A customer walks in with a ticket for four items. Three are on the rail. The fourth — a jacket that needed a button and went to the tailor — is not, and nobody behind the counter knows whether it went out, came back, or is sitting in a bag in the back room. You end up apologising for something that is, in the end, a record-keeping failure rather than a cleaning one. Dry cleaning is a trade where the cleaning is rarely the problem and the tracking usually is.
ProTakip is job management software for dry cleaners and laundries. It runs on Android and iOS, works offline, and the first three months are free. It is built for counters that take in individual items, split them across processes, and have to hand every one of them back to the right person.
Tracking item status through the entire workflow
People search for exactly this: which dry cleaning software tracks item status through the entire workflow. The honest answer is that it depends on whether the software tracks the ticket or the item, and those are very different things. A ticket-level system tells you an order is in progress. An item-level system tells you three pieces are pressed and the jacket is at the tailor.
ProTakip stages every job through to collect, in progress, ready and out for delivery, and each item on the job carries its own barcoded label. Scan a garment on the rail and you get the owner, the ticket, the agreed price and the stage. Scan a bag that has come back from an outworker and you know where it belongs without opening it.
The point of item-level tracking is not tidiness. It is that the person at the counter can answer a question without leaving the counter, and that a part-finished order does not get handed out incomplete because it looked finished on the rail.
The counter, the tag and the Bluetooth printer
Intake is the moment everything else depends on. ProTakip prints tags and customer receipts to a Bluetooth thermal printer, so items are labelled as they are booked in rather than later, and the customer walks out with a receipt that matches what is in the system.
Item descriptions, fabric notes and pre-existing damage go on the job at intake too. A photograph and a line saying mark on left cuff before cleaning costs fifteen seconds and settles an argument three days later. In a trade where a single disputed silk dress can wipe out a week's margin, that record is the cheapest insurance you will buy.
Price lists that hold up at the counter
Dry cleaning pricing is a long list of small numbers, and the list is where staff hesitate. ProTakip holds your own price list with per-piece prices, extra services such as express turnaround, repairs, waterproofing or hand finishing, and packages for regulars who bring the same load every week.
Because the list is shared, a new starter charges what you charge. Because prices sit on the job rather than being typed in fresh each time, the total on the ticket and the total at collection agree. If you also handle rugs and upholstery, the same approach to building a list is set out in our pricing guide for cleaning work, and the mechanics carry over almost unchanged.
Telling customers their order is ready
Uncollected orders are dead stock taking up rail space, and most of them are uncollected because nobody was told. ProTakip sends a WhatsApp message automatically when an order reaches ready, using a template you write in your own words, and you can send a follow-up from the customer card for anything still hanging after a week.
The tone matters more than the technology. A short, human message with the ticket number and the number of pieces gets people through the door; a system-generated block of text gets ignored. Our guide to customer notifications covers the wording, the timing, and how often is too often.
Regulars, accounts and the money side
Every dry cleaner has a handful of customers who are worth more than the rest put together: the restaurant with weekly linen, the hotel, the office with shirts on account. Those relationships run on trust and a balance, not on a till receipt.
The customer card in ProTakip holds job history, notes and the running balance, and the till record tracks income and expenses by period and by staff member so you can see what a shift or a branch actually took. Part payments at drop-off and the remainder at collection are both recorded against the job. For chasing what is outstanding without souring a good account, see our payment collection and balance tracking guide.
ProTakip is not accounting software and does not file anything on your behalf. It keeps the trading record — what was agreed, what came in, what is still owed — which is the part that decides whether you are profitable, not the part your accountant does in the spring.
Collection and delivery rounds
More laundries are running collection and delivery than five years ago, and it is where the margin either appears or disappears. ProTakip stores map locations against customer addresses, groups the day's collections and drops by area, and assigns them to a driver or vehicle. Drivers close each stop from the doorstep, which updates the order status for whoever is on the counter.
If you are building a round from scratch, our guide to delivery scheduling and route planning deals with the parts software cannot solve for you: how tight to make the window, what to do about repeat no-access addresses, and when a round stops being worth running.
The phone, the counter and everything else
On Android, ProTakip shows who is calling before you answer — name, last order, outstanding balance — and it works with no internet connection, which is useful in a shop with thick walls and no signal. The practical guide to caller ID explains the setup and what it changes on a busy Saturday.
Staff are added by invitation code with their own permissions, so the counter can book work in without seeing your figures. In-app messaging and push-to-talk connect the shop, the plant and the van. And the whole thing works offline, syncing when the connection returns, so a dead spot in the back room does not stop intake.
Choosing, and moving across from something else
If you are comparing options, our practical guide to dry cleaning management software goes deeper on what to test before you commit, and the data migration guide covers moving customers and history across from an existing program or from Excel. Firms that also wash rugs on the same site tend to run both sides in one account — see carpet and rug cleaning software — and those with an outbound cleaning crew often add home and office cleaning to the same setup.
Frequently asked questions
Does ProTakip track individual garments or just the whole order?
Both. The order moves through the four workflow stages, and each item on it carries its own barcoded label printed at intake. Scanning a garment on the rail returns the owner, the ticket, the agreed price and the current stage, so a part-finished order is never handed out as complete.
Can I print tags and customer receipts at the counter?
Yes, to a Bluetooth thermal printer, including the small battery-powered models used in vans. Tags are printed at intake so items are labelled before they leave the counter, and the customer receipt matches the job record exactly.
How do I handle customers on account rather than paying each time?
The customer card carries a running balance. Part payments at drop-off and settlement at collection are both recorded against the job, and you can pull a list of everyone carrying an outstanding balance, oldest first, when it is time to chase.
How are customers notified when an order is ready?
Customer notifications go out over WhatsApp using templates you write yourself, sent automatically when an order reaches ready or goes out for delivery. You can also send a manual message from the customer card for anything still uncollected.
What happens if the internet drops during a busy period?
The app keeps working. Jobs, payments and stage changes are stored on the device and synced as soon as the connection returns, so intake never stops because the line is down.