Academy
Lessons
Each lesson shows the screen it is about. The panels are the real Petboost interface, running here on demo data.
In order
Ranked by 90 days of support conversations. The first four are where most accounts get stuck.
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.2 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.3 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.3 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.2 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.2 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.4 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.4 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.4 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.4 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.3 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.3 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.2 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.4 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.4 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.4 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.4 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.3 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.3 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.4 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.4 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.6 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.3 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.3 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.4 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.3 min read · Owner or front desk26. Courses and classes end to endA template decides the shape, a course is one intake of it, and the two are edited in different places. That split explains most course questions.3 min read · Owner or trainer27. 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.2 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.2 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.2 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.3 min read · Owner31. Trips: pick-ups, drop-offs and the day's routeTrips shows one stop at a time on purpose. Optimise reorders the run, and the log book turns the kilometres into a BAS number.2 min read · Walker, driver or sitter32. 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.2 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.2 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.2 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.2 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.2 min read · Owner
By trade
Where the mechanism differs by service line rather than by setting.
101. Style memory: what the last groomer wrote, and where it livesA style saved on the booking is gone by the next one. Three cards on the pet hold the cut, the coat and the handling, and whoever is on the table next reads them without asking.3 min read · Owner102. Coat condition and matting, priced at the booking rather than at the doorA matted dog takes longer and costs more, and both of those can be on the booking before it is made. An attribute with properties does it; a tag cannot.3 min read · Owner103. 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.3 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.3 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.3 min read · Owner or front desk106. The temperament test as the gateThe test is a service that locks another service, so it is set on the service rather than on the dog. It also never reaches the calendar, which is why nobody can find it.3 min read · Owner107. A daycare day and a groom, in one visitTwo services on one pet card is one booking. Two cards is two bookings for the same dog on the same day, and that is where the double charge and the missing yard place come from.3 min read · Owner or front desk108. Training levels as prerequisitesA level is two things: an attribute on the dog that says it passed, and a rule on the next course that reads it. Courses need a third setting, because booked and finished are not the same.3 min read · Owner or trainer109. A puppy course template, week by weekThe occurrence count creates the session rows, and the titles you put on them ride out on every booking confirmation. The age window is set somewhere else entirely.3 min read · Owner or trainer110. AM and PM visits, and the in-home overnightTwice a day is two services on one card and one recurring pattern. An overnight in the client's house is a stay, on a different form, and mixing the two is the usual mistake.3 min read · Walker, driver or sitter111. Service areas: the suburbs you cover, and charging more to go furtherA mobile service carries its own suburb list, and an empty list means everywhere rather than nowhere. Charging more for the far side of the bridge is a second service, not a surcharge.3 min read · Walker, driver or sitter112. Categories, and staff versus station, across several service linesA category is what the booking page, the calendar and the reporting all group by, so it is worth getting right once. What each line is constrained by is set per service, and they differ.3 min read · Owner or manager