Everything you need to know about Genera

Right now, yes — completely. We are currently onboarding our Founding One Hundred: the first 100 pet businesses to join Genera get 1 months completely free, with no credit card required and no commitment. You also get one-on-one onboarding support, priority access to new features, and locked-in founding member pricing that stays with you forever. After your free period, pricing is simple and transparent — and founding members always pay less than anyone who joins after. Spots are limited, so if you are reading this, now is the time.

Everything: bookings, client management, pet records, invoicing, route planning, staff management, and more. All features are included from the start — there are no locked tiers or premium upgrades. You get the full platform.

Absolutely. Genera is fully GDPR compliant and uses enterprise-grade encryption to protect your data. Everything is stored securely in the cloud with regular backups. We take data security as seriously as you take the dogs in your care.

Yes. We can help you migrate your existing client and pet data into Genera. Whether you are coming from spreadsheets, another system, or paper records, just get in touch and we will walk you through the process step by step.

No. Genera is fully cloud-based. You can access it from any device with a web browser — desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone. There is nothing to install, no updates to manage, and no compatibility issues to worry about.

No limits at all. Add as many pets, clients, bookings, and staff members as you need. Whether you are a solo dog walker with 10 clients or a daycare with 200, Genera scales with you.

Our UK-based support team is here for you. Email us anytime at info@generasoftware.com and we will get back to you within one working day. We also welcome feature requests — we are building Genera with the industry, not just for it.

Genera was built inside a real pet business — Duncan's Dog Co — over 15 years. Every feature exists because we needed it ourselves. We're DEFRA aligned, and right now new businesses can try the full platform completely free as part of our Founding One Hundred offer (see "Is Genera really free?" above).

Yes. Genera is multi-tenant by design — every daycare's data (bookings, pets, owners, finances) is scoped individually to that business. Even customers who use more than one Genera daycare have their accounts kept fully isolated between businesses.

Yes. Genera includes a client-facing booking portal where your customers can view availability, book sessions, and manage their own details — 24/7. You set the capacity limits and approval rules, so you stay in control.

Each service can have a maximum number of bookings per day. Once that cap is reached, new requests don't disappear — they go onto a pending waitlist instead of being automatically confirmed. Only confirmed bookings count towards the limit, so cancellations free up space straight away. Customers see how many spaces are left, or a clear "fully booked" notice, before they even submit a request.

Yes. You can set up a recurring schedule across any combination of weekdays — for example Monday, Wednesday and Friday — as a single schedule rather than three separate bookings. Individual weekdays can be added or removed from the schedule later, given their own end dates, or the whole series can be paused, edited, or ended in one go.

It's up to you, per service. Each service can either require approval — so a staff member reviews and accepts or declines every request — or confirm bookings instantly with no review needed. You can also set a cutoff time for next-day bookings, after which late requests can be flagged as pending rather than auto-confirmed.

Yes. Each service can have its own cancellation fee, a free-cancellation window (a number of days before the booking date), and a cutoff time on the deadline day itself. Bookings that are still pending approval are never charged a cancellation fee, and staff can waive the fee on a case-by-case basis if needed.

Yes. Any service can be configured to require a timeslot, in one of two ways: fixed-length slots spread automatically across your operating hours (so each one fills and closes off in turn), or specific named windows you define yourself, such as "AM Walk" or "12:00–13:00." You can also limit how many pets are allowed into each slot or window.

Yes. The booking screen lets you select several pets at once for the same service, dates, transport, and notes. Each pet still gets its own individual booking and charge behind the scenes, so approvals and invoicing continue to work per pet as normal.

Yes. Genera includes a dedicated Meet & Greet flow so prospective customers can book an introductory visit through the same booking system used for regular services, making it easy to bring new families in before they commit.

Yes. You can generate invoices in bulk, set up recurring billing cycles (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly), auto-charge cards, and send automatic payment reminders. No more Sunday evening invoice dread.

Genera connects to Stripe or GoCardless — you only need one. Either provider handles card payments and BACS Direct Debit collection for invoices, memberships, and direct debit mandates. If a customer prefers not to pay online, they simply receive a standard invoice with your bank transfer details instead.

Yes. You can create membership plans that give a pet a set number of days per week at a fixed monthly price, billed automatically by Direct Debit. Plans can also include an "ad-hoc day" rate for extra days beyond what's covered, and recurring bookings on a membership are automatically kept within the plan's covered days.

Yes, through tiered pricing on individual services. You can set lower per-day rates based on how many days a week a pet books — for example a better rate at three bookings a week, and better again at five — and Genera automatically applies whichever tier the customer qualifies for.

Yes. When raising an invoice, you can mark it as a deposit request to bill a one-off upfront amount. Once it's paid, the amount is converted into account credit on the owner's record, which is then applied automatically to their next invoice.

Yes, and it's configurable. You can set Direct Debit requirements to Off, Suggest (shows a dismissible reminder banner to the customer), or Compulsory (blocks new bookings until a mandate is set up). Admin-created bookings aren't affected by this setting either way.

You can choose to only bill the nights that fall inside a given invoicing date range. Any remaining nights of the stay carry forward automatically and are billed on the next invoice, so long boardings split cleanly across billing periods rather than landing in one lump charge.

Yes. There's a self-updating price list available from the customer portal, showing every bookable service, standard and puppy rates, and any loyalty pricing tiers. It's generated directly from your service settings, so it updates the moment you change a price, and customers can print it or save it as a PDF.

Yes. Genera has role-based permissions: Admin has full access, Manager can do everything except change pricing, Staff has no access to Finance, Auditor is read-only, and Driver or Service Provider roles are portal-only, limited to their own schedule. Anyone without permission for an action sees it clearly disabled rather than being able to click through by mistake.

Yes. Staff can request time off, and admins can also record time off on someone's behalf for holidays, sickness, or days in lieu — recorded absences are approved immediately. Time off only counts against a staff member's allowance on their actual working days, and the system will warn (without blocking) if a request would exceed their remaining allowance.

Genera tracks salary details on each staff profile — including hours, monthly pay, hourly rate, and maximum daily pay — and summarises this in a dedicated view split between full-time and part-time staff. Your financial dashboard also factors payroll costs into your net income figure for any given period, so you can see staffing costs against revenue at a glance.

Yes. You can build reusable default routes for your regular pickups and drop-offs with a simple drag-and-drop stop order. Each day, Genera generates that day's actual route starting from your defaults and adjusted for who's really booked in, and a one-tap "optimise stops" option resequences the run for efficiency.

Yes. Live tracking shows driver progress through their stops on a map in real time, with one-tap controls to show or hide individual routes and minimise route cards out of the way when you don't need them.

Yes. The Service Provider role is designed for single-service staff such as groomers, trainers, or vets. It gives them a portal-only view of their own weekly schedule for the service they're assigned to, without access to the wider admin dashboard.

Each pet's profile covers name, breed, age, owner details, medical notes, vaccination records, behavioural information, and a photo. From there you can also see that pet's booking calendar, full charge and invoice history, a photo gallery, and an activity/care log — all in one place.

Yes. Photos can be uploaded from a pet's profile by your team, and drivers can add photos directly from their routes. Everything lands in one shared gallery on the pet's profile, so there's a single running photo history regardless of who added each image.

Yes. When adding an owner, sending a portal invitation email is optional — you can add someone quietly (they'll show as "Not invited") and send the invite later, either individually or in bulk, whenever you're ready.

No. A customer can access multiple Genera daycares with a single email and password, choosing which daycare to view after signing in. Each daycare's data stays completely separate — one business never sees another's bookings, pets, or records.

Yes. Pet profiles carry vaccination records, and the system shows warning icons on any pet with an expiring or missing vaccination, based on reminder windows you set yourself. A dedicated vaccinations report also lists status across every pet, so you can audit coverage in one view rather than pet-by-pet.

Yes. You can build assessment/report card templates — either from presets or fully custom — using star ratings and photo attachments. Finalised reports are automatically emailed to the pet's owner, viewable in their portal, and downloadable as a PDF.

Yes. A dedicated health alerts report lists everything flagged on pets over the recent period, so nothing gets missed in the day-to-day and you can follow up systematically rather than relying on memory.

Yes. A dedicated contacts report lists every pet alongside their owner's contact details, which works well as an emergency contact sheet or as a source for exporting your customer list.

Genera has a dedicated Documents area built for exactly this. You can store customer-facing documents — first-aid certificates, public liability cover, packing lists — which owners can view and download securely from their portal, alongside internal-only documents like cleaning regimes, emergency plans, and vet contracts that stay staff-only. Everything an inspection might ask for lives in one tidy, easily retrievable place, correctly split between what customers can see and what stays internal, instead of scattered across paper files, spreadsheets, and separate apps.

Yes. You can upload your own logo and a custom background image for the customer portal, and keep your core business details up to date — all of it appears directly to your customers, so the portal looks and feels like yours rather than off-the-shelf software.

Yes. Both the staff and customer portals can be added to your phone or tablet's home screen, appearing with your daycare's own logo and name as the app icon — no app store download needed.

Yes. Genera supports browser and device push notifications, which you can turn on per device. As an admin, you can be alerted to new booking requests, cancellations, pet status changes, direct debit setup, membership requests, and staff holiday requests as they happen.