If someone outside your business cleans or preps your cars, Glovebox can run that work for you: the job is created from the booking, the provider sees what needs doing and by when, their crew record what they did with photos, and it all adds up to one statement a month.
The provider does not need a Glovebox account, and never sees your customers.
Setting it up
One thing to decide first: who does what. A provider is a business you send work to, and their crew are the people who actually do it. You deal with the provider; the provider manages their own crew.
If they do not use Glovebox
Most cleaners do not. Go to Settings › Fleet partnerships and click Add a cleaning provider. You need their business name, the name of whoever runs it, and that person's email address.
That one step creates the relationship, switches service work on, and emails them an invitation. The email explains who you are, what you are asking, and that they will not see your customers. There is no password and nothing for them to install.
If they are another Glovebox operator
Use Add partnership instead, pick them from the list, and switch on They clean and prep my vehicles. That switch is part of the terms they accept, so turn it on before they accept rather than after. Once a partnership has been accepted its terms are fixed: to change them, suspend it and set up a new one.
For these providers the board appears in their own Glovebox sidebar, under their normal login, so there is nothing to invite them to.
Say where they work
When you add a provider you are asked which locations they look after. Pick Only certain locations unless they genuinely cover your whole fleet, because jobs are raised for every pickup at every location you give them.
You can change it later with Where they work on their row, along with whether jobs are raised automatically and how many hours before pickup a car has to be ready. Changing it affects jobs raised from then on. Jobs already on the list stay as they are, and you cancel those yourself.
Then agree the rates
Covered below, and it is not optional. Work of a kind with no agreed rate is done, recorded, and never billed.
Finding all this again
Partners & providers, in the sidebar under Assets, next to Vehicles and Service jobs. A number beside it means something needs you: a provider nobody has invited, an invitation nobody has opened, or service work with no agreed rate. Each of those quietly stops the work happening or stops it being billed.
Seeing what your provider sees
See what they see on their row opens their board exactly as they get it, times in your timezone and all. Worth a look before anyone turns up, to check they have been given the right cars and nothing more.
It also tells you if nobody has been invited yet, or if the invitation has not been opened, because a board with no reader looks the same as a quiet week.
Checking they have actually turned up
The Provider column on the partnerships list says one of three things:
- Nobody invited means the relationship is live and no one at the other end can see any of it. This is the state that looks most finished and is least useful.
- Invited, not opened means the email has gone and nobody has clicked it. Worth a phone call before you rely on the work getting done.
- Their name, followed by "is in" means they have signed in at least once.
To send the invitation again, or to send it to a different person, use Chase the invitation on that row.
The three kinds of job
- Prep clean: the normal turnaround between two hires.
- Full valet: a deeper clean, usually between seasons or after a bad return.
- Key handover: no cleaning, just getting the keys to the right place.
Each kind has its own rate, so a valet is not billed as a prep clean.
Agreeing what a job is worth
Open Settings › Fleet partnerships and find the provider.
To propose a rate
- Click Service rates on that provider's row.
- Choose the type of job. The helper text shows what is agreed today.
- Enter the rate, excluding GST.
- Click Send to provider.
Proposing is not pricing. Nothing changes until the provider agrees. Jobs completed in the meantime keep billing at the rate you had already agreed, which is the whole point: neither side can move the price on their own.
When the provider proposes one
A Rate to agree button appears on their row with a count. Open it, pick the rate and click Agree this rate. From its start date, jobs of that type bill at the new figure.
Some things worth knowing:
- Nothing is retroactive. Agreeing today does not change what last week's jobs were worth. Every job records its price when it is finished, and that number never changes afterwards.
- A rate cannot start in the past, for the same reason.
- You cannot agree your own proposal, and they cannot agree theirs. That is what makes it an agreement.
- Rates are never edited. A change is a new rate, and the old one closes when the new one starts. That is why a statement from three months ago still shows the price you were on three months ago.
How a job gets created
Most jobs create themselves from your bookings: when a car is coming back and going out again, Glovebox works out that it needs a turnaround, when the car will be free, and when it has to be ready.
Asking for one yourself
For work no booking has asked for, a car back early, a valet between seasons, keys that need moving, use Request a job on the Service jobs list.
You choose the provider, the car, the kind of job and when it has to be ready. Two fields are worth understanding:
- Needs to be ready by is the only time the provider ever sees. They are never shown the pickup.
- Car is free from is optional. Leave it blank if the car is free now and they can start straight away. Fill it in and the job waits as Scheduled until then.
Email them now is on by default. Leave it on for anything that matters today: without it the job sits on their board and waits for their 5pm list, which is a long time for a car that is needed this afternoon. Jobs created automatically from bookings never send an individual email, because a fortnight of bookings would be an inbox full of them.
Asking twice for the same car and the same kind of work does not create a second job.
A job moves through these states:
- Scheduled: the car is not free yet.
- Ready to work on: the car is available and the provider can start.
- In progress: a crew member has started.
- Done: finished, with photos.
- Cancelled: no longer needed, usually because the hire changed.
What the provider sees
The provider's manager signs in by magic link: an email with a sign-in link, no password to set or forget.
They see a job board: which cars, where they are, when each is free, and when it has to be ready, grouped so that anything overdue is at the top. They see the vehicle, not the hire. They do not see who booked it, their phone number, their email, or what they paid. That is deliberate and it is enforced in the software, not left to the provider to respect.
Times on their board are shown in your timezone, not theirs, so "ready by 3pm" means three in the afternoon where the car is.
Their crew work from a personal link with no account at all. It opens a list of their jobs, and each one opens a card: where the car is parked, how to get the keys, anything you have told them, then start, photos, checklist, fuel, odometer, done. The camera opens straight from the page. A crew link can be revoked and stops working immediately, on every device it has been opened on.
If your provider is also on Glovebox
Some providers run their own Glovebox workspace. If they do, all of the above appears as Service work in their own sidebar, under their normal login, and they can propose rates and manage their crew from there.
This works whatever state their own account is in, including a trial that never converts or a subscription that has lapsed. Your cars being ready is your business, not theirs, so nothing about their billing is allowed to stop the work.
What happens when a job is finished
Three things, in one step:
- The checklist, photos, fuel level and odometer are saved against the job.
- The price is recorded from the rate in force at that moment. This is the number that gets billed, and a later rate change cannot alter it.
- A line is added to the provider's monthly statement.
If no rate has been agreed for that kind of job, the work is recorded but nothing is billed. That is not an error: the job was still done, and Glovebox will not invent a price nobody agreed to. Agree a rate and future jobs bill normally, but that job stays unbilled, so agree rates before the work starts.
The Terms column on the partnerships list says how many job types are priced, and says plainly when none of them are, so this does not go unnoticed for a month.
The monthly statement
One statement per provider per month, visible to both sides, covering everything completed in that period.
Download it as a PDF to send, or as a CSV to reconcile. The CSV has one row per job with the date, the kind of work, the vehicle, and the amount split into excluding GST, GST and including GST, so it lines up with your accounts rather than needing to be retyped.
If you also host vehicles for the same partner, hosting fees and service jobs appear on the same statement as separate lines. A single turnaround can never be charged twice, once as hosting and once as a service job.
Keeping an eye on how it is going
The client report gives you four figures:
- Jobs by status: what is scheduled, ready, in progress, done and cancelled.
- Average time from the car being free to the job being done: measured from when the car was actually available, which is the time the provider was given, not from when you happened to look.
- Overdue: jobs finished after the time the car was needed. A job that took a long time but still made the deadline is not counted, because it did not cost you anything.
- Issues found: anything the crew flagged, like damage or a warning light.
Cancelling work you do not want
Select the jobs on the Service jobs list and choose Cancel these jobs, or use Cancel on a single row. You have to give a reason, which is recorded against the job.
Work that has already been started is left alone, and the count tells you how many. Somebody has cleaned a car, and that should survive you tidying a list.
Nothing is deleted. A cancelled job stays on the list, marked cancelled, and the provider stops seeing it.
Where to look when nothing is happening
The Service jobs list tells you which step you are on when it is empty, rather than just saying there is nothing there. It is worth reading: most of the setup is invisible from that screen otherwise, and a partnership nobody has been invited to looks exactly like one that is ready and quiet.
If it did not work
- A job was not billed. No rate was agreed for that kind of job when it was finished. Check Service rates for the provider, and remember that agreeing one now does not backdate.
- A rate I sent is not being used. The provider has not agreed it yet. Until they do, the previous agreed rate applies.
- I cannot agree a rate. If you proposed it, the provider has to agree it. The button only appears for rates the other side put forward.
- The provider says they cannot see a job. A job only appears once the car is free. Before that it is Scheduled. Check the job's available time.
- A crew member's link stopped working. Links are revoked by the provider's manager and stop immediately. They can issue a new one.
- No statement appeared for a month. Statements only cover completed jobs. If nothing was finished, or nothing had an agreed rate, there is nothing to bill.
- This is a clean, should it be a maintenance job? No. Maintenance is your own servicing, warrants and repairs, and a provider can never see it. Cleaning and prep are service jobs, and they are the only ones a provider is shown.
- Jobs appeared for cars this provider does not touch. Their coverage is set to every location. Use Where they work to narrow it, then cancel the jobs that should not have been raised.
- The provider says they never got the invitation. Check the address on the partnership row, then send it again with Chase the invitation. The link is good for an hour, so one sent yesterday will have expired.