You don't need software to stop losing track of bids. A cleaning bid tracker in Excel or Google Sheets will do the job if it has the right columns and you look at it every week. Here's how to build one from scratch in about an hour.
What a cleaning bid tracker needs to answer
Every week, your tracker should tell you four things at a glance:
- What's waiting on us? (Requests to call back, walkthroughs to book, bids to send.)
- What's waiting on them? (Bids out, with a date to follow up.)
- What did we win and lose, and why?
- Which contracts renew in the next 90 days?
If your current sheet can't answer those, the columns are wrong.
Tab 1: the bid tracking spreadsheet
One row per opportunity. Use these columns:
- Company and building address
- Contact name, phone and email
- Source (referral, website, cold call, RFP)
- Date requested
- Stage (dropdown, see below)
- Walkthrough date
- Bid sent date
- Monthly value
- Next step (a short action, like "call to review bid")
- Next step date
- Owner (the one person responsible)
- Result (won, lost, no decision)
- Reason (one line)
Use a dropdown for stage
Free-typed stages turn into "sent," "Sent!!" and "quote out." Pick five stages and lock them in with data validation:
- New request
- Walkthrough booked
- Bid sent
- Won
- Lost
Make overdue follow-ups turn red
Add conditional formatting to the next step date: if it's before today and the stage isn't Won or Lost, fill the cell red. This one rule does more than any report. When you open the sheet, the red cells are your to-do list.
Tab 2: the janitorial contract tracker
When a bid is won, copy it to a second tab for active contracts. One row per account:
- Company and building
- Start date and contract end date
- Monthly value
- Services included
- Add-on opportunities noted (floor care, carpets, windows, day porter)
- Last check-in date
- Renewal status
Turn it into a cleaning contract renewal tracker
Add three calculated columns to the contracts tab: 90 days, 60 days and 30 days before the end date. Then add conditional formatting that highlights the row when today passes each one. That gives you a built-in reminder to start the renewal conversation early, which I cover in the renewal playbook.
The numbers to add at the top
A small summary block at the top of the bid tab turns the sheet into a dashboard:
- Open bids and their total monthly value
- Follow-ups overdue today
- Bids won and lost this quarter
- Win rate (won divided by won plus lost)
- Contracts renewing in the next 90 days
The 30-minute weekly review
A tracker only works if someone looks at it. Once a week:
- Sort by next step date and clear every red cell.
- Make sure every open bid has a next step and a date.
- Close out anything that's gone quiet after your final follow-up.
- Check the renewals column for anything inside 90 days.
That's it. Thirty minutes a week is usually the difference between "we bid a lot" and knowing your actual win rate.
When you outgrow a spreadsheet, see whether your cleaning company needs a CRM. And if you'd like help setting the whole system up around your numbers, that's what the Revenue Systems Assessment is for.
Want the leaks found for you?
The Revenue Systems Assessment is a fixed-price $2,000 review of how your cleaning company turns quote requests into signed contracts and renewals. Leaks ranked by cost, plus a build plan you keep.
See the assessment →