Pet Boarding and Daycare: Kennels and Billing

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One stay, one invoice: When you check a pet in, the system automatically opens an invoice and adds the boarding line, priced by nights or by day. Everything the pet uses during the stay (a bath, a medication, a bag of food) goes onto that same invoice and is charged once, at check-out.

How to access the module

Module Navigation

In the left sidebar, select Boarding / Hotel. The module has four tabs:

Tab	What it is for
Dashboard	Today’s operation: who is in, who arrives and who leaves.
Upcoming	The week ahead, with each day’s reservations and departures. See Reservations.
Transport	The day’s home pickups and drop-offs. See Transport.
Kennels & availability	Where you create and manage your spaces.

Before you start: set up your services

The module bills from your catalogue. Hotel services live in your inventory’s Boarding category, and Daycare services in the Daycare category. Six come pre-created (Small, Medium and Large of each type) at zero price so you can set them to your own rates.

You can create your own, such as “Premium Hotel” or “Half-day Daycare”, under Inventory > Services. Just make sure they sit in the right category: that is what makes them show up at check-in.

Create your kennels

A kennel is the physical space where you house the pet: a run, a room, a cat condo. Hotel stays always occupy one. Daycare can go without a kennel, for example when dogs spend the day in a shared yard.

Open the Kennels & availability tab and click Add kennel. Each one carries two fields:

Field	What it is for
Name	The identifier your team recognises: “Kennel 1”, “Suite A”, “Cattery 3”.
Label	A short optional note shown under the name. Useful for size, location or a feature: “Large”, “Upper floor”, “With window”.

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You cannot delete an occupied kennel. The system protects it while a pet is inside, because deleting it would drag away the stay history attached to it. Check the pet out first, then delete.

The Dashboard: your day at a glance

The Dashboard tab answers the four operational questions of the morning with four indicators across the top:

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Active stays

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Check-ins today

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Check-outs today

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Occupancy

Below them, two lists split Today’s check-ins from Today’s check-outs. Each row shows the pet, its owner, whether it is Hotel or Daycare, and the assigned kennel; clicking it opens that stay. Reservations arriving today show up as Expected, with a button to register their arrival.

Further down sits the active stays table, listing every pet currently in the clinic.

Checking a pet in

Click Register check-in from the Dashboard. The intake runs in three steps and you can step back at any point. If the pet has not arrived yet and you only want to hold the dates, use New reservation instead (see Reservations).

Step 1 · Pet & service

Search for the client and pick their pet. Then you set two things:

Decision	Options
Stay type	Hotel for an overnight stay, or Daycare for a day stay. You decide per check-in: the same pet can come for daycare one day and sleep over the next week.
Service	The service that is billed, from the Boarding or Daycare category depending on the type. Small, Medium and Large come first; below them, any your clinic created (with Show more if there are many).

If that pet already has an open invoice (because it came in for a consultation, say) the system asks what to do: open a New invoice for the stay, or Add to existing invoice. That way the client does not end up with two bills for the same visit.

Step 2 · Stay

For Hotel, set the check-in date and time and the expected check-out. For Daycare, the stay is a single day.

Then pick the kennel. The grid marks which ones are free and which are occupied (occupied ones cannot be selected) and the header tells you how many of the total are still available. Hotel requires a kennel; for Daycare you can choose No kennel. If you are out of space, the New kennel button lets you create one without leaving the intake.

The billing bar appears from this step onward and stays visible to the end. It shows the service, its unit price, the number of nights or days, and the estimated total. Quantity and expected check-out are linked: raise the nights and the departure date moves on its own; move the date and the quantity recalculates.

This step is also where you can add home pickup or drop-off Transport (see Transport).

Step 3 · Intake form

This is where you record what the team needs in order to look after that pet properly. Every field is optional, but these are exactly the ones that prevent an incident at three in the morning:

Field	What to record
In heat	A warning toggle. Determines who the pet can share space with and where you house her.
Aggressive	A warning toggle. Protects your staff and the other guests during handling.
Allergies	Reactions to food, medication or materials. The clinical detail people most often forget to ask about.
Feeding	Brand, portion and schedule. If the owner brings their own food, note it here.
Scheduled medication	What is administered, at what dose, and at what time during the stay.
Notes	Any instruction from the owner that does not fit the fields above.

Allergies, Aggressive and Feeding are filled in from the pet’s care profile. If you correct one and tick Update the pet’s care profile, the change is saved for the next visit.

During the stay: adding services and products

Confirming the check-in takes you to the stay detail. The screen splits in two: on the left, the pet and owner identity (with phone and email one click away), the stay data and the intake form; on the right, the stay invoice, open and editable.

That invoice is the heart of the module. While the pet is hosted, everything it uses is added right there: a bath, a consultation, a medication, a bag of food. The boarding line recalculates itself by nights, and the rest is added like on any other invoice.

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If the stay runs longer or shorter: Nothing has to be redone. Use Edit stay to change the departure, or adjust the final quantity, and the boarding line recalculates instantly on the same invoice.

Checking out and billing

The stay detail gives you two exit buttons:

Action	When to use it
Check-out	Closes the stay and frees the kennel, leaving the invoice pending. Use it when the owner pays later or the balance stays on account.
Check-out & bill	Closes the stay and takes you straight to the invoice to charge it. This is the normal front-desk flow.

At check-out the system suggests the real nights based on the effective dates and lets you confirm or correct the final quantity before closing. If the stay shares an invoice with other services, it warns you: charging will settle that invoice’s full outstanding balance, not only the boarding.

Deleting a stay

If you registered a check-in by mistake, you can delete the stay from its detail page. Because the stay already has an invoice attached, the system makes you choose what happens to it:

Remove only the boarding line - the invoice stays open with the remaining items. This is the right call when the pet did receive other services.
Cancel the whole invoice - the entire invoice is cancelled, including the other items.

If boarding was the only thing billed there is nothing to choose: the invoice is cancelled along with the stay.