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Pet Boarding and Daycare: Kennels, Check-ins and Billing
Updated on September 2, 2026
How to access the module
In the left sidebar, select Boarding / Hotel. The module opens on two tabs: Dashboard, for the day-to-day operation, and Kennels & availability, where you create and manage your spaces.
First things first: create your kennels
A kennel is the physical space where you house the pet: a run, a room, a cat condo. Without at least one kennel you cannot register a check-in, because every stay occupies a specific space.
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”. |
The Dashboard: your day at a glance
The Dashboard tab answers the four operational questions of the morning with four indicators across the top:
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. This is the list you plan the day with: who you are expecting, and who you have to hand back.
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.
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. |
| Size | Small, Medium or Large. Every type-and-size combination carries its own price per night or per day, taken from your service catalogue. |
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 it to the existing one. That way the client does not end up with two bills for the same visit.
Step 2 · Stay
Set the check-in date and time and the expected check-out, 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. 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.
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. |
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.
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.
Before you start: set up your prices
The module bills from your catalogue: it needs one service per type-and-size combination — Boarding Small, Boarding Medium, Boarding Large, Daycare Small, Daycare Medium, Daycare Large. They ship pre-created at zero price so you can set them to your own rates.