Boarding
Manage overnight stays, kennel assignments, daily report cards, and check-out invoicing.
Boarding handles multi-night stays with nightly rates. Daycare handles single-day sessions with daily capacity. If you offer both, they are managed in separate modules with separate rate structures. See Daycare.
Creating a boarding stay
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Go to Boarding → + New stay
Click Boarding in the sidebar, then + New stay. You can also start a stay from the patient's profile.
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Select the patient and dates
Search for the patient. Set the check-in date and expected check-out date. The stay duration is calculated automatically and used to generate the invoice estimate.
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Assign a kennel (optional at booking)
Choose a kennel from the availability grid. If you leave this blank at booking, it can be assigned at check-in. Kennels (and wards) are added and named in Settings → Cages & wards, a separate settings page shared with the inpatient whiteboard, not nested under Boarding.
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Set the rate
Select the boarding rate (small dog, large dog, cat, exotic, etc.). Rates are configured in Settings → Boarding → Rates and can be overridden per stay.
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Add special instructions
Feeding schedule, medications, behavioral notes, and anything else the boarding staff needs to know. These print on the boarding card for the kennel.
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Save
The stay is booked. It appears on the boarding calendar and in the patient's profile. A notification (email and/or SMS, per the owner's opt-ins) goes out to the owner when you complete check-in.
Check-in and check-out
When the patient arrives, open the stay from the Today tab on the Boarding page and click Check in. Confirm the kennel assignment and any medication instructions, then complete the check-in. A confirmation goes out to the owner by email and/or SMS.
At pick-up, click Check out. This closes the stay and triggers invoice generation based on the actual nights stayed. Review the invoice before presenting it to the client. If your clinic has turned on auto-charge for Boarding, a client with a saved card is also queued for a staff-reviewed charge rather than being billed automatically with no review. See Auto-charge queue.
Daily report cards
Boarding report cards let you send owners a quick daily update. How their pet is doing, what they ate, and a photo or video if you take one. To send a report card:
- Open Report Cards for the active stay
- Fill in demeanor tags (happy, anxious, tired, playful, etc.), appetite, and a note (
reportcard.create) - Optionally attach a photo or short video
- Click Publish to portal (
reportcard.publish) to make it visible in the owner portal without notifying anyone, or Send to owner (reportcard.send) to publish and choose whether to notify by email, SMS, or both
| Stay field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Check-in / check-out dates | Required. Actual check-out may differ from expected. The invoice recalculates at check-out |
| Kennel | Can be set at booking or at check-in; shown on the kennel boarding card |
| Rate type | Set per stay; pulls from your boarding rate table in Settings |
| Feeding instructions | Printed on the boarding card; visible to staff in the active stay view |
| Medications | Links to patient's active medications; staff mark each dose as given |
| Behavioral notes | Alerting staff to aggression, anxiety, or special needs |
FAQ
Yes. Create a separate stay for each patient. Chartling books one pet per kennel at a time, so each gets its own cage assignment (or an unassigned stay to place at check-in). All stays for the same household are grouped on the client's record for easy invoicing at check-out.
Edit the stay's check-out date before completing check-out. The invoice will reflect the actual nights. There is no penalty charged automatically. Any fees for late extensions are at your discretion and can be added as a manual line item.
Kennels live in Settings → Cages & wards, not under Boarding. It's the same page the inpatient whiteboard uses, where you add and name each cage, group them by ward, and optionally restrict which species a cage can hold. There's no separate numeric capacity field per kennel; your total capacity is simply the number of cages you've added, since each one holds one stay at a time. Nightly rates are configured on the Settings → Boarding page's Rates section. Define rates by category (e.g. small dog $35/night, large dog $45/night, cat $28/night) and they apply automatically when you select the category at booking.
Yes. Report cards sent during a boarding stay appear in the owner's portal under their pet's stay history, where they can view the notes, demeanor tags, and any photos or videos you attached.