The question that arrives on a go-live morning is how to take the money out of Ready to Pay. It is a status rather than a payment screen, and it is where a booking sits once the pet has been checked out and the invoice is waiting.
The morning is a list of exceptions
- Open Mission Control and set the date you want to read.
- If Attention Required is not showing, select Expand in the header.
- Select a row to open its list.
Attention Required is the one card that lists what is wrong rather than what exists. A row only appears when its count is above zero, so the card is short on a quiet day and long on a bad one, and each row opens its own list under the same name rather than one merged queue. The rows sit under Bookings, Payments, Care today and Records, each a small card showing its first two rows, with a + button that opens the rest. Most counts follow the date at the top of the screen. Unpaid and Ready to check out look back 180 days, Requests to accept looks ahead 180 days, and Vaccination uploads to review counts everything waiting, whatever that date is, so All Clear means nothing outstanding for the day you are looking at and nothing in any of those windows.
The pin button on the card keeps a row or a pet attribute on screen at 0, in this browser only. Pinned counts and the day's numbers on the opening hours graph are being switched on business by business, so ask us in chat if you do not see them.
Tip
Work it before you open the calendar. Unpaid and Terms not agreed are the two that turn into a conversation at the counter later.
Check in, and the run sheet you print
- Open Mission Control and choose the Run Sheet view.
- To check a pet in, select Manage on its card, then Check In.
- If the header shows Compress rather than Actions, select Compress.
- To print the day, select Actions in the header, then Print Day Run Sheet.
Run Sheet is the view built for a bench. Every note on the booking is opened out under the card instead of sitting behind a click, and the three categories have different authors: Internal Notes is yours and the owner never sees it, Customer-facing Notes is yours and they do, Pet Owner Notes is what they typed when they booked. Check In sits in Manage on the card and sets the booking to In Progress, and Auto-start appointments under Settings then Automatic Actions does the same thing at the scheduled start time without anybody touching it.
From a card, Check In stays one tap unless there is something to hand over: a major care alert, medication due today or the pet's own food opens Confirm Check-in first, with the pet's quick notes and the booking's internal note folded under Internal notes. Medication today lists the day's Medication tasks and each medication form still to fill today, with its round. Checking in a booking that is not for today asks Check in early?, and Check in now goes ahead. At the other end, Confirm Check-out lists Belongings to return when drop-off items were recorded on the visit, and Who may collect, besides the customer when the customer's profile names anyone else.
Dog walking: a key number or a gate code goes in Internal Notes, the one block the owner's copy never carries, so it can ride the printed run sheet without being handed back to them.
Check
Print Day Run Sheet is the PDF that carries every note block. The View menu on the calendar has its own Download section at the foot: Run Sheet PDF is the same print dialog for what is on screen, and CSV of This View is a spreadsheet with the notes in their own columns.
Walk-ins, Ready to Pay, and the way back
- Open Mission Control and choose the Workflow view.
- Switch off Drag Lock in the toolbar.
- Drag the card one column to the right.
- To take back a check-out, select the card in Ready to Pay, then Undo Check Out.
A walk-in is Actions then Quick Check-in: a new or existing customer, then the booking form dated today and starting now, so the card lands straight in In Progress (Check a walk-in in from Mission Control). A booking made with New Appointment for later today lands in Confirmed instead. A shampoo sold at the counter with no booking behind it is Quick Sale in the same menu. Cards move one column to the right at a time, and each landing runs the real action rather than relabelling the card.
| Drop it here | What runs |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | Accepts a booking that was waiting on you |
| In Progress | Checks the pet in |
| Ready to Pay | Checks the pet out and prepares the invoice |
| Checked out & Paid | Takes the payment |
Accepting a mobile booking whose service address differs from the one on file, or has none, stops at Check the service address before accepting, with both addresses on screen. Accept anyway confirms you have seen them.
So getting paid out of Ready to Pay is one more column: the drop opens the checkout, and Express Drag, which appears in the toolbar once Drag Lock is off, is the setting that charges a card on file instead of asking. It switches itself off again when you close the tab. Dragging left is refused, so an accidental drop into Ready to Pay is undone from the card and not from the board: open it and choose Undo Check Out, which puts the booking back to the status it came from.
Trap
Undo Check Out only shows on a card that reached Ready to Pay by being checked out. A booking pushed there by un-marking a payment has no check-out to undo, so the entry is left off rather than offered and refused.
Tasks beside the day
The day's tasks sit in Mission Control itself, so nobody has to open Rounds & Tasks to see what is due: the medication, the feed, the clean-out, and the jobs that belong to the business rather than to a pet.
- Open Mission Control on Day and open Tasks in the sidebar, which shows how many are still to do.
- Choose a name under Whose work to see one person's list, or Everyone for the lot.
- Tick a task off from the list, the same as on Rounds & Tasks.
- For a column on the board instead, open the menu beside the date and set Tasks on Workflow to Show.
Overdue tasks come first and finished ones last. Collapse keeps the column as a thin rail you open with Expand Tasks, and Hide takes it off; it is off until you choose, and the choice belongs to the device, so the treatment-room tablet can show it while the front desk does not. On Me the same Tasks card sits above every view except My day, following the page's own filter and date.
Tip
Add task offers every pet booked that day, including a boarder with nothing else due, so a one-off job for that pet lands on the pet rather than on the business.
Find a booking, and keep the money off a shared screen
- Open Mission Control and type part of a pet's name, an owner's name or a word from the notes into Search customers, pets, notes....
- To narrow the day further, select Filter, choose what to see, then Apply Filters.
- For a screen the clients can see, open the menu beside the date, which reads Day or Week, and switch on Hide prices.
- Select Reset in the toolbar to clear the search, the filters and the sort in one go.
To jump straight to one pet, select Actions, then Find Pet, and search by pet name, owner name, email, phone number or the pet's full microchip number.
The search works on every view at once, highlights the match on each card, and narrows the stay arrival and departure columns too, so a name typed on Workflow is still found when you switch to Pets. Hide prices belongs to the device rather than the business: the front-desk tablet keeps it on, and the owner's laptop still sees the takings.
On a wide screen, Team & Resources in the sidebar opens with Who's working today: everyone rostered, with their hours and On now, Starts later, Away or Finished. A day of photos from the floor is Bulk Photos in the same Actions menu, which opens the Bulk Upload Studio to match each photo to its visit once rather than one booking at a time.
