Chartered Accountant for Cleaning Companies

A cleaning company is steered through payroll before it is steered through accounting. The wage bill is the dominant cost item, contracts are won and lost site by site, and a mechanism specific to the sector, the transfer of staff, comes into play at each change of provider.

Our firm supports labour-intensive business services, alongside our work with private security. This page covers what matters in a cleaning company's accounting.

Quick answer. A cleaning company falls under its own collective agreement (cleaning companies, IDCC 3043), whose Annex VII organises the transfer of staff: when a contract changes provider, the employment contracts of the staff assigned to it are transferred to the incoming company, under conditions. This social specificity, combined with a dominant wage bill and a multi-site activity, makes payroll and margin-by-contract tracking the two main topics. The activity falls under industrial and commercial profits, with VAT at the standard 20% rate.

Annex VII of the cleaning companies' collective agreement organises the transfer of the employment contracts of staff assigned to a contract when it changes provider, under conditions (seniority, assignment to the contract). In practice, winning a contract may mean taking on staff, and losing one may mean transferring employees to the incoming provider.

The accounting consequences are direct: transfer of the social liabilities attached to transferred staff (paid leave, seniority), management of staff entries and exits at each contract movement, and handling of final settlements. In this trade, payroll and Annex VII transfers weigh directly on profitability.

The wage bill is the major cost item of a cleaning company: part-time work, staggered hours (early morning, late evening), multi-site assignments, frequent use of replacements. Payroll management is therefore the most sensitive item, with a productivity challenge (billed hours compared to hours actually worked) and a cost of replacements.

Profitability is read site by site. Analytical tracking by contract (billed hourly rate compared to cost hourly rate, productivity, absenteeism) identifies which contracts are profitable and which are not. Beyond a certain size, the support of an outsourced finance department helps structure this steering.

A common case in our files: a cleaning company consults us with global accounting that does not distinguish profitability by contract, and staff transfers handled on an ad hoc basis. The work consisted of setting up analytical tracking by contract, making the treatment of Annex VII transfers reliable (social liabilities, final settlements) and installing a productivity dashboard. No figure from this case can be generalised: each company has its own portfolio of contracts.

• Transfer of staff: secure the treatment of Annex VII transfers (social liabilities, seniority) at each contract movement.
• Payroll: master the cleaning agreement and the cost of replacements.
• Analytics: track margin by contract, not just the global result.
• Cash: anticipate the lag between monthly payroll and collection of services.

Every cleaning company has its own portfolio of contracts, organisation and social constraints. The right starting point is a conversation about your actual situation: number of contracts, headcount, staff movements, payroll organisation. We offer an initial meeting to frame the scope and priorities.

Updated 20 June 2026. Informative content reviewed by a chartered accountant registered with the Île-de-France Chartered Accountants Board. A decision specific to your company requires examination of your situation, your contracts and the regulations in force.