Cleaning Checklists with Photos

A checklist sets out what a clean consists of at one of your listings: the rooms, the steps in each, and a photo of how every finished result should look. Your cleaner works through it on their phone, ticks each step, and sends back their own photo wherever you asked for one. You receive a report for every turnover, with your photo and theirs side by side.

Checklists live under Communication → Tasks → Checklists. Your cleaner never needs a Haven account.

When to Use a Checklist

• You already explain the clean in a document, a binder, or a guidebook you repurposed for staff, and you want it attached to each job instead of sent once and forgotten.
• The standard matters in the details: how the bed is dressed, where the welcome basket sits, which way the towels fold.
• You want evidence that the property was left ready, tied to the specific stay it followed.
• A new or backup cleaner has to reach the same result without a walkthrough.

How to Build One

Step 1: Start the checklist

Open Communication → Tasks → Checklists and click New checklist. There are four ways to begin.

• From a listing. Haven lays out an area for each room on the listing and for each labelled group of photos (Kitchen, Bathroom, Patio), adds a short set of starter steps to each, and places your own listing photos on the step that shows the finished look. Every part of it is a draft you can rewrite.
• Copy one you have. The steps and photos carry over, which suits a second unit in the same building.
• Bring in a guide you already wrote. Paste a link, upload a PDF or Word file, add photos of printed pages, or paste the text. See Importing an existing guide below.
• Blank.

Step 2: Edit areas and steps

An area is a room or a moment in the visit, such as Kitchen or Before you leave. A step is one thing to do. Drag the grip on the left of either to reorder it; a step's menu moves it to another area.

Each step has:

• a short name the cleaner ticks off;
• optional instructions, for how to do it and what to watch for;
• how it should look photos, chosen from the listing's gallery or uploaded (up to 6 per step);
• an Ask for a photo back switch.

There is no Save button. Changes are written a moment after you stop typing.

Step 3: Watch it as your cleaner will see it

On a computer screen, the editor shows the checklist on a phone beside it, exactly as it will appear on the job page, and it changes as you type. Opening an area in the editor opens the same area on the phone. Everything on the phone can be tapped and nothing is stored. On a smaller screen, Preview as cleaner opens the same phone view.

Step 4: Put it on a listing

At the top of Checklists, under Used for turnover cleans, choose the checklist for each listing. A listing needs a turnover cleaner before it can take one, because the checklist rides on the clean each booking creates. A listing without one shows Choose a cleaner: pick anyone from your contacts (cleaners are listed first, then the rest of your team) and the checklist picker appears in its place. If you have no contacts yet, Add a cleaner opens Contacts. You can change the cleaner later under Tasks → Setup.

Every clean that has not started picks up the checklist, including cleans for stays booked months ago.

What Your Cleaner Sees

The offer arrives by text, WhatsApp, or email as before, now noting the size of the checklist ("18-step checklist"). The steps themselves are never included in a message.

• Before accepting, the job page shows how much work there is: the number of steps and areas and how many photos you asked for. It does not show the steps. Cleaning instructions tend to carry door codes, so they stay hidden until the job belongs to someone.
• After accepting, they press Start. Each area opens to its steps, with your photo beside an Add your photo button that opens the phone camera.
• They can add a note to any step, or report a problem.
• A step where you asked for a photo cannot be ticked until the photo is in. If they truly cannot take it ("no power, too dark"), Can't take this photo? lets them give a reason instead, which unlocks the tick and holds the pay for you to look at.
• Finish job stays greyed out until every step is ticked. A line above it counts the steps left and jumps to the first one.

Ticks made without a signal are kept on the phone and sent when the connection returns.

Texting DONE still completes the job, photos or no photos. A same-day turnover has to be recordable regardless, so what is missing is flagged on the report instead.

The Report

Open any task in Communication → Tasks to see:

• each step, whether it was ticked, by whom and when;
• your photo and the photo sent back, side by side, opening full size;
• notes the cleaner left, and the reason given for any photo that was not sent;
• Other photos sent back, for pictures texted in rather than added to a step.

A card appears in Reservations & Inbox → Inbox when a cleaner finishes, with the count of steps ticked and photos returned.

Every report is kept. Tasks → History finds past cleans by listing, date, cleaner, or anything written on them, shows every photo sent back, and downloads them full size or as a zip for an insurance or damage claim. See History.

Problems

From the job page a cleaner can Report a problem: damage, something missing, a supply running low, something that needs fixing, or an item a guest left behind. They describe it and can attach up to four photos. They can also text PROBLEM followed by what is wrong.

A problem report can start a message of its own, such as sending restock needs to your provisioner or repairs to your handyman. See Team Automations.

You are told immediately, by a card in Reservations & Inbox → Inbox and by text if that alert is on (Settings → Account & Profile → Notifications, under Stays). Several problems from one visit arrive as one card. Mark dealt with on the task closes each one; you can also log a problem yourself.

An open problem keeps the task in Needs you.

Pay and Missing Photos

Auto-pay does not release a payout while a photo you asked for is missing, a reason was given in place of one, or a problem is open. The payout waits for you to look and approve. Manual approval is unchanged.

If the clean is not right, press Send back on the task and say what to fix. The checklist opens again for your cleaner with your note at the top, and the pay waits until they finish it again. To have a say on every clean before anyone is paid, turn on Wait for me to approve each finished job before the pay goes out under Tasks → Setup.

Editing a Checklist That Is in Use

Each clean works from its own copy, taken when the cleaner presses Start (or when the job completes, for someone who only texts DONE). Until that moment the clean follows the live checklist, so an improvement you make on Monday applies to Friday's turnover. After it, your edits leave that clean's record untouched.

If a job is reassigned or its dates move before any work was done, the copy is released and the next person starts from the checklist as it reads then. Once anything has been ticked, noted, or photographed, the record stays with the task, and whoever takes over sees what was already done and by whom.

Sharing a Checklist as a Guide

Share as a guide in the editor creates a link anyone can read: the areas, steps, and photos, with nothing to tick and no address, dates, or pay. It is meant for a new cleaner to read ahead of a first visit.

The link is off until you turn it on. Leave it off if any step gives a door code or says where a key is kept; your cleaner still sees every step on each job they accept. Make a new link replaces it and disables the old one.

Importing an Existing Guide

Haven reads the guide and lays it out as areas and steps. It transcribes; it does not add steps, products, or warnings your guide does not state. You review the result in the editor before it goes on any listing.

• Link works for a public page. Some guidebook sites turn automated readers away; when that happens the dialog says so and offers the other two routes.
• File accepts PDF, Word, plain text, and photos of printed pages. A PDF brings in the words. Photos embedded in it do not come across, so add those from your listing gallery afterwards.
• Text takes anything you can paste.

When a link does expose its photos, they are copied into the checklist. Photos that could not be fetched are counted and reported, never linked from the original site.

Limits

A checklist holds up to 30 areas and 150 steps. Each step takes up to 6 reference photos and up to 4 photos back, with 60 photos back per clean across all steps.

What Checklists Do Not Do

• They do not apply to upsell tasks. Those carry the delivery steps set on the upsell itself.
• Step text is not translated. The job page's own buttons and labels appear in the cleaner's language (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German); your instructions appear as you wrote them.
• Haven does not judge the photos. Comparing them is left to you.

Related Articles

• Fulfillment: Tasks, Contacts, and Payouts
• Team Automations
• Hire a Cleaner from the Haven Network
• Guest Checkout Tasks