For your business
Pet boarding
Runs, nights, peak windows, and the stay that pays for the quiet week.
Lessons
37
Tracks
1
Decision guides
4
Written for this trade
Where the mechanism differs from every other service line.
103. Rooms, kennels and pens as resourcesA pen is a resource with its own capacity, and the booking engine ignores it until the stay service says it needs one. That one setting is why a suite for four takes a fifth dog.Lesson3 min read · Owner104. One stay, booked and priced end to endNineteen nights over Christmas, from the check-in time to the number on the invoice. One worked stay, in the order the screens come at you.Lesson3 min read · Owner or front desk105. Feeding, medication and belongings on a stayThree different things are written down before a stay, and they belong in three different places. The one that has to be true every time does not belong on the booking at all.Lesson3 min read · Owner or front desk
Lessons
Each one shows the screen it is about, running on demo data.
1. Getting started and going liveWork down the Setup list, test it without a real client seeing anything, then switch over without messaging everybody by accident.Lesson2 min read · Owner2. Schedules and Sessions, part 1 - hours, one-off days and public holidaysA schedule is the days someone works. A session is a block inside those hours where appointments can start. A day can be switched on and still offer nothing.Lesson3 min read · Owner3. Schedules and Sessions, part 2 - resources and capacityA resource has its own hours and its own capacity, and a service ignores it entirely until you link the two. This is why a daycare set to 3 still shows a fourth spot.Lesson3 min read · Owner4. Why can't they book? Diagnosing no availabilitySix settings cause almost every empty calendar. Looking at it as the client narrows it to one in about a minute.Lesson2 min read · Owner or manager5. Services and add-ons, without confusing the clientTwo settings decide how your booking page reads. The service type, which cannot be changed later, and whether an add-on is paired to a parent service.Lesson2 min read · Owner6. Booking rules: prerequisites, eligibility, notice and cancellationsA rule set once and forgotten is still running. Three tabs on the service decide who can book, how far ahead, and what a late cancellation costs.Lesson4 min read · Owner7. Pricing that runs itself: size bands, special-day rates, multi-pet and long staysA price nobody expected is nearly always a rule somebody set once. Three of them cover most of it: the size of the pet, the day it falls on, and how much of you the booking uses.Lesson4 min read · Owner8. Making a booking, from one dog to a nineteen-night stayOne booking holds a card per pet, and each card holds that pet's services. The switch at the top of the form decides whether Petboost picks the time or you do.Lesson4 min read · Owner or front desk9. Recurring bookings, from the first one to the lastOne pattern creates the whole run, and one optional date decides whether a break is a pause or an ending. Changing the days replaces the series rather than editing it.Lesson4 min read · Owner or manager10. Editing a booking, and changing prices on bookings you already haveA price rise moves your catalogue. Bookings already in the diary keep the price they were confirmed at until something moves them, and by default nothing does.Lesson3 min read · Owner or manager11. Notifications: what the client gets, what you get, and whenMessages do not have a switch each. They follow a handful of switches, and the row tells you which one. The timing is yours to set; the wording of the reminder is not.Lesson3 min read · Owner12. Terms and waivers: upload them, collect them, prove who signedAn agreement is stored on the client's account against the exact document they read, which is why replacing that document asks everybody again.Lesson2 min read · Owner13. Intake forms, from the first question to the answer you neededWhere a form is attached decides who gets it. Where the answer lands decides whether anyone ever reads it.Lesson4 min read · Owner or manager14. Adding a customer fast, and the number that already existsA phone number sits on one profile at a time. Almost every "they already exist" message ends at a profile you cannot see, or at a partner who needs their own number on the same account.Lesson4 min read · Owner or front desk15. The client's side, from sign-up to cancellingYou cannot see the screen a stuck client is on, which is most of the problem. Simulate puts their booking form and their profile in front of you, against your own live settings.Lesson4 min read · Owner or front desk16. A day in Mission Control: check-in, the run sheet and Ready to PayReady to Pay is a status, not a payment screen. Every card on the board moves one column to the right, and the way back is on the card rather than the board.Lesson4 min read · Owner or front desk17. Checkout, receipts, refunds and creditsThe method you pick at checkout decides how you undo it later. A card charge refunds, a payment you marked yourself un-marks, and an unpaid invoice voids.Lesson3 min read · Owner or front desk18. Getting paid: Stripe, the card reader and your payoutsStripe is not optional on a paid plan, and the payments page does nothing until it is connected. The reader, the payout report and the two fee lines all hang off it.Lesson3 min read · Owner19. Deposits, holds and card on file: which one do you wantA deposit is charged when a booking is made, online or by your team. A hold is placed 72 hours before and charged after, which is why it reaches clients who pay you in person.Lesson4 min read · Owner20. Packages: sell one, spend the credits, fix a balanceA package balance is held on the owner's account and stamped with the location that sold it. Those two facts settle most package questions.Lesson4 min read · Owner or front desk21. Memberships: build the plan, enrol someone, pause or cancelA membership is an agreement at a plan's price, and the plan holds every rule that follows. That is also why there is no plan change: to move someone, you cancel and enrol them again.Lesson6 min read · Owner22. Team members, roles and permissionsFour roles decide which pages someone opens and whether money shows on screen. None of them narrows the calendar to one person's own bookings.Lesson3 min read · Owner23. Reporting: settling the day, the fees, and who is overdueDay View splits a day's takings by how each payment arrived, so the drawer and the screen agree. Matching a month to the bank is a different job, and it uses a different number.Lesson3 min read · Owner or manager24. Your own number, bulk SMS and emailing your listReminders already go out on your plan. Your own number, replies and bulk sends are the Communications Booster, and a bulk send only ever counts the clients who opted in.Lesson4 min read · Owner25. Notes, alerts and report cards: what the owner seesA booking carries three separate note boxes and only one of them reaches the owner. The report card is built from that one, and from the photos attached to it.Lesson3 min read · Owner or front desk27. Calendar views and the shape of your dayGroup By decides what the columns are, Stack Mode decides whether there is a clock at all. Most "my calendar looks wrong" is one of those two.Lesson2 min read · Owner or manager28. Finding anything, and changing a lot of it at onceA pet that has vanished is almost always archived. A grid that looks short almost always has a filter on. Both leave a mark you can read.Lesson2 min read · Owner or front desk29. Your Petboost bill, and why it changedYour plan is one line. Power-ups are billed on top of it and cancelled separately, and messages are counted by what sent them.Lesson2 min read · Owner30. Data in and out: checking a migration, and taking it with youAn import marks itself done from a flag, not from a headcount. Check the four things a migration usually drops before you go live on it.Lesson3 min read · Owner32. Your booking link, Showcase page and QR codesYou have two links, not one, and they are for different people. Everything else is a way of putting one of them somewhere.Lesson2 min read · Owner33. Get found: Google reviews and the marketing toolsA review request goes out from the booking, pointed at your own review link once it is in. The health board says who to chase, and Social Studio makes the post about it.Lesson2 min read · Owner34. Attributes, tags and custom fieldsAn attribute can change a price, a duration or a place. A tag cannot. Picking the wrong one is why a note never reached the booking.Lesson2 min read · Owner35. Kiosk and the counter: check-in, retail and a quick saleKiosk mode hands the iPad to the client. Products are thin on purpose, and a quick sale is an invoice with no booking attached.Lesson2 min read · Front desk36. Multi-location and organisationsA second site is a second business account with its own calendar, team and clients. One thing sits above them both, and it is the bill.Lesson2 min read · Owner
Tracks
A run of lessons that answers one whole job, in the order to take them.
Decision guides
How should a boarding cancellation policy work at peak?Run one ladder all year and tighten peak on a separate peak Stay service, because nothing in Petboost reads the date: the notice period, the fee and the deposit come from the business default or the service booked.Decision guide5 min readShould boarding have fixed check-in and check-out windows?Yes, published on the service so the booking form enforces them, because open-ended collection is what breaks the next stay rather than a courtesy you extend to good customers.Decision guide5 min readShould you take a deposit on a two-week boarding stay?Yes, and size it to the stay rather than to a slot, because a fortnight over Christmas is the hardest booking in your year to refill and the deposit is the part you keep.Decision guide5 min readHow many dogs can you board? The number that paysBoarding capacity is runs multiplied by nights, not pets per day, and the number worth setting comes from staffing and cleaning time rather than from how many beds you own.Decision guide5 min read
Keep reading
Longer pieces on petboost.com.au.
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