Daycare
Run daily daycare sessions with capacity management, groups, and report cards.
How daycare sessions work
Each daycare day is its own session. A session has a date, a group (optional), and a capacity limit. Patients check in at the start of the day and check out at the end. Multiple sessions can run on the same day (e.g. a morning group and an afternoon group).
Daycare is billed per session, not per night. Rates are set in Settings → Daycare → Rates and applied automatically at checkout.
Booking a session
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Go to Daycare → + New session
Click Daycare in the sidebar. The session grid shows today's sessions and how many spots remain in each group. Click + Book on the session you want to add a patient to.
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Select the patient
Search for the patient. Daycare is available to all active patients. If the day (or the group) is already at your configured capacity, the booking is blocked rather than queued. Daycare doesn't have a waitlist the way calendar appointments do, so pick a different day or group.
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Save
Click Book session. The patient appears on that day's roster. An SMS confirmation is sent to the owner if your clinic has SMS enabled.
Check-in and check-out
At the start of the day, open the Roster tab on the Daycare page and check in each patient as they arrive. At the end of the day, check out each patient. Check-out triggers invoice generation for the session charge, including any add-ons on the session.
Add-ons
A session can carry add-on lines, a bath, nail trim, or another extra, picked by the owner when they request the day from the public booking page or portal, or added by staff directly on the session. Either way, add-ons bill on the same invoice as the session at check-out.
Requests from online booking
A day an owner requests from the public booking page or the owner portal lands as a pending request on the Daycare → Requests tab (the notification bell also links to a standalone Daycare requests page), not as an immediate booking. Confirming a request creates the session on your daycare board with the patient, date, and any requested add-ons carried over; declining sends the owner a reason.
If your clinic requires a deposit for online bookings (Settings → Daycare → Deposit policy), the request is held pending payment until the owner pays through a hosted checkout link.
Late pickup and early drop-off fees
Both are opt-in under Settings → Daycare and, when enabled, are added as their own checkout line item automatically:
- Late pickup fee: bills a pickup after your pickup time, once a grace period passes. Charge it as a flat fee or per interval (e.g. every 15 minutes late).
- Early drop-off fee: bills a drop-off before opening, using tiers you define (e.g. up to 30 minutes early is one price, up to an hour is a higher one). The earliest tier that covers the drop-off applies; arriving earlier than every tier bills the largest one.
Capacity management
Daycare capacity works at two levels: an overall daily cap for your clinic, and per-group caps you define as playgroups (by size, temperament, breed, or age band) in Settings → Daycare. With no playgroups defined, the board just groups dogs by size. Whichever limit is hit first blocks new bookings for that day or group. There's no daycare waitlist to queue behind it; that's a calendar-appointment feature, not a daycare one. Booking a recurring series simply skips any day that's already full rather than failing the whole series.
Report cards
Daycare report cards work the same as boarding report cards. From any active session, click + Report card to send a mid-day or end-of-day update to the owner. Include a note, demeanor tags, and a photo or video. Report cards appear in the owner portal and can be shared via a public share link.
| Daycare vs Boarding | Daycare | Boarding |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | Single day | Multi-night |
| Rate type | Per session / per day | Per night |
| Capacity model | Group-based, per-session cap | Kennel-based, one pet per kennel |
| Report cards | Yes | Yes |
| Waitlist | No: a full day/group blocks the booking | No: subject to kennel availability |
FAQ
Yes. Daycare and boarding are separate modules. A patient can have an active boarding stay and also be enrolled in a daycare session (e.g. on a day they're picked up early). Each is billed separately.
Go to Settings → Daycare and add playgroups (e.g. Small dogs, Large dogs, Puppies) with an optional capacity for each. Playgroups appear in the session booking form and on the session grid.
Yes. Select a patient and choose a repeat pattern (a set of weekdays over a date range). Each instance shows up as a separate session and can be cancelled individually. Any day that's already at capacity is skipped automatically rather than blocking the whole series.
No. That's specific to calendar appointments, not daycare. A full day or group simply can't take a new booking until capacity frees up (e.g. a cancellation), so check back or pick a different group/day.
Ready for pickup and undo
Ready for pickup on the roster and session page asks you to confirm before it texts the owner. Undo ready and Undo check-in fix a wrong tap. A no-show can't be undone automatically because it may keep or return the deposit; contact support to fix one.