The call that comes in most often is a number that already exists, with nothing in search to match it. The wife's deposit on her husband's account, the separated owners who both need to book, and the dog that changes house are the same fact from other angles: a phone number belongs to one customer, and the customer holding it may be archived.
Add on a phone number, and read the warning
A first name, a surname and a phone number create the owner. The pet needs a name, a breed and a gender. Email is optional, and everything else can wait.
- Open Customers & Pets and select Add New.
- Enter the owner's First name, Surname and Phone.
- If Existing customer appears under the number, select Open profile and add the pet there instead.
- Enter the Pet Name, Breed and Gender.
- Answer Notify customer?, then select Create & Send Activation SMS or Create Silently.
Petboost searches that number while you type, archived records included, so the profile holding it surfaces before you save anything. The number above is already taken, which is why the warning is sitting there; clear the field and it goes. Notify customer? has no default, and the create button says which of the two things it is about to do.
Trap
If you save past the warning, the error names the holder. Number belongs to another customer means open theirs instead. Number belongs to an archived customer means they are still there: search for the number on Customers & Pets, select Include archived, then Restore on their banner. When the number matches but the name does not, you get Yes, Same Person - Link Account, which puts the new pet on the profile that already exists rather than making a second one.
One household, two numbers
A partner who cannot log in does not need their own profile. They need Second pet parent phone on this one.
- Open Customers & Pets and select Manage on one of the household's pets.
- Select Manage Owner, then Edit Owner Details.
- Enter the partner's mobile under Second pet parent phone, and who it belongs to under How to label this number.
- Select Save Owner Details.
They sign in with their own number and see the same pets, the same history, the same card and the same package credits. That is what stops a deposit landing on one person and the booking on the other. How to label this number is what appears beside it under Contact Details on the Pet & Owner Details tab, so Partner or Dad reads at a glance.
Tip
Ticking Secondary phone under Required to book on Fields & Forms makes it required for a client filling in their own details. For your staff it is only an amber Required for Pet Owner hint, so it never blocks a quick add at the counter.
Manage Pet, Manage Owner, and the one thing neither does
Everything that hides, removes or re-invites somebody sits behind these two buttons on the pet's profile. The split is the part worth knowing: Manage Owner acts on the household and every pet under it, Manage Pet acts on one dog.
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Archive or Delete Account | The household and every pet on it. Archive keeps the number reserved |
| Archive or Delete Pet | Hides one dog, or acts on the whole account when it is the only pet. Delete needs a pet that has never been booked |
| Dog has gone to heaven | Archives the pet and keeps the profile. The banner then reads has passed away |
Permanently deleting an account frees its number only when you created that profile and the owner never signed up in the app. Everything else keeps the number, which is why one can still be taken by a profile that is not in your active list.
Check
Neither menu moves a pet to a new owner, and you have not missed a setting. Build the new owner's profile, then use Speak with the team to have the dog moved, so the appointment history, the certificates, the notes and the credits go with it. Deleting the dog and adding it again under the new owner loses all of that.