Every turnover has an ending. Somebody wipes down the last counter, locks the door, and drives to the next house. The trouble is that the software doesn't always find out. The cleaning sits at "Scheduled" for a week, the host wonders, the cleaner forgets, and the $140 it was worth never shows up anywhere.
Most of what we shipped for turnovers this season is about that ending: what "done" means, when it happened, and noticing when it didn't. Some of it is for hosts, some for cleaning companies, and a lot of it is the same feature seen from both sides.
Hosts: write the checklist yourself
The old cleaning instructions box is gone. In its place: real checklists you build yourself.
Open Cleaning and you'll find a Checklists group in the sidebar. Hit New template and either start from scratch or adapt one of our starters (Standard Turnover, Deep Clean, Quick Refresh, and Laundry Pickup & Return). A template is rooms with tasks in them. Drag to reorder rooms, drag to reorder tasks, and set an estimated duration so your cleaner knows what they're signing up for.
Any task can be marked Photo required. A cleaner can't tick that task off without taking the photo, and they can't mark the job done until every task and every required photo is in. That's the photo proof: "I'm sure I did the hot tub" becomes "here's the hot tub."
One template can be your default for the whole organization. If a property needs something different (the cabin with the wood stove, the condo with the rooftop deck), open that property under Cleaning and pick a different template in its Cleaning checklist setting. Every property follows the default unless you tell it otherwise.
On the cleaner's job screen, your checklist shows up marked Set by host, read-only. It's copied onto the job when the cleaner confirms it, so editing a template later changes future turnovers, not ones already on someone's schedule.
A status for the ones that just… didn't close
Sometimes nobody marks the cleaning complete. Maybe the cleaner forgot to tap the button; maybe it didn't happen at all. Until now both looked exactly like nothing.
Now Staykey nudges the cleaner, then alerts you ahead of the next check-in. If the deadline passes without anyone marking it complete (the next guest's check-in, or three days after the cleaning date when nothing's booked behind it), the cleaning moves to Not marked complete. It isn't billed.
Open the cleaning from your calendar and you get two buttons:
- Mark done. You know it happened (you walked through, or the guest reviews say so), so you close it out yourself and it's treated like any completed cleaning.
- Re-offer to another cleaner. It goes to the next cleaner on that property's priority list.
Cleaners: Loose Ends
Same problem, other side. If you run a cleaning company, you know how it goes: the job got done, the day got away from you, and the tap never happened. That cleaning was worth $0 until somebody fixed it, and nobody went looking.
There's now a Loose Ends card at the top of Today. It lists every cleaning that's past its date and was never reported, oldest first. It also includes Staykey jobs that went to Not marked complete after the reminders went unanswered. If you did clean it, report it now and it gets paid.
Tap Report done and pick the day the work actually happened (it defaults to the scheduled date). If it didn't happen, say why: Didn't happen, Couldn't get in, or Cancelled by client. If the checklist has gaps, you pick a reason (ran out of time, no supplies, forgot the photos…) and can add a note. Staykey shows you exactly what the host will see before you send it.
Managers get the bulk version. One button reports the whole backlog done, each cleaning on its own scheduled date. Rows with checklist gaps wait for a reason, and the footer shows the total and how many billing windows it touches before you confirm.
The money goes where it belongs. A late report lands in the billing period when the work happened. If that period is already settled, it carries forward into your current one, labeled with the period it came from, so nothing you've already been paid for gets rewritten.
On the host's side, a late report sends the same completion notification as an on-time one. The cleaning shows a short recap: reported after the fact, how many days late, and what was missing and why, in the cleaner's own words.
Cleaners: Earnings that know who owes you
The Earnings page for owners and managers is now a billing console. It starts with an Owed to you card (who owes what, overdue first) and a Chase owed button that lines up every client with a balance.
Below that, Client billing gives each client a card: their current billing window, what's owed, what's still building, and a Record payment button for the Venmo, cash, or bank transfer that just came in. A payment can cover several cleanings at once.
Each client gets a billing cadence: Per cleaning, Weekly, Biweekly, or Monthly. Due dates follow the window, so a monthly client's cleaning from the 3rd doesn't read as overdue on the 11th. It's due a week after the month closes, like you'd expect. Hosts who pay through Staykey are handled automatically, with no window to manage.
Cleaners: tell Staykey when you're busy
Two smaller things that save a lot of texting:
- Block availability. On Schedule, tap Blocks to mark days (or recurring days, or specific hours) when you or a crew can't work. Requests that land on a blocked day are declined automatically, or sent to you to decide, depending on how you set the block. You can also paste a calendar feed URL so your existing calendar fills in the blocks for you.
- Auto-accept. On a Staykey host's client profile, turn on Auto-accept requests and their turnovers book instantly, assigned to the crew you pick.
None of this is glamorous. It's the end of the turnover, written down, which is the part that used to live in a group chat.
Open Staykey and write one checklist. Or, if you clean, open Today and check for loose ends. We suspect you have a few.
Related reading
- Help: Writing cleaning checklists: templates, defaults, per-property overrides, and photo requirements.
- Help: Reporting loose ends: how cleaners close out the cleanings that never got reported.
- Help: Tracking earnings and billing clients: Owed to you, Record payment, and billing cadences.
- Help: Understanding the cleaning status flow: every status, including Not marked complete.
- Post: The cleaner portal is open to everyone: self-signup and private clients, from August.