Yes. Each DoggieDashboard business can save up to eight additional pet information fields for each pet profile. Businesses cannot, however, remove the default information fields that come pre-included (microchip, vet information, weight, color, aggression notes, etc)

The first three additional fields are located in the Business Settings menu under the Custom Field Names heading. You can name these things such as Boarding Notes, Food Issues, Escape Risk, etc. Each custom field title has a maximum length of 25 characters. Keep them short and sweet!

After adding these custom fields, the next time you try to create a new pet record or edit an existing record, you'll notice that there are three extra data fields showing inside the form.

Businesses can also save an additional five fields using the New Client Registration Form feature. These features come in the form of a question that is added to your new client form, as well as the heading for the answer field. For example, you might add the question, Is your pet potty trained? as the question, and then enter Potty Training as the custom field title. Another question could be Does your pet like small animals? and the custom field name could be Small Animal Friendliness.

When your client types information in the new client form under the potty training question, their response will be saved in the pet's profile under the Potty Training heading. When they answer the small animal question, it will get saved in the pet's Small Animal Friendliness field.

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Yes. You can simply inform your clients that they have to submit the form twice.

The first time that they submit the form, they'll include their personal information as well as information for two of their pets. For their third and fourth pets, they don't need to enter all personal information again, since you already have it from their first form submission. They can simply fill out the three required fields (name, email and phone) and then proceed with entering their additional pets' information.

When they submit the form, a new notification will display in your Notifications Inbox. Click the earliest notification from the client and then, after verifying their data and checking for typos, click the Click Here to Save This Client and Their Pets to Your Database button to add them to your database. This will add the client, as well as their first two pets to your database.

To add their third and fourth pets to your database, click on the second notification from the client that shows the two extra pets you want to add. You will now be at the page to add the client and the pet. You should see some red alert messages warning you adding adding a client twice: At the top of the page, click the black link that says JUST ADD PETS. On the following page, select the pet owner from the dropdown list (they're in your database since you just added them) and then the Add Pets to Database button. This will add the additional pets to the owner's profile that you selected.

Vaccine expiration monitoring and tracking is one of the most time-consuming aspects of running a doggie daycare. With DoggieDashboard, business owners have the ability to automatically track up to five different pet vaccine expirations. It takes all the stress out of monitoring vaccines.

The defaults that are included with your account are Rabies, DPP and Bordetella. If your business only needs to track those three vaccines, you're all set! However, if you want to track different vaccines, or you want to track them in a different order, here's how.

To get started, the first thing to do is head to your Business Settings menu. This is where you make all major changes for your DoggieDashboard account.

Start by clicking the grey Pet Vaccine Names & Vaccine Expiration Tracking button. This will open a dropdown that will let you change the pet vaccines that your business monitors. If you're one of the lucky ones and your business only needs to monitor Rabies, DPP and Bordetella, you can simply delete Vaccine #4 and Vaccine #5. In the example below, you can see that we deleted Vaccine #4 and Vaccine #5.

Since we deleted Vaccine #4 and Vaccine #5, they will no longer show up when we try to create a new pet profile (or edit an existing profile). You can see in the image below that the form only displays three vaccine input boxes, one for Rabies, DPP and Bordetella.

In the example below, we have rearranged the vaccine names and added a couple extra vaccines that we want to track. Since every state and country has different pet vaccine laws, we think it's easier that business owners like yourself get to choose the vaccines you monitor, as well as their display order.

In the example below, you can see that the "New Pet Form" is now displaying all five vaccines that we used in the example above. It's that simple!

Every client vet saved in your system will show up in the drop-down list for possible vets when you're saving a new client. If you have one vet saved as Kelly Jones DVM 555-444-3333 and another saved as Dr. Kelly Jones DVM 555-444-3333, the software thinks these are two different people. You need to go through your client vets and make them all use the same spelling. Watch the video below for help. Click here for a blog post about removing duplicate vets.

Yes. When a client's pet passes away, you still might want to keep them in your database. In order to do that, edit the pet's profile and add the word *Deceased* to the end of their name. After updating the pet's name, click the 'Archive' button on the pet's profile page. This way, the pet will no longer show up in the pet dropdown menus (for creating appointments, etc), but they'll stay in your database and you and your staff will know that they've passed away.

Yes. Each DoggieDashboard account gives business owners the ability to store up to six additional information fields for each pet owner. Businesses cannot, however, remove the default information fields that come pre-included (emergency contact, family, referral source, mobile phone, etc)

The first three additional fields are located in the #Business Settings menu under the Custom Field Names heading. You can give these data fields titles like Billing History, Secondary Pick Location, Incident Reports, etc. Each custom field title has a maximum length of 25 characters. Keep them short and sweet!

Now, when you go to create a new pet owner record or edit an existing one, you'll see that the form includes three additional fields that you can fill out.

Businesses can also save an additional three pet owner data fields using the New Client Registration Form feature. These features come in the form of a question that is added to your new client form, as well as the heading for the answer field. You might, for example, add the question, How long have you owned this pet? as the question, and then enter Time of Ownership as the custom field title. Another question could be Does your work schedule affect picking up your dog on time? and the custom field name could be Tardiness Indicator.

When your client types information in the new client form under the ownership question, their response will be saved in their owner profile under the Time of Ownership heading. When they answer the late pickup question, it will get saved in the Tardiness Indictor field (at bottom of form).

Yup! Visit any client profile page and then click the OWNER PORTAL button under their name. This will activate their owner portal.

Yes. You can simply inform your clients that they have to submit the form twice.

The first time that they submit the form, they'll include their personal information as well as information for two of their pets. For their third and fourth pets, they don't need to enter all personal information again, since you already have it from their first form submission. They can simply fill out the three required fields (name, email and phone) and then proceed with entering their additional pets' information.

When they submit the form, a new notification will display in your Notifications Inbox. Click the earliest notification from the client and then, after verifying their data and checking for typos, click the Click Here to Save This Client and Their Pets to Your Database button to add them to your database. This will add the client, as well as their first two pets to your database.

To add their third and fourth pets to your database, click on the second notification from the client that shows the two extra pets you want to add. You will now be at the page to add the client and the pet. You should see some red alert messages warning you adding adding a client twice: At the top of the page, click the black link that says JUST ADD PETS. On the following page, select the pet owner from the dropdown list (they're in your database since you just added them) and then the Add Pets to Database button. This will add the additional pets to the owner's profile that you selected.

Every client vet saved in your system will show up in the drop-down list for possible vets when you're saving a new client. If you have one vet saved as Kelly Jones DVM 555-444-3333 and another saved as Dr. Kelly Jones DVM 555-444-3333, the software thinks these are two different people. You need to go through your client vets and make them all use the same spelling. Watch the video below for help. Click here for a blog post about removing duplicate vets.

Visit your Business Settings menu and click on the grey button titled Click for Pet Display Settings, Kennel Booking Settings & Calendar Settings. There you will find a setting that asks if you want to have upcoming pet birthdays displayed on your homepage. Select Yes and then click the Update Settings button. Once saved, pets with birthdays during the next three months will show up on your homepage.

Visit your Business Settings menu and click on the grey button titled Pet Vaccine Names & Vaccine Expiration Tracking. Here you will find all the account settings that pertain to pet vaccine tracking. You can update your vaccine names as well as select if you want to see expired vaccines on your homepage. You can also set the expiration timeframe (how much time in the future you want to be warned). Select Yes. Show Vaccine Expiration Warnings and then click the Update Settings button. Once saved, pets with vaccines that are expired or expiring within your selected timeframe will show up on your homepage. Pets with expired or expiring soon vaccines will also have a red outline added to their profile in the pet database view.

BlackOut Dates are a DoggieDashboard feature that lets you stop clients from requesting appointments on specific dates as well as warn employees about business closures. To get started, visit the Blackout Dates homepage. Click the calendar dates that you want to mark as unavailable and they'll turn red. In the example below, we're marking the week of September 13 to 17 as unavailable.

Once you've marked your BlackOut Dates, head to your Appointment Request Page and attempt to request an appointment. On the date selector, you'll notice that your BlackOut Dates are greyed out and unavailable to select. This will stop clients from requesting appointments on these days.

BlackOut Dates are also displayed on your appointment calendar. All BlackOut Dates have a light pink background. You can still create appointments on these days, but you and your staff will see the warning color and know that there is a reason that the specific day has been blacked out.

The New Client Registration Form is one of DoggieDashboard's most popular features. To learn how to use it and customize it, visit the New Client Form customization homepage. Here's a video that shows how to use and customize this feature as well:

You've probably noticed, but DoggieDashboard is one, if not thee, most affordable software packages out there for doggie daycares, groomers, trainers and boarders. One of the main reasons for this is because the software does not come with credit card processing.

Adding credit card processing would force us to increase the price of DoggieDashboard to at least $100 a month, instead of the current price. As a way to keep offering the software at an affordable rate, the decision has been made to not include credit card processing.

There are so many wonderful payment platforms out there already that you can really pick whichever one works best for your business. Square, Venmo, Clover, PayPal, Braintree, you name it. All you need to do is include your Square/Clover/etc payment link in the invoices you send. Your clients can click that link and make a payment. Once paid, you mark the invoice as paid and it's all done.

Another interesting comment to point out is that online credit card processing is quite a bit more expensive than in-person credit card processing. Online processors have to charge a higher percentage on each transaction to make up for possible fraud tranactions. In-person payments, where you physically swipe the person's card are much cheaper, since the chance of fraud is much lower. If DoggieDashboard offered payment processing, it would cost around $3,000 in fees for every $100,000 in payments processed. That's a LOT of money that would be better spent growing your business.

Consider going to your local bank and asking about setting up a merchant processing account. You'll be able to get a wifi-enabled credit card terminal for your business and start swiping and charging credit cards at a much lower percentage that if you did it online by typing in their credit card number.

Of course! DoggieDashboard makes it extremely easy to keep track of your financials, both revenue and expenses. You can also create recurring expenses like rent, utilities, etc. To get started, visit the Financials homepage. From there, enter your financial transaction using the online form.

Once you've entered the financial transaction information and saved it, you'll see that it's displayed with the rest of your transactions in the table at the bottom of the Financials homepage. If you need to, click the grey View button to update the transaction's details.

Beyond entering your financial transactions manually, you can also add financials entries simultaneously at the time of creating an invoice. This way, when you create an an invoice, you instantly have a corresponding financial for that invoice.

If you prefer, you can also add a financial entry after an invoice has been created by clicking the Create Financial Entry/Send Receipt button at the bottom of that specific invoice's display page.

DoggieDashboard does not have any app-store apps to download. DoggieDashboard is what's called a web application. That means it works the same on your computer, tablet and phone. If you want to use DoggieDashboard on your phone or tablet, simply open the browser on your device, visit DoggieDashboard.com and log in. You'll now be able to use the software on the go!

Yup! Visit any client profile page and then click the OWNER PORTAL button under their name. This will activate their owner portal.

DoggieDashboard has different types of calendars because numerous types of businesses use the softare. Groomers don't need to have kennels showing on their homepage calendar and kennels don't need to have grooming appointments showing on their homepage.

If your business has constructed kennels or runs that you use for boarding, you'll want to use the kennel calendar so that you can visualize which pets are in which runs. This is the calendar that lets you assign each appointment to a specific kennel.

If your business does free-range boarding or boarding in owner-supplied crates, you can use the standard calendar since you won't have to assign the pets to specific kennels for their boarding appointments. You'll know that the pet is sleeping in their crate and doens't need to be assigned a run.

If your business does daycare, as well as overnight boarding in constructed runs, you'll want to use the hybrid calendar that shows both standard (non-kennel) appointments and kennel appointments on the same calendar. This calendar saves you from clicking back and forth between two calendars.

DoggieDashboard has various types of calendars. To select the calendar you want to use on your homepage, vist your Business Settings menu and click the grey Click for Pet Display Settings, Kennel Booking Settings & Calendar Settings button. Near the bottom you'll see an option for selecting your default homepage calendar. Select the calendar you wish to use at your default calendar and then click the Update Settings button.

DoggieDashboard does not offer automated grooming bookings. Automated bookings, much like owner login portals, sound like a great idea but they tend to cause more headaches (and also lost business) for groomers than they help. Here's an example of how they don't help:

With automated grooming slot software, you enter the times you're available and the services you offer and then you publish your calendar on your website and clients can select a slot. Sounds simple, right?

However, what often happens is that you'll have a grooming slot set up from 9am to 10am. A potential client wants 930am until 1030am. If they would call your business, you could quickly tell them that it's no problem, since you can rearrange some other slots to fit them in. However, since the grooming system is automated, they see that 930am to 1030am isn't available and decide to take their dog to the 'big box' groomer in town and you lose their business. Or, they call you and set up an appointment and the automated booking system just caused them more hassle than it was worth.

Another issue with automated grooming systems is that your clients might not be sure what they need done, so when they need to select the services, they end up just calling you because they're not sure if their corgi is considered medium or medium-large, so they're not sure which grooming package to select. Once again, if they had just called, it would have been quicker for both parties.

Lastly, just like owner login portals, not everyone is tech savvy these days. You'll spend a vast amount of your time answering the phone helping users reset their password and figure out how to select an appointment, when it would be faster for them to call and request an appointment by phone.

With DoggieDashboard, there's no automation and it's so much easier. Your clients can simply visit your Appointment Request Page and request a grooming appointment for Fido. If you're free when they want, you accept their appointment. If you're not, you send them an email asking for other times they are free. Automation isn't always the solution. Sometimes simplicity makes things so much easier.

Utilizing DoggieDashboard's placeholder appointment feature, you can easily create grooming slots for all your groomers (or for yourself if you're a solo groomer). It's safe to say a video is worth several thousand words, so here's a short video explaining how to set up grooming slots.

Setting up your kennel layout using DoggieDashboard is simple. First, visit your Kennels homepage. Once there, you can start adding your kennels. Once you add a kennel, you can adjust its position by adjusting the Order value. Kennels are organized by order number.

Once you're happy with the names and positions of your kennels, visit your kennel calendar", "/appointments/kennel", target:"_blank"} to see the final layout of your kennels. When you're ready to save an appointment, all you need to do is click on a specific kennel and a pop-up will appear that lets you save an appointment in that specific kennel.

Of course. DoggieDashboard lets you name your kennels whatever you want, so you can name them with their appropriate size. In this example, we have two small kennels, two large kennels, and two cat kennels. When you're scheduling appointments, you'll be able to see which kennels are available and you'll know if there is space in that kennel for another pet.

DoggieDashboard doesn't allow you to put capacities on your kennels. If there were capacities, you might set the capacity to one pet for small kennels since normally one dog fits one small kennel. However, there will be times when you'll want to put two small dogs in the same small kennel. If there was a capacity restriction, the software wouldn't let you put two small dogs in a small kennel because it would see that the capacity is one pet. This would force you to update the kennel's capacity to 2-pets-per-kennel, and then you'd have to go and resave the appointment again. Then you'd have to go back and reset it to 1-pet-per-kennel for future appointments. Since you know your business better than DoggieDashboard, the software simply lets you board as many pets in a kennel as you want. If you want to see max capacities, you can use clever kennel names like Large 3-Dog, 2-Cat Run, etc.

If your business wants to enforce strict one-pet-per-kennel rules, you can adjust the settings in the Business Settings menu.

Click on the grey button titled Click for Pet Display Settings, Kennel Booking Settings & Calendar Settings. There you will find a setting that asks if you want the system to allow multiple pets per kennel. If you select Yes, the software will let you put multiple pets in the same kennel. If you select No, the software will not let you save multiple pets in the same kennel. If you're saving a 'pet sibling appointment' where you have multiple pets from the same family, this will override your selection and always let you board multiple pets from the same family in the same kennel.

Of course! DoggieDashboard makes it extremely easy to keep track of your financials, both revenue and expenses. You can also create recurring expenses like rent, utilities, etc. To get started, visit the Financials homepage. From there, enter your financial transaction using the online form.

Once you've entered the financial transaction information and saved it, you'll see that it's displayed with the rest of your transactions in the table at the bottom of the Financials homepage. If you need to, click the grey View button to update the transaction's details.

Beyond entering your financial transactions manually, you can also add financials entries simultaneously at the time of creating an invoice. This way, when you create an an invoice, you instantly have a corresponding financial for that invoice.

If you prefer, you can also add a financial entry after an invoice has been created by clicking the Create Financial Entry/Send Receipt button at the bottom of that specific invoice's display page.

You've probably noticed, but DoggieDashboard is one, if not thee, most affordable software packages out there for doggie daycares, groomers, trainers and boarders. One of the main reasons for this is because the software does not come with credit card processing.

Adding credit card processing would force us to increase the price of DoggieDashboard to at least $100 a month, instead of the current price. As a way to keep offering the software at an affordable rate, the decision has been made to not include credit card processing.

There are so many wonderful payment platforms out there already that you can really pick whichever one works best for your business. Square, Venmo, Clover, PayPal, Braintree, you name it. All you need to do is include your Square/Clover/etc payment link in the invoices you send. Your clients can click that link and make a payment. Once paid, you mark the invoice as paid and it's all done.

Another interesting comment to point out is that online credit card processing is quite a bit more expensive than in-person credit card processing. Online processors have to charge a higher percentage on each transaction to make up for possible fraud tranactions. In-person payments, where you physically swipe the person's card are much cheaper, since the chance of fraud is much lower. If DoggieDashboard offered payment processing, it would cost around $3,000 in fees for every $100,000 in payments processed. That's a LOT of money that would be better spent growing your business.

Consider going to your local bank and asking about setting up a merchant processing account. You'll be able to get a wifi-enabled credit card terminal for your business and start swiping and charging credit cards at a much lower percentage that if you did it online by typing in their credit card number.

DoggieDashboard doesn't have any 'direct' integrations with accounting software. This helps keep your DoggieDashboard data separate from the data in your accounting software.

You can, however, export your financial records in spreadsheet format. Every single accounting software has an 'import' feature that lets you import a spreadsheet of financial records into your system. If you so desire, every week or month you can export your DoggieDashboard financials in spreadsheet format and import them into your accounting software of choice.

Absolutely not. It's entirely up to your business. There are some businesses that invoice all their clients, so for them the invoicing feature is perfect. Other businesses prefer to just charge their clients using their POS of choice and don't mess around with invoicing. It's really up to your business and how you do business. There's no right or wrong way to use DoggieDashboard, you can use it however you want.

Check-Ins are a way for your business to keep track of how many pets you currently have in your possession. For businesses that use the Check-In feature, here's the normal progression:

Several weeks prior, you'll most likely have created a daycare appointment for your client's pet. When they show up for their appointment, you'll click the Check-In button on the calendar next to that specific appointment. This will open up a Check-In pop-up that lets you check the pet in, while also adding a note about the specific check-in. You'll notice that you can also redeem a redeemable pass if you so desire. You can read more about redeemable passes in the next FAQ question.

Once the pet has been checked in, you can visit the Check-Ins homepage and verify that the pet has been checked in. You'll also see all other pets that are currently checked in at your facility.

Some businesses don't like to create appointments for their daycare dogs because they come every single day or they might have an open policy where clients can drop off their dogs whenever they want during the month. For these businesses, it's best to check in dogs from the Check-Ins homepage. Here you can select a pet and then check that pet in, as well as any siblings that it might have. This is the fastest way to check in pets that come in without a prescheduled appointment. If the pet has current 'alert message' or if it has vaccines that are expired or about to expire, you'll also see a warning message.

Some DoggieDashboard users use the check-ins feature every single day, whereas others have decided that they really don't need to use it to run their business. It's really up to your business if this feature is something that would be beneficial. DoggieDashboard doesn't force your business to function in a certain way. You can use whichever features you like, and none of the ones that you don't want to use.

Redeemable passes are the DoggieDashboard version of punch cards. If your business sells "packs" of services, you can use redeemable passes to keep track of how many sessions a client has left. Here's an example:

Bob, the owner of Fido, likes to make large payments for doggie daycare, instead of paying for every single visit each time. As a way to increase your revenue, you decide to start selling "packs" of doggie daycare. If someone pays for just one day of doggie daycare, it's $15, but if they pay for 10 visits up front, it's just $135, so they get a free day. Your business will increase and stabilize revenue because you'll be taking in larger payments and your clients will be happy because they don't need to remember to pay you every time they drop off their dogs.

This is where redeemable passes come in. Once Bob pays you for his 10 pack of doggie daycare, you'll go into his account and add 10 redeemable passes named 10-Pack Prepaid Daycare or whatever you want to name them. The next time Bob comes in to drop off Fido, you'll click the Redeem button next to one of his passes and say, Hey Bob, you have nine passes left. Once you get down to 2 or 3 passes remaining, Bob will most likely buy another pack of daycare passes and you'll go back into his profile and add those passes.

There are other ways that you can use redeemable passes. Some people use them for training, others for boarding, you name it. There's really no right or wrong way to use the passes. They're just a nice way to track how many sessions left a client has of a specific service you offer.

DoggieDashboard's inventory management system is extremely easy to use. It's also entirely manual. Automated inventory management, meaning inventory management that is tied directly into invoice creation, tends to get messed up very quickly when you have lots of employees and moving parts at your business.

Here's an example: John, your employee, creates an inventory item called Puurina Puppy Chow. You can see there's a typo in the name. John doesn't care and uses it in an invoice. There are 10 bags in stock, and John sells one to Bill when he picks up his puppy from boarding. Once the invoice is processed, the inventory quantity of Puurina Puppy Chow is now down to nine bags. However, another employee sees the typo and decides to delete the item and create a new one with the correct name. Now, if John goes back into that first invoice and tries to show that he sold two bags of food instead of one (because he forgot he sold one to the guy at the start of his stay as well), the system won't be able to find Puurina Puppy Chow in your inventory, because it was deleted and a replaced by Purina Puppy Chow. An error message will pop up and then John will have to manually update inventory. What a mess!

With DoggieDashboard, updating inventory is as simple as a few clicks. If you sell three bags of food, you reduce the quantity by three bags and that's it. Sometimes automation isn't the answer. Simplicity is. Try DoggieDashboard's inventory management system and you'll see it's quite simple.