Making a booking, from one dog to a nineteen-night stay

A second walk on the same day would not go on, and three siblings would not go on one daycare booking. In both cases the form looked like it was offering to merge rather than add, and it was not: a booking holds a card per pet, and one switch decides who picks the time.

One card per pet

A booking is not one pet and one service. It is a card per pet, and each card holds every service that pet is having.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Appointment.
2. Under Pet, find and choose the pet.
3. Under Services for, which names the pet, pick every service that pet is having.
4. For the household's next dog, select Add Sibling, or Create & Add Pet for a dog with no record yet.

Add a second service by picking it under Services for on that pet's card, not by starting another booking. An add-on with Add extra time with this add-on switched on lengthens the booking by its minutes with the same team member and room, and online the client is only offered times with room for the extra. Add Sibling puts the household's next dog on the same booking with its own services, and Create & Add Pet does the same for a dog you have no record for yet.

For a regular, the quickest booking is the last one again. A pet with a visit in the last 12 months carries a Last: badge with that visit's date beside its name; select it for Last visit, which lists what each pet had and what was charged, then Book Same to fill in those services and add-ons. A service you no longer offer, or one the pet can no longer book, stays greyed out rather than being added. Once a team member or resource is on a line, a blue badge counts the other pets already booked with them over that time, such as 2 pets at same time, and selecting it shows their bookings, so a shared slot is a choice rather than a surprise. A time can carry a badge such as 3 of 5 free, the team member or resource with the least room at that time, counted from bookings already made; it shows only for a groomer, pen or room that takes more than one pet at a time, and never on your clients' booking page.

The list beside Create Appointment decides what happens next: Stay on page, Go to appointment, or Create another after, which opens a blank form for the next booking.

Turn the check off to force one in

Magic Availability Check sits at the top of the form, beside the date. On, it offers only the times the booking engine says are free; off, you type a start and an end and it saves what you typed.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Appointment.
2. Beside the date at the top of the form, switch off Magic Availability Check.
3. Choose the pet and its services, then set Start Time and End Time on each service.
4. Answer Notify customer?, then select Create Appointment.

Turn it off when you have already agreed a time with the client and want it in the book regardless, then read the line that appears underneath before you save. The appointment is created without an availability check, so nothing warns you that the room is full or the groomer is already on a dog. A plain New Appointment opens in whichever mode you used last, while editing an appointment or dragging on the calendar always opens with the check off.

Two warnings say what the check would have told you. Choose a team member or resource the service would not normally use and a line under the service says why, such as "isn't set up for this service", with Link service or Add to sessions opening their page in a new tab while the booking stays open. Date a booking in the past and the button reads Review Before Creation: the review lists what pressing create will do, the money, the messages and the automations, before anything happens.

On a mobile booking, Change Location on the appointment asks the same Notify customer? question. Update silently sends nothing, so tell the client yourself.

A stay is a date range

Boarding does not use the appointment form. A stay has its own three-step form, and the middle step is where the nights are set.

1. Open Appointments, select New, then Stay, which appears once you have a stay service.
2. On Pets & Services, choose the pet and pick its stay under Service for, then select Continue.
3. On Timing, set Check-in Date and Check-in Time, then Check-out Date and Check-out Time, and select Continue.
4. On Review, answer Notify customer?, then select Book Stay for, which names the pets.

Check-in Date and Check-out Date hold the whole stay, so nineteen nights is the same amount of work as one. The times are not decoration: they set the billed duration, and a check-in outside the window you configured raises an amber warning before you save. When the nights are not all free, the last button reads Force Book Without Check instead.

Leave the room or team member on Magic Match and Petboost takes the first one the service allows that is free for every night. When a stay service only lets guests arrive or leave on certain weekdays, a date on any other day is marked Outside check-in days or Outside check-out days; your team can still book it, and clients booking online only see the allowed days. Once the stay is booked, Add daytime appointments books a groom or a walk on days inside it, each one its own appointment linked to the stay.