Do Cleaning Companies Bring Their Own Supplies, or Does the Office Provide Them?

Equipment and Chemicals

The company brings and maintains these. Vacuums, mops and buckets, floor machines where the specification includes floor work, cloths, and the chemicals themselves. That includes responsibility for using them correctly, which matters more than it sounds: the wrong product on a sealed floor or a stone surface causes damage that costs more than any cleaning contract.

If you have surfaces with specific requirements — a particular stone, a delicate finish, sensitive equipment — say so at survey stage and ask what will be used on them.

Consumables

This is the one that generates complaints. Soap, paper towels, toilet tissue and bin liners can be supplied by the cleaning company or bought by you, and both arrangements work when they are stated.

Three separate questions, and each can be answered differently:

• Who purchases the stock and bears the cost
• Who refills dispensers, and when
• Who watches stock levels and triggers the reorder

The third is the one that never gets assigned and the one that causes the empty dispenser. Purchasing and refilling can both be working perfectly while nobody is watching the cupboard. Set a reorder trigger — "order when the store drops below two weeks" — rather than relying on somebody noticing.

Dispensers Constrain the Answer

Before deciding who supplies, know what is installed. Proprietary dispenser systems take one manufacturer's refills and nothing else, which ties you to that supply chain. Open systems take standard stock from anyone.

The Janitor's Closet

Somebody has to provide a secure place with water and drainage for equipment and chemicals. In a managed building this is often shared or provided by the building. Establish who owns it, who has keys, and whether your company's equipment can be stored on site, because a crew that has to carry equipment in and out every night is spending your hours on logistics.