Keeping a company’s bottom line in the black takes skillful management, creativity, foresight and occasionally a little detective work. Ron Feinstein, owner and president of All Valley Washing Services Inc., found that out several years ago. His 32-year-old Van Nuys firm installs commercial washers and dryers in apartment buildings, mobile home parks, government installations such as prisons and military bases, colleges and universities and some private residences. And one of the problems Feinstein encountered was complaints that his machines weren’t washing clothes clean enough. “After some investigation, we found out what was happening when people had others doing their laundry. The maid or their children were supposed to wash four or five loads of clothes, but instead were cramming them all into a couple of loads. They were overloading the machines and then pocketing the balance of the money. “The other problem was security in the buildings. The machines were being broken into for the coins. “Both of these problems created an excessive amount of service calls. When tenants complained the clothes were not getting cleaned, we kept going out to check the machines. And overloading can burn up belts, motors or transmissions. “When they break into the machines, there’s an excessive amount of damage: usually several hundred dollars per machine, plus the coins that were lost. We were spending well over a couple thousand dollars in vandalism repairs. It’s been cut to probably half of that now. “To combat these problems, we came up with a debit card. The [card-dispensing unit] is placed in a manager’s office where it’s secured. Tenants go in and put a value on the card. “We also use the debit card for a marketing tool. We tell owners we can put the building name on the card, and then they can go to businesses in the community and say, ‘I own 100 units, and if you’d like to promote your business by giving my tenants a discount if they present the laundry debit card.” “The building owner benefits by encouraging longevity in tenants. It’s also a good tool for communication: just a two-page newsletter and it’s easy to do, especially with computers and desktop publishing. They can scan in the business cards. “We have a couple hundred of our clients doing this. We print the debit cards with our name on one side and [the building owner’s] logo or colors and name on the other side. We send people in to do a presentation to the tenants on how it works, and generally put some value on the card to get them started.”