roster
- Every site audited monthlyFindings and corrective actions issued in writing
The detail
Working through the checklist, item by item
The reason an office cleaning contractor checklist is worth twenty minutes of your time is that the failure it prevents is never a catastrophe. It is a drift. Bins are still emptied. Floors still get a pass. But the sink has a permanent film, the boardroom table has ring marks, the carpet under the desks has not met a vacuum head in months, and something is growing in the end-of-trip shower. Nobody escalates any single item, because on its own none of it justifies a phone call. Then a client sits in the boardroom and you see the room exactly as they see it.
Every item below is a question you can put to any contractor, us included. An office is the easiest setting to fix permanently — and the easiest to let rot, if nothing is written down.
Frequency comes from headcount, not the floor plan
Quotes get priced by square metres because square metres are easy to measure. But three hundred square metres holding eight people and three hundred holding forty are entirely different jobs, and a schedule written for the first will fail the second within a fortnight. We ask how many people sit on the floor, how many use the kitchen every day, whether the washrooms are internal or shared with the building, and whether the office hot-desks. Then we recommend a frequency, and we say so plainly if you are considering fewer nights than the tenancy can carry.
The kitchen and the washroom set the reputation
Ask any office manager where the complaints come from and it is never the carpet. It is the sink of unclaimed mugs, the microwave nobody wipes, the fridge that has developed opinions, and the washroom out of hand towel at four in the afternoon. So those rooms lead the specification. Benches, splashbacks, sinks and taps are cleaned and disinfected every visit. Fridge exteriors and microwave interiors are done nightly, with a full clear-out on a cycle you nominate. Consumables are restocked before they run out, which is a scheduling problem rather than a reporting one.
Meeting rooms, breakout and end-of-trip
Meeting rooms get tables wiped, chair bases and arms cleaned, whiteboards properly erased, remotes and AV touchpoints disinfected, and fingerprints taken off the glass partition everyone leans on. Breakout areas get soft furnishings vacuumed and spot-cleaned. End-of-trip facilities — now a deal-breaker in most Sydney office leases — get showers, screens, drains, lockers and benches on a cycle designed to stop mould ever taking hold, because prevention is a fraction of the cost of remediation.
Several offices, one standard, one report
If your organisation holds offices in more than one building, the useful thing we do is not the cleaning — it is the consistency. Each tenancy gets its own written specification, because the buildings differ. But the vetting, insurance, audit cycle, account manager and invoice do not. The monthly audit arrives as one document covering every floor, so you can see at a glance which office is drifting rather than discovering it from a staff complaint six weeks later.
Site access, entry records and cleaner continuity
Before the first shift we record exactly how your cleaner enters: swipe card, key safe, alarm code, concierge sign-in, and whatever the building does to the lifts after 6pm. Each cleaner is inducted on that procedure individually, is police-checked before starting, carries their own commercial equipment including HEPA-filtered vacuums, and is the same person every visit. That last fact predicts whether the clean in month nine still resembles the one you were sold better than anything else we could promise you.
What it costs to find out
An evening inspection of the floor, at no charge, with the bins full and the kitchen used, because that is the office we would actually be cleaning. A written specification and a fixed price within 24 hours, split into per-visit, weekly and quarterly tasks so you can see exactly what you are buying. No lock-in term. And twenty million dollars of public liability behind all of it.
Call 1300 494 983 and we will come and look at the floor after your people have gone home.
Consistency across buildings
Five offices, five specifications, one standard
Organisations that grow into a second and third office almost always end up with a second and third cleaning arrangement, because whoever signed the lease also found a local cleaner. Two years later there is no shared standard, no shared reporting, and no way to tell which office is being neglected until somebody complains loudly enough.
We write a specification per tenancy — they genuinely do differ — but hold every one of them to the same vetting, the same insurance, the same monthly audit and the same account manager. The result is one report, one invoice, and a straight answer to the question of which office is the problem.
- A specification per tenancy, not a template stretched across all
- One account manager who has walked every floor personally
- One monthly audit document covering every office
- Offices added or closed without renegotiating the agreement
The written specification
What an office specification usually covers
A typical per-visit scope for a Sydney office floor. Yours is written from the inspection; this is the shape it normally takes.
- Empty desk-side and communal bins and recycling, replace liners, remove waste to the bin room
- Clean and disinfect kitchen benches, sinks, taps, splashbacks and cupboard fronts
- Wipe fridge exteriors and handles, clean microwave interiors, unload the dishwasher
- Sanitise washrooms and restock paper, soap and hand towel before they run out
- Detail end-of-trip showers, screens, floor drains, benches and locker faces
- Vacuum carpeted areas in full, including under and behind workstations, skirting lines and breakout zones
- Damp-mop and spot-treat hard flooring across kitchens, washrooms and entry points
- Wipe clear desk surfaces; dust monitor stands, keyboards, handsets and cable trays on rotation
- Reset meeting rooms: tables, chair bases and arms, whiteboards, remotes and AV touchpoints
- Clear fingerprints and smudges from internal glazing, partitions, glass doors and mirrors
- Disinfect touchpoints: door handles, switches, lift buttons, printer panels and taps
- Present reception: counter, entry glass, entry matting and visitor seating
- Rotate high dusting: vents, light diffusers, ceiling corners and the tops of screens
- Close out the floor on departure: lights off, doors secured, alarm armed, access logged
Carpet extraction, hard-floor resealing and external window cleaning run as scheduled periodic programmes and are quoted separately from the recurring scope.
Commercials
How an office cleaning price is built
We price desks, amenities, surfaces, access windows and frequency — never a published rate card, because a rate card cannot see your kitchen. The figure is fixed in writing before the first night.
One tenancy
A single office — a suite, a floor, or a small standalone building — with one access arrangement and one contact.
- Specification written from an evening inspection
- The same cleaner every visit, inducted on your access
- Kitchen, washrooms, floors and bins each visit
- Consumables managed by us, or left with your supplier
Fixed figure, issued in writing before anyone starts.
Several offices
An organisation with offices in more than one building or more than one suburb, wanting a consistent standard across all of them.
- A separate written specification for each tenancy
- One account manager who has walked every floor
- Meeting rooms, breakout and end-of-trip included by default
- Consolidated invoice and a single monthly audit report
Fixed figure, issued in writing before anyone starts.
Corporate programme
Multi-floor corporate tenancies, or organisations whose procurement process requires evidence rather than assurances.
- Dedicated crew with per-building induction records
- Day porter cover available for reception, kitchen and washroom areas
- Carpet and hard-floor programmes planned by floor and quarter
- Compliance pack supplied direct to your building manager
Fixed figure, issued in writing before anyone starts.
Site inspection at no charge, then a written scope and price inside 24 hours.
The process
How we take over an office clean
Four steps. Most Sydney offices are inspected within 48 hours of the first call and cleaned inside the week.
- 01
Tell us the headcount
Call 1300 494 983 with the desk count per floor, the kitchen and washroom arrangement, the building's after-hours access rules and the nights you want us in.
- 02
Evening inspection
We see the office the way the cleaner will — after your people leave, bins full, kitchen used. That is the office we are quoting, not the one shown at 10am.
- 03
Specification and fixed price
Within 24 hours you get the written scope split into per-visit, weekly and periodic tasks, with the price attached. Nothing buried in an hourly rate.
- 04
Same cleaner, audited monthly
Your cleaner is inducted on the building's access procedure, starts on the agreed date, and a supervisor audits the floor against the specification each month.
FAQ
What office managers ask before changing cleaning contractor
The questions worth settling before you sign, not after the standard has already slipped.
How often does an office actually need cleaning?
Headcount decides it, not floor area. A dozen people spread across a large tenancy generate less work than thirty crammed into half of it, because bins, kitchens and washrooms scale with bodies rather than square metres. Under about twenty-five staff, two or three evenings a week usually holds. Above that, or wherever there is a busy internal kitchen, nightly service is the honest answer. We recommend a frequency at inspection and revisit it after the first month.
Can one scope cover offices in several buildings?
That is precisely what this arm of Clean Best is for. Each tenancy gets its own written specification, because a two-floor Barangaroo tenancy with end-of-trip facilities is not a Norwest suite. What is identical across them is the vetting, the insurance, the audit cycle, the account manager and the invoice. Adding a new office when you sign a lease does not require reopening the agreement.
Do your cleaners touch desks and personal belongings?
We wipe desk surfaces that have been left clear, and dust monitor stands, keyboards, handsets and cable trays on a rotation. We do not move paperwork, open drawers or handle anything personal, and a cleaner who offers to is creating a problem for you rather than solving one. Workplaces that want desks genuinely clean adopt a clear-desk night once a week, and we will write it into the specification and remind the floor that afternoon.
What happens with kitchens and end-of-trip facilities?
They are where an office clean is won or lost, so they lead the specification rather than trail it. Kitchens get benches, sinks, splashbacks, fridge exteriors, microwave interiors and bins every visit, with a scheduled fridge clear-out. End-of-trip showers, screens, drains, lockers and benches are cleaned on a cycle designed to stop mould establishing, because removing it costs far more than preventing it ever does.
Do we need to supply equipment or consumables?
No. Cleaners arrive with commercial equipment, HEPA-filtered vacuums and the correct chemical for each surface, all listed on the site chemical register with safety data sheets attached. If your workplace runs a low-tox or fragrance-free policy, or your building imposes a product requirement, tell us at inspection and the register is written to match. Paper, soap and liners can be managed by us or left with your existing supplier.
Should an office be cleaned during or after business hours?
Usually after hours, from about 6pm, or pre-dawn where the building restricts evening lift access. Some workplaces also run a discreet day porter for kitchens, washrooms and reception on high-traffic floors, with the full clean still happening at night. If a contractor offers daytime work, ask how the scope changes: cordless equipment, no wet floors across walkways, no strong odours near desks. An evening scope simply performed in daylight is not a daytime scope.
How do you stop the standard slipping after month three?
The specification stops the job living in one cleaner's head, and the monthly audit stops the specification from becoming decorative. A supervisor walks the floor against the document and sends you the result, including the months where everything passed. Anything below standard is fixed before the next visit at our cost. If a floor keeps failing, we change the cleaner — it is a staffing decision, and pretending otherwise is how providers slowly lose sites.
Keep reading
The rest of the due diligence
What a contractor should be able to evidence in each setting, and the documents to ask every one of them for.
Put the checklist to us before you put it to anybody else
Free evening inspection, the compliance pack on request, a written scope and fixed price inside 24 hours, no lock-in term. Call 1300 494 983.