Thanks for signing up to try KennelBooker. This guide takes you through setting up your account: the setup wizard you see when you first log in, then the settings worth checking before you take your first bookings. Each section is short and links to a full article where there is one. Everything in this guide is in Settings (the cog in the main menu) unless it says otherwise; the settings menu on the left lists every settings page.

1. The KennelBooker setup wizard

When you first log in to a new KennelBooker account, you're taken to the setup wizard (Kennel Setup). KennelBooker keeps bringing you back to it until it's finished, so you can't skip it. It takes a few minutes and only asks what's needed to start taking bookings. Click Next Step to move through it. Everything you enter can be changed later in Settings.

General Settings: choose your Country and Currency, and tick the services you offer: Boarding Services, Daycare services, Grooming Services, Homestay Services, Dog Walking, Dropin Services and Training. You must offer at least one.
Boarding Setup (if you offer boarding): tick the pets you board (dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs). For each, say whether all your runs are the same size, then how many runs you have and how many pets each can hold. Different sizes are set up as small, medium and large runs.
Boarding Pricing (if you offer boarding): Charge By (nightly rate, daily rate or 24 hour period), Allow Overlapping Bookings (on check-in days), whether to charge an extra night for a late check-out (nightly charging) or not charge the last day for an early collection (daily charging), and up to six Boarding Rate rows (a name, pet type and price for each). You can add more rates later.
Homestay Pricing (if you offer homestay): how you charge, and up to four rates.
Daycare Setup (if you offer daycare): Number of Spaces Per Day, Daycare Quick Add and Charge Based On (one standard price per dog, or a price for one, two and three dogs and each extra dog).
Tax Setup: whether your prices are Inclusive or Exclusive of tax, and the tax rate for bookings, services and packages and for products.
Setup Complete: tick to agree to KennelBooker's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, choose which emails, texts and calls you'd like from KennelBooker, and click Save & Get Started to go to your dashboard.

Grooming, walks, drop-ins and training don't have their own wizard steps. Set their prices on their settings pages afterwards (see section 6).

2. After the setup wizard: what to check first

The wizard sets up the basics. Before you take real bookings, check these:

Your time zone: go to Settings > Main Settings > Time & Date Settings and check Time Zone. The page shows the Current Time for your account, which should match your clock. The wizard doesn't ask for a time zone, so check this even if you're in a single time zone country.
Same-day changeovers: if you said yes to Allow Overlapping Bookings (on check-in days), check Only Book Runs when Completely Free in Settings > Boarding > Availability Settings. With it on, a run isn't offered on a day another pet is checking out of it; with it off, it is. Set it to match how you work. (Runs may be called rooms, kennels or something else in your account.)
Your business details: Settings > Main Settings > Business Details (business name, address, website, owner's name, contact email and phone). Some of these are shown on your online booking portal and in your emails.
Your logo: see section 3.

3. Business setup: logo, details and the KennelBooker app

Business logo

Your logo is used on your PDF invoices and receipts and on your online booking portal. Go to Settings > Main Settings, find Logo (quick link Upload Business Logo) and click Upload Logo. PNG, JPEG, JPG, GIF and HEIC files are accepted. Horizontal logos work best. KennelBooker doesn't resize the file when you upload it, so if your logo looks too big on your PDF invoices, upload a smaller version. Remove Logo takes it off. See "Business Logo" in Related articles.

Using KennelBooker on your phone

KennelBooker works in the web browser on any phone or tablet. To open it quickly, add it to your home screen: on an iPhone, open KennelBooker in Safari, tap the share button and choose Add to Home Screen; on Android, open it in Chrome, tap the three-dot menu and choose Add to Home screen. You stay logged in until you log out (or are logged out after a large update).

Your customers (pet parents) can use the Pet Parent App on iOS and Android. Its settings are in Settings > Mobile App - IOS & Android.

More than one location

KennelBooker supports businesses with more than one location. Each location has its own KennelBooker account. If your locations share customers, contact us: we can set your accounts up to share one customer list and one online booking portal, where customers choose the location when they book.

4. Regional settings: country, time zone, dates, tax and language

Time & Date Settings

Go to Settings > Main Settings > Time & Date Settings. The wizard fills these in from your country, and you can change them here, then click Update Details:

Country, Currency and Time Zone.
Date Format: mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd.
Calendar Start Date: whether your calendars start the week on Monday or Sunday.
Decimal Format: Comma Format 1,000.00 or Dot Format 1.000,00.
Use 24 Hour Clock (Online Portal Only): shows times as 14:00 rather than 2pm on your online booking portal. It doesn't change the staff screens.

Daylight saving time

KennelBooker doesn't change the clocks for daylight saving time automatically, because countries and regions change on different dates (and some don't change at all). When the clocks change, update Time Zone in Settings > Main Settings > Time & Date Settings and check the Current Time shown. If you charge by the hour, do this at the start or end of the day, because changing the time mid-day can affect how long a stay is counted as. See "Daylight Savings Time" in Related articles.

Tax, VAT, GST or HST

Tax is set in Settings > Main Settings > Tax Settings (the heading uses your own name for tax):

How tax is applied: Inclusive (your prices include tax, and KennelBooker shows how much of the price is tax) or Exclusive (KennelBooker adds the tax on top of your prices). Leave tax switched off if you don't charge it.
Two rates: one for bookings, services and packages, and one for products.
Manually Modify Tax on Bookings: lets staff change the tax rate on a booking.
Exclude ... bookings from tax: a switch for each service you offer, for services that aren't taxed where you are (training, for example).

Each booking keeps the tax settings that applied when it was added. If your tax rate or tax status changes, contact us about updating your future bookings. To rename "Tax" to VAT, GST or your local name, go to Settings > Customize Text, section Everything else, What your tax is called. See "Setting up Tax/VAT/GST/HST settings" in Related articles.

Languages on the online booking portal

Your customers can choose the language of the online booking portal: Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, French Canadian, German, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Serbian, Spanish or Swedish. The language they choose lasts for that visit. New languages are added by KennelBooker support. The language used on your PDF invoices and receipts is set in Settings > Main Settings > Invoice Settings, Default Language for PDF Invoices.

5. Your services, pet types and the names you use

Services and pet types

Go to Settings > Main Settings > Services Provided to add services after setup, or to change the pets you accept:

Pet Types Accepted: Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs, Horses, Birds, Hamsters, Rats, Gerbils, Chinchillas, Turtles, Ferrets, Pigs and Other. For anything else, turn on Other and add the animals as breeds under it in Settings > Breeds (for example Other > Lizard).
Booking Types: Boarding, Board & Train, Grooming, Daycare, Nightcare, Homestay, Training, Walk, Dropin, Other\Generic bookings, Cremation and Universal. Switch on each service you offer. For each one you can choose Book Online, Cancel Online and (for some services) Modify Booking Dates (Online), and the Online Sort Order on your portal.

Click Save. Each service you switch on gets its own page in the settings menu.

Renaming services, runs and lists

If you call your services something else, for example "Doggy Playschool" instead of Daycare or "Pet Spa" instead of Grooming, rename them in Settings > Customize Text (the page is headed Wording). Renaming changes the wording everywhere (screens, emails and paperwork) but not how anything works. The page has these sections:

What do you call your services: a name for each service.
Service names and sizes: what you call the space a pet stays in (run, kennel, suite, cage, pen) and the size names (Standard, Extra small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra large, Giant), plus the names of your daycare, nightcare, training and other durations (for example Full Day, Half Day, Hourly).
Vaccination Wording in Emails.
Your own lists: Payment types (Cash, Visa, Bank Transfer and so on, each of which can be mapped to QuickBooks or Xero), Document Types, Activity Types, Temperaments and Health Statuses. Click Add on a list to add your own.
Everything else: what your tax and company number are called, and other wording such as the discount code and late fee labels.

6. Setting up each service

Boarding

Boarding is set up in Settings > Boarding (with your own name for boarding), and your runs (rooms, kennels) in the settings page under it.

Charge By: Nightly Rate (a Monday to Friday stay is 4 nights), Daily Rate (Monday to Friday is 5 days) or 24 Hour Period, with a Grace Period in minutes and an option to charge half for a part period (Fee for partial 24 Hour Period). Changing this doesn't change bookings already in KennelBooker; open each one and use the booking's Admin page to switch it between nightly and daily.
Late Checkout Fee (Nightly) and Checkout Fee (Daily): charge a full or half night or day, or add an additional service, when a pet leaves after a set time (or don't charge for the last day when it leaves before a set time).
Rates: for each pet type, choose how the price is set: Rate Based (you pick a rate for each pet on the booking), By Breed, Set Price Manually or Custom (a custom pricing algorithm, which we set up for you free of charge, usually within 24 to 48 hours; contact us). Click Add New Rate to add a rate with a standard price and, if you use peak pricing, mid and high season prices. When you add a booking you can save a pet's rate to its profile so it's picked next time.
Discount Rules: automatic discounts based on the length of stay and number of pets.
Availability Settings: Only Book Runs when Completely Free, same-day (0 day) bookings, and split bookings (a stay spread over more than one run when you're nearly full). See "Splitting a new booking over multiple runs" in Related articles.
Capacity Settings: a maximum number of pets on site, and minimum and maximum stay lengths for online bookings.
Offer Free Nights: lets you apply free nights from a customer's account to a boarding booking.
Cancellation Settings: Enable Cancellation Fee, with an automatic fee if a booking is cancelled within a set number of hours of check-in. Cancelled bookings with a fee are marked Cancelled - Fee Adjusted and appear in your financial reports.
Un-neutered dogs and cats over an age you set can be stopped from booking online, with your own message.

Peak and holiday pricing

To charge more at busy times, switch on Enable Peak/Holiday Pricing in Settings > Boarding and click Add Holidays (or open Peak Pricing under Boarding in the settings menu) to add your date ranges. Each rate can then have a standard, mid season and high season price, and each day of a booking is charged at the price for that day. Peak dates don't roll over, so add them for each year, and make sure date ranges don't overlap. See "Holiday and Peak Pricing" in Related articles.

Board & Train

If pets stay with you for a few weeks while they're trained, switch on Offer Board & Train in Settings > Boarding. Board & Train then gets its own page in the settings menu, with its own Booking Settings, Rates (each rate has a name, a duration in nights and one price for the whole stay) and Cancellation Settings. Board & Train pets are placed in your boarding runs for their stay.

Daycare

Daycare is set up in Settings > Daycare (with your own name for daycare). Under Rates & Pricing, Charge Based On can be One Standard Price (per dog), Multiple Pricing Options (a price for one, two and three dogs from the same owner, and for each dog after that) or Custom Algorithm, which we set up for you free of charge if your pricing is more complex, usually within 24 to 48 hours (contact us). You can also offer half days, hourly and extended days, and free trial days.

By default daycare pets are put in play areas, which you create on the same page. If your daycare pets use runs instead, switch on Use Boarding units instead of Playarea's (with your own name for boarding).

Packages, credits and subscriptions

Customers can pay in advance with packages of credits (for example 10 days of daycare), for daycare, nightcare, walks, drop-ins, training, grooming and universal services. If you use Stripe, you can also sell daycare subscriptions, billed automatically on a repeating schedule with a set number of credits each period. Both are set up in Settings > Packages & Credits and are included on every plan. See "Daycare/Walk/Training Credits" and "Stripe - Recurring Subscriptions" in Related articles.

Grooming

Grooming is set up in Settings > Grooming (with your own name for grooming). You can set the price on each booking, or build it from additional services (a bath, a nail clip and so on). Appointments can be booked at any time you choose, or in grooming slots that you set up under Slots (for example 9am, 10.30am, 12pm), which customers can book online.

If your groomers are paid commission, go to Settings > Staff Accounts, open the staff member under Services and commission, switch on Commission on Grooming and enter their Commission rate.

Other services

Nightcare, Homestay, Training (with training classes and slots), Walks, Drop-in, Universal, Other\Generic bookings and Cremation each have their own page in the settings menu once you switch them on in Services Provided. Walks, drop-ins and homestay also have their own peak pricing.

7. Your online booking portal

Adding the booking link to your website

Your online booking portal lets customers create an account, add their pets, sign your waivers, make bookings and check your availability. Go to Settings > Online Booking Portal and switch on Enable - Online Booking Portal/Mobile App. Copy the Direct Link (or Direct Link Shortened) and add it to a button or menu item on your website. Test Online Tool opens the portal so you can try it. See "Wix Integration" and "WordPress Integration" in Related articles.

Existing and new customers

When an existing customer first uses the portal, KennelBooker matches them by the email address on their account and asks them to set a password. If KennelBooker can't match them, a second account may be created; you can merge the two afterwards (see "Merging Duplicate Customers"). To stop new customers signing up online, switch on Disable New Customer Signup Screen in Settings > Online Booking Portal.

Digital waivers and terms and conditions

Customers can sign your terms digitally. Set up waivers in Settings > Digital Waivers: one waiver for all bookings, or a waiver per service, which customers sign when they book that service. You can also add your terms in Settings > Terms & Conditions and print a booking waiver for customers to sign on paper.

Questions for customers (Q&A)

Add your own questions in Settings > Q&A. Each question is asked on bookings, on the customer's account or on each pet, and can be a yes/no or free-text answer. The answers show against the booking, customer or pet. See "Add questions to the online booking tool".

Opening hours, closed dates and closed times

Settings > Opening Hours: the times customers can arrive and leave, with up to three windows a day for each service. You can ask customers for arrival and collection times, hide times already taken, and set the time steps shown.
Settings > Closed Dates: days you're closed. Tick Completely closed if no pets can be on site; otherwise you just don't accept check-ins or check-outs that day, so a stay can run through it. Closed dates can apply to all services or one.
Settings > Closed Times: closures for part of a day.

8. Taking payments online

KennelBooker takes online card payments through Stripe, which pays the money straight into your own Stripe account. Go to Settings > Online Payment Setup and click Connect with Stripe; Stripe asks for your business and bank details and checks your identity. Then choose, for each service, whether customers pay the full price, a deposit (a percentage) or a set amount, and whether they pay when they book. Paystack is available in South Africa. See "Setting up Online Payments (Stripe)" in Related articles for every setting.

How a typical online booking works: the customer books on the portal; you get an email about the new booking; you confirm it (and allocate runs for boarding); the customer gets the confirmation email with a link to pay. Bookings can also confirm themselves once paid if you switch that on.
Asking for the balance: charge a card the customer has saved, send a payment link, or ask for the balance in the reminder email (Request balance in reminder email).
Refunds: you can refund all or part of an online payment from KennelBooker; Stripe processes it and the booking's payments are updated.
Payouts: Stripe pays you on a rolling schedule that depends on your country. Check it in your Stripe dashboard.

In-person card payments (Stripe terminal)

KennelBooker works with Stripe's BBPOS WisePOS E card reader, which you buy from Stripe. Switch on Enable the use of the Stripe on premise 'WisePOS E' card terminal in Settings > Online Payment Setup. You can then send a booking's balance to the reader so the customer can tap or insert their card; the payment is recorded on the booking. See "Stripe - Terminal Setup - EFT POS".

9. Features to switch on

Many features can be switched on or off in Settings > Main Settings > Optional Features: Enable Incident Reporting, Enable Waitlist, Enable Health Monitor, Enable Arrears Billing, Enable To-Do List and Enable Wallet Funds feature. Incident reporting, the health monitor and arrears billing are included on every plan.

Additional services (Settings > Additional Services): extras such as baths, extra walks or one-to-one time, each linked to the services it can be added to. Customers can add them online if you allow it, and services added for "every day" can skip the check-in and check-out days. See "Adding Additional Services".
Products and point of sale (Settings > Products / POS): sell toys, leads and food on their own or with a booking, and keep track of the quantity you have in stock.
Tags (Settings > Tags): your own labels for customers, pets and bookings, such as "nervous" or "no off-lead". Tags show on the booking, in the booking wizard and at check-in.
Tips (Settings > Main Settings > Tip Settings): record tips on bookings, and let customers add a tip online.
Discounts (Settings > Main Settings > Discount Settings): percentage or fixed-amount discounts, up to four set discount rates, and discount codes on the online booking portal.
Evaluations (Settings > Main Settings > Evaluation Settings): stop customers booking pets online until they've passed an in-person evaluation. When you switch it on, go to Evaluations in the main menu to mark your existing pets as passed. Evaluations can expire after a number of days without a booking. See "Evaluations".
Arrears billing: for customers who pay weekly or monthly. Check bookings out unpaid, then use Arrears Billing in the main menu (the page is headed Monthly Billing) to email each customer one PDF invoice for everything they owe. Billed bookings drop off the list; Reset Billed Status puts them back so you can bill again.
To-do lists: tasks for staff, one-off or repeating, such as cleaning runs every weekday morning. Items can be linked to a booking or a customer. Find them under To-Do List in the main menu.
Waitlist: when you're full, customers can add their request to your waitlist online, and you get an email. Waitlist in the main menu shows the requests and whether space has come up, and lets you turn a request into a booking. See "Wait List Feature".

10. Staff accounts and security

Staff logins are set up in Settings > Staff Accounts (the page is headed Staff). There's no limit on the number of staff accounts. There are two kinds of account:

A full account: its own email address and password, its own permissions, and its name against everything it does. Click Add staff account and choose what they can access, for example settings, financial reports, or only some services.
A multi-user account: one shared login (for example on the front desk computer), where each person enters a short staff code for certain tasks, so you still know who did what.

Login by IP address restricts staff to signing in from your own premises: choose Restrict sign-in and add your broadband address in Allow this address. Administrators can always sign in from anywhere. Sign everyone out ends every active session.

Staff can clock in and out with Time & Attendance, and the administrator can correct missed clockings. See "Time & Attendance" in Related articles.

11. Reports, calendars and day-to-day screens

Reports in the main menu has the daily reports you'll use on site (for example occupancy, feeding and pet birthdays) and financial reports such as the End of Day Report. Your calendars are under Calendars in the main menu. To choose what the boarding calendar shows, go to Settings > Main Settings > Calendar Settings: Display Name can be Show Pet Names, Show Customer Names, Show Customer & Pet Names, Pet Names & Customer Family Name, or Pet Names & Customer Initials. See "Calendar Settings".

12. Keeping in touch with customers

Emails: KennelBooker creates your email templates (acknowledgement, confirmation, receipt, reminder, postcard and more) when you sign up. Change who emails come from, which send automatically, and their wording in Settings > Email Settings. See "Email Settings and email templates".
Text messages (SMS): set up in Settings > SMS Settings, paid for with SMS credits. See "SMS Messaging".
Marketing: Marketing in the main menu lets you build lists of customers (for example grooming customers who haven't been in for 60 days) and email or text them.
Postcards: email customers photos of their pet during a stay, from the booking or by uploading photos of several pets at once.
Mailchimp: Settings > Mail Chimp sends new customers to your Mailchimp mailing list.

13. Other settings you'll set once

Vaccinations (Settings > Vaccinations): KennelBooker adds common vaccination types when you sign up. Remove the ones you don't need, add your own, and choose which are Required (a pet can't be booked in without a valid record) and which only give staff a warning. Vaccinations in the main menu lets you email customers whose pets' vaccinations are missing or out of date before their booking. See "Adding new Vaccination Types".
Vets (Settings > Vets): the vets your customers use. Customers can add their own vet when they sign up online.
Breeds (Settings > Breeds): edit the breed list or add breeds. Breeds can also set boarding or grooming prices (By Breed pricing).
Regulatory compliance (Settings > Regulatory Compliance): choose the details you must have before a pet checks in (vaccinations, emergency contact, vet, neutered status, microchip and so on). Regulatory Compliance in the main menu then shows which bookings for the day or week are missing any of them. See "UK Regulatory Compliance".
GDPR (Settings > GDPR/DPA Settings): customers can opt out of all emails and texts or just marketing, and you can remove a customer's personal details while keeping their booking and payment history. See the GDPR articles in Related articles.

14. Bringing your data into KennelBooker

If you're moving from another system, or from paper records, we can import your customers and pets for you, free of charge. Most systems can export to Excel or CSV; if you're on paper, you can type your records into a spreadsheet. Contact us to arrange it. See "Moving from KennelConnection" and "Moving from KennelSuite".

KennelBooker setup: frequently asked questions

Can I skip the setup wizard?

No. A new KennelBooker account goes to the setup wizard until it's finished. It only takes a few minutes, and everything you enter can be changed later in Settings.

How do I change what I entered in the setup wizard?

Once the KennelBooker setup wizard is finished, change the same details in Settings: services in Main Settings > Services Provided, boarding prices in Settings > Boarding, daycare in Settings > Daycare and tax in Main Settings > Tax Settings.

How do I add a service I didn't choose during setup?

Go to Settings > Main Settings > Services Provided, switch on the service under Booking Types and click Save. The service then has its own page in the settings menu, where you set its prices.

The times in KennelBooker are wrong. How do I fix them?

Go to Settings > Main Settings > Time & Date Settings, choose the right Time Zone and click Update Details. Check the Current Time shown matches your clock. KennelBooker doesn't change for daylight saving time automatically, so update the time zone when the clocks change.

Can I rename Daycare, Boarding or my runs?

Yes. Go to Settings > Customize Text. Rename your services in What do you call your services, and your runs (rooms, kennels, suites) and sizes in Service names and sizes. The new names are used on every screen, email and invoice.

Can I take bookings for cats, rabbits or other animals?

Yes. Tick the animals in Settings > Main Settings > Services Provided, Pet Types Accepted: Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs, Horses, Birds, Hamsters, Rats, Gerbils, Chinchillas, Turtles, Ferrets, Pigs and Other. For other animals, turn on Other and add them as breeds in Settings > Breeds.

How do I put the booking link on my website?

Go to Settings > Online Booking Portal, copy the Direct Link and add it to a button or menu item on your website. Customers who click it go to your KennelBooker online booking portal.

Do I need Stripe to use KennelBooker?

No. KennelBooker works without online payments: you record cash, card and bank transfer payments on each booking. Connect Stripe in Settings > Online Payment Setup if you want customers to pay online or by card through KennelBooker.

Can my staff have their own logins?

Yes. Add them in Settings > Staff Accounts with Add staff account. There's no limit on the number of staff accounts, and you choose what each one can access.

Does KennelBooker work on a phone or tablet?

Yes. KennelBooker works in the web browser on phones and tablets, and you can add it to your home screen. Your customers can use the online booking portal or the Pet Parent App.

Can you import my customers from my old system?

Yes. Contact us with an export of your customers and pets (Excel or CSV) and we'll arrange the import free of charge.

Can I have more than one location?

Yes. Each location has its own KennelBooker account. We can link them so they share one customer list and one online booking portal; contact us to set it up.

KennelBooker setup: common problems

"You must offer at least one service!" or "Please select your country!"

On the first step of the setup wizard, choose your Country and tick at least one service, then click Next Step. If the button doesn't respond after you've fixed it, refresh the page and fill in the first step again.

The setup wizard says "You must enter at least one rate"

On Boarding Pricing, fill in at least one Boarding Rate with a name, pet type and price. You'll also see "Enter a rate name", "Enter a pet type" or "Enter a rate price" if a row is only half filled in. You can add more rates later in Settings > Boarding.

The setup wizard asks how many runs I have

Messages such as "You must specify if all of your runs are the same size!" or "You must specify how many dog runs you have!" mean a boarding question is unanswered. For each pet type you board, choose whether your runs are all the same size, then how many runs you have and how many pets each holds. You can change your runs later in Settings.

I can't finish the setup wizard

On Setup Complete, tick the box to agree to KennelBooker's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. The box turns red if it isn't ticked. If you still can't finish, contact support with a screenshot of the step you're on.

My logo looks too big on my invoices

KennelBooker doesn't resize your logo when you upload it. Make a smaller version of the image (horizontal logos work best), then upload it again in Settings > Main Settings > Logo. Only PNG, JPEG, JPG, GIF and HEIC files are accepted.

A run isn't offered on a changeover day

Check Only Book Runs when Completely Free in Settings > Boarding > Availability Settings. When it's on, a run isn't offered on a day another pet checks out of it. Switch it off if you clean and re-let runs on the same day.

Setup Guide