Kennel management software: what it is and what to expect
People search for “kennel management software” when what they really want is something better than the wall calendar. Vendors use the same phrase for everything from a booking widget to a full back office. This post is about what the software should do once it’s running, day to day, so you can tell the two apart.
A booking form is not a management system
Plenty of products will put a “Book now” button on your website. That fixes one thing: a form that fills itself in at midnight. Then the booking lands in an inbox, and someone still has to check it against the kennels, the vaccination cards, the grooming diary and the invoice book. If the form isn’t connected to the rest of your day, you’ve bought a nicer way to receive email.
A management system starts at the booking and follows the stay to the end. The pet is booked against real space, arrives and is checked in, gets fed, groomed and walked, goes home with an invoice, and the kennel opens up for the next guest. Each part below is one step of that.
What a booking form covers, and what a system covers
A day with the software, part by part
Morning: the board
The first thing anyone at the desk opens should be today: who’s arriving, who’s in, who’s leaving, and what care still needs doing. One screen, no clicking around. Plenty of dashboards show last month’s revenue beautifully and make “who leaves at four?” a three-click question. Judge the product on the desk view, not the charts.
Bookings that can’t double up
The system knows how many kennels you have and counts every booking against them, including the one taken over the phone while an owner was halfway through the online form. Ask the vendor what happens when two bookings race for the last space on a bank-holiday weekend. If the answer involves someone noticing, you’re back to the calendar.
Pet records that live on the pet
Vaccination and deworming dates belong on the pet’s profile, and the owner should get a reminder before they lapse. Feeding, medication, behaviour notes and the vet’s phone number belong there too. A licence inspector will ask for them, and so will a nervous new member of staff on their first morning.
Owners who know what’s happening
Owners worry while their pet is away, and they ask. Good software answers some of that for you: a confirmation when the booking goes in, photos from the stay they can open whenever they like, and a reminder the day before pick-up. Milo Pet Hotel has shared more than 150 photos and videos with owners this way since late September, and its owner says pet parents are very happy to get them (their story).
Services recorded as they happen
Boarding is rarely just boarding. There’s a bath before pick-up, a training session on day three, a taxi from the airport, a rented bed. Each needs its own price and unit, and staff tick it off when it’s done, so the bill comes from what actually happened rather than from memory at check-out.
Evening: the invoice
The invoice should carry the kennel’s name, not the vendor’s, go out by email and stay downloadable for the owner afterwards. You should be able to adjust it before it’s final, say a discount for a long stay or a service that wasn’t needed after all.
The settings you’d rather not think about
Currency, timezone, date format and the languages your customers read. If the vendor is on another continent, check that these are settings you control rather than assumptions built into the product.
Where the booking page lives
One more question belongs here: whose name is on the front door. Most products give your customers a portal on the vendor’s website, with your logo in the corner. Some give you a branded page you link to. A few put the whole booking site on your own domain. They’re all legitimate choices, but they aren’t the same, and the difference grows over time, because every link and review a booking page earns goes to the domain it lives on. Here’s why we think it should be yours.
Questions to ask before a demo
- Show me today’s board with my kennel count and three overlapping bookings.
- What happens when the last kennel is booked twice?
- Whose domain is the booking page on, and whose name is on the invoice?
- If I stop paying, what do I get back, and in what format?
A vendor with a real system will be glad you asked. Watch for the ones who change the subject.
We build Boardinn around exactly this day, so read this with that in mind. Our comparison pages hold other products to the same list, and seven kennel booking systems side by side puts them in one table.