Ask a daycare owner what eats their morning and it is rarely the dogs. It is the bookings: the message at ten at night asking to swap Thursday for Friday, the regular who forgot to say they are on holiday, and the new dog whose vaccination card never arrived.
Most booking stress comes from three things: no fixed daily limit, regulars rebooked by hand, and records chased by message. Sort those three out and the rest gets quieter, whatever you use to take bookings.
Why daycare bookings get messy
A daycare day is not a list of appointments. It is a number of dogs in one place, and that number is set by your licence, your staff and your space.
Space is shared. Every booking takes a place from the same day, so one extra yes can take you over your licensed number.
Most dogs come every week. Regulars want the same days all year, and those days have to fit around one off requests, holidays and swaps.
Every dog needs paperwork first. You cannot take a new dog until its vaccinations and details are in, so each new booking brings admin with it.
Requests arrive everywhere. Texts, WhatsApps, Facebook messages and a word at the gate all end up in different places.
Five things that calm it down
1. Write down your daily limit
Start with the number on your licence, then take off anything your staff that day cannot cover. That is your limit, and it does not move because a good client asks nicely. If you also take sleepovers or grooms, give each of those its own limit too.
2. Put regulars on fixed days
Most of your diary is the same dogs on the same days. Book those once as weekly days that carry on until someone stops them, and only deal with the changes. You stop rebooking the same dogs every month.
3. Let owners ask for days themselves
When owners can see the days and send a request, the messages stop arriving at ten at night. Keep approval on, so nothing is confirmed until you have looked at it, and let a full day turn into a waiting list rather than a flat no.
4. Collect records before the first day
Ask for vaccination dates, vet details, feeding notes and behaviour when an owner signs up, and set a reminder for when vaccinations expire. Your licence inspector will want to see these, so keep them on the dog's record rather than in a message thread.
5. Raise invoices from the bookings
If bookings live in one place and invoices in another, you will spend hours each month matching them up. Bill from the bookings you accepted, so a cancelled day comes off and an extra day goes on without you typing it in.
If you collect dogs as well
Collections add a second puzzle, which is the order of the stops. Keep each dog's address, key and access notes with the booking, so whoever drives has them on the day, and plan the route from the bookings rather than from memory.
How Genera handles bookings
We have been shaping Genera in our own daycare, Duncan's Dog Co, since 2011, and these are the problems it was built around.
Daily limits. Each service has its own daily limit. Once a day is full, new requests go on a waitlist for you to approve, and only confirmed bookings take up a place.
Regular days. A weekly booking with no end date fills the diary a year ahead and renews until you cancel it. Owners can request regular days from their own app.
Approval. Every service starts with approval switched on, so you see each request before it is confirmed. Switch it off for any service you are happy to confirm straight away.
Records. Each dog holds feeding notes, vet and emergency contacts, vaccinations, behaviour and incidents. Owners and staff get an email before a vaccination expires.
Invoices. Raise the month's invoices for every owner in one go, from the bookings you accepted. Owners pay by card or Direct Debit into your own Stripe or GoCardless account, and Genera takes nothing from those payments.
Collections. On the £99 plan, Genera puts your stops in order and gives your driver the address, key details and notes for each dog.
The 30 day trial has every feature switched on, so you can set up your own days and see how it feels with your own dogs.
Read next. Read how much to charge for dog daycare, twelve daycare systems compared, or see Genera for dog daycares.
Try it with your own dogs. Start your 30 day free trial with every feature switched on, or get in touch and we will show you round.
